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Home / News / Liquid metal home button could give the iPhone 7 a touch of the Terminator

Liquid metal home button could give the iPhone 7 a touch of the Terminator

T1000-style material on the way for Apple's latest?

Pretty soon, there could be a little bit of the Terminator in every single iPhone.

Don’t panic, Siri isn’t turning into SkyNet; instead, Apple could be looking at using liquid metal to add some clever new tech to TouchID.

It was just been granted a patent for a liquid metal home button, which would replace the titanium and stainless steel switch used now.

The new material would be better at repeatedly bumping and bouncing back to its original state, and could even make the home button pressure sensitive.

That could mean the next iPhone will have Force Touch on its home button as well as the display – although there’s no clue where this would work in iOS.

Just to make things a little more confusing, liquid metal alloys lose the space between the words and become liquidmetal if they are made by liquidmetal technologies.

It’s not clear right now whether Apple will be doing its own thing, or will be buying off-the-shelf alloys. Or if the tech will make its way into a phone at all.

Normally patents take a while to appear in finished products, but Apple has been known to keep them held back until very close to launch to avoid spoilers and surprises leaking out ahead of time. That could mean it could make a first appearance in the iPhone 7.

We’ll know for sure later in the year; the iPhone 7 is still expected to get a full reveal in September.

[source: Apple Insider]

Profile image of Tom Morgan-Freelander Tom Morgan-Freelander Deputy Editor

About

A tech addict from about the age of three (seriously, he's got the VHS tapes to prove it), Tom's been writing about gadgets, games and everything in between for the past decade, with a slight diversion into the world of automotive in between. As Deputy Editor, Tom keeps the website ticking along, jam-packed with the hottest gadget news and reviews.  When he's not on the road attending launch events, you can usually find him scouring the web for the latest news, to feed Stuff readers' insatiable appetite for tech.

Areas of expertise

Smartphones/tablets/computing, cameras, home cinema, automotive, virtual reality, gaming

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