TOBY SHAPSHAK: Apple releases three new iPhones - goodbye home key, hello gestures
Apple is aiming to reinvent the smartphone experience with no buttons, a bigger screen and three new models
Say goodbye to your iPhone's home key. And goodbye to a fingerprint reader to unlock your device. Last year's iPhone X broke with the single-button smartphone tradition that Apple itself created in 2007. For this year's upgrade to the world's best-selling smartphone, Apple has dropped the home button from its flagship device (the iPhone XS) and its larger sibling (the iPhone XS Max) as well as a cheaper model (the iPhone XR). It's the natural evolution of the interface that Apple created, as I wrote about last year, and a sign of how the smartphone is maturing 11 years after the first iPhone was introduced in 2007. Apart from the home key, the biggest news is that Apple is introducing a second SIM card, albeit an electronic SIM (eSIM), which has been a standard feature on Android phones for years. This dual-SIM functionality may enable people to have voice calls through their current number but data through another provider. South Africa's cellular networks are not going to be happy...
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