Does the iPad Have One Button Too Many?

The front of the iPad has too many physical buttons.

I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily cluttered, but that button, you know, the one at the bottom of the iPad, seems pretty unnecessary.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been using the iPad without touching that physical home button. I even put a piece of black tape over it to pretend it doesn’t exist. Not only is it entirely possible to navigate the device this way, it’s actually often more enjoyable.

How do you get to all your apps without touching the home button? Very easily: pinch the screen with all five fingers, and voila, you’ve traveled down a yellow brick road to the homescreen.

There are other tricks to navigate the iPad with multitouch. Sliding your hand across the screen allows you to change apps. It turns out this is much quicker than double-tapping the home button and navigating to another app. Getting to the search box is a quick swipe to the side, too.

Eliminating the home button would also make the iPad look that much slicker.

Although I love the design of the new iPad, the bezeled edge seems a bit overkill for a company so obsessed with understatement. If Apple lopped off the home button, it would allow the company to make a device that was considerably smaller, without affecting the size of its beautiful screen. Even if Apple were to keep a slight bezel on the edge of the device so our inconsiderate fingers did not obscure the screen, Apple could still shave almost an inch and a half from the top and bottom of the iPad.

Now this might not make as much sense for the iPhone.

The difference here is that you need the home button to navigate the iPhone with one hand. (Unless you’re Hulk Hogan, I doubt you’re using the iPad with one hand.) But Apple could eliminate the home button from the iPhone too. The iPod Nano, the small square version of the music player, doesn’t have a home button and it’s easy to navigate that little guy by swiping and flicking your fingers.

In this case, if Apple were to kill the home button from the iPhone, rather than make the phone smaller, Apple could make the screen bigger. Which sounds just as exciting as getting rid of the ultra-wide bezel on the iPad.

What do you think? Is it time for Apple to kill the home button? Is it one button too many?