Does the iPad Have One Button Too Many? ⇥

Nick Bilton:

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.

The gesture for returning to the home screen is very natural: pinch inward with all fingers. The gesture for pulling up the multitasking tray is also quite natural. But I don’t think I have ever seen someone actively using the four finger swipe to navigate between apps. That leads to the bigger point as to why I disagree with Bilton: the home button is immediately discoverable, but multi-touch gestures are not. I would argue that double-clicking the home button to pull up the multitasking tray is equally undiscoverable.

I wouldn’t argue that Apple should add more buttons; that would be ludicrous. However, I think there are some compromises in user discovery Apple is willing to make, and I don’t think removing the home button is one.