It’s Monday, August 8th (happy birthday to my Dad!) and with the iPhone 7 announcement just over one month away, the rumor mill around the anticipated smartphone is heating up once again. A report from Bloomberg claims folks familiar with the matter say the new iPhone 7 and 7S or perhaps 7Pro may not have a physical home button.
There will still be a home key, of course, but you won’t click it like you do now. Instead, it would simply be a circular section of the phones glass screen you’d press down on, and haptic feedback would give your finger or thumb a little click or thump.
Now, this may not seem like a revolutionary move at first, but that home button is one of the more commonly broken pieces of an iphone, and the repair costs for that thing aren’t cheap. In some cases over $200 at third-party repair shops. Plus, replacement home buttons at thos shops don’t work as a fingerprint scanner. So, if Apple really does go this direction, its one less thing to break on their phones, and that’s going to create many more happy iPhone owners.
Of course this is just the latest rumor, and there are bound to be more. You can find out everything we believe we know about the iPhone 7 right here.
Is an Apple Watch 2 coming?
And hey, as long as we’re on the Apple rumor chain, MacRumors reports that the Apple Watch 2 may be right around the corner, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to replace the existing Apple Watch, but instead add to it, creating an Apple Watch Line, of sorts.
According to a securities analyst who correctly predicted the iPhone SE, the current Apple watch will get better waterproofing and a zippier processor. The Apple Watch 2, however, will add built-in GPS and a barometer for accurate location tracking, and it is possible Apple will add in LTE connectivity, meaning you’d be able to do all sorts of things with the watch without needing your cellphone or access to Wi-Fi.
With the addition of a second Apple Watch, the refreshed original should drop in price, which has some speculating that the Apple Watch 2 could reinvigorate the smart watch segment. That remains to be seen, but we shouldn’t have to wait too long. We expect to hear about the new watch alongside the iPhone 7 news on September 12, and we could actually see some on store shelves by the end of this year.
No more free Hulu
Finally, if you’ve been relying on the free, ad-supported version of Hulu’s streaming TV service to get your network TV fix, you might be disappointed to hear that Hulu is going subscription only and killing off that free tier. Don’t fret, though: In a rather odd deal, Yahoo just announce ‘Yahoo View’ a streaming TV service that features … Hulu, and is free thanks to ad-based support.
So, technically, there’s still a free version of Hulu out there, you just have to go to Yahoo to get it. And, for now, Yahoo View is desktop only – no word yet on when the app might be available for smart TVs, Roku, Apple TV, and the like. For more on this story, check out our full write-up here.
