GigaOM’s Kevin Tofel’s got the wrong end of the stick. In his article Newest iOS 5 beta adds gestures, may replace buttons, he’s located iOS 5’s Assistive Touch option (to aid those users physically unable to use hardware buttons) and said it could signal that future iOS devices will lose the home button (and perhaps other buttons, too).

To me, what this signals is merely that Apple cares about users with disabilities, but nothing more. For people who cannot use the physical buttons on their devices, this extra slice of accessibility is fantastic. For everyone else, it’s sub-optimal. Tofel’s idea brings to mind Jon Bell’s recent, brilliant The Capacitive Button Cult Must Be Stopped. Within, he argues that anyone designing a device where they replace an important hardware button with a capacitive button needs a solid kick in the head (I might have paraphrased there). And here’s the reason why:

A button with no physical hardware […] makes no distinction between “I pressed that button because I meant to” and “my finger brushed against the face of the phone, sending me to another screen against my will, sometimes even losing data in the process.”

Imagine Apple decides on a capacitive home button for the iPod touch. You’re playing the super new Sega kart-racing game, and you’re about to win. But, STUPID YOU, you brush against the invisible button! And you’re back at your home screen. Great. And not to mention the simple fact that physical buttons are an accessibility aid in themselves, both to disabled users and everyone else, since you can feel the device and instinctively know which way up it is.

About the only problem I have with the iOS home button is its multi-functional behaviour, which flummoxes new users: click to return to the most recent home screen, except when you’re on said home screen, in which case it returns to your first home screen, unless you’re on that screen, in which case it invokes Spotlight; oh, and double-click to access the multi-tasking tray that most users have no idea exists. But that’s a software problem, not a hardware issue; on the hardware front, I believe Apple’s got things spot-on, and the day the home button becomes virtual is the day something’s gone horribly wrong at Cupertino.

Update: Andrew Durdin offers a frankly frightening How to use the Home Button visual guide.

While it’s clearly a publicity stunt, I’m glad to see Kogan smacking down other companies regarding cable prices:

When you buy a TV from John Lewis, Currys, or countless other high street stores, you will be offered hideously expensive accessories such as HDMI cables. These cables are sold with absolutely ridiculous markups, many multiples of the actual cost of the items.

These stores are trying to trick people into thinking they need an HDMI lead costing over £100 after buying a Full HD TV. This is simply not the case. You shouldn’t be spending more than £4 on an HDMI cable!

An HDMI cable is an HDMI cable. It’s a digital cable. You either get a picture or you don’t. Don’t get conned into buying a “fancy” HDMI cable because it will make no difference!

Amusingly, the company is now offering free cables and shipping to people who buy a TV from John Lewis or Currys; naturally, those companies are pissed off and so Kogan’s also challenging them to a blind test.

Thing is, this is a con that’s been going on for years, and it’s just become more apparent in the digital space (where cables either work or don’t); but even with analogue kit, too many people have been fooled into buying expensive cables. That’s of course mostly down to chains like Currys. Last time I attempted to buy a lead in one, I was ushered towards cables costing about 50 quid for a metre’s worth. I asked for whatever they had that was cheapest and ended up with some dickhead sales guy arguing with me that I’d “ruin my home system” if I plumped for anything other than unicorn-coated expensive-o-cables. I mentioned I’ve worked with sound engineers in the past and used to make my own cables, at which point the sales guy went a bit white and sulked off in a huff.

My advice today is pretty much as per the last sound guy I worked with: look for the cheapest cables you can get and then buy the next one up from that. As long as the connections are reasonably solid, you’ll be fine; and that goes for speaker wire, too—if you’re paying 20 quid per metre, you’re merely fooling yourself, since wiring a system with coat hangers (Consumerist) is often as good as using the most expensive wires.

A smart piece by David Barnard, Apps and the Apple TV, starkly showcases how the mouse and other abstract pointing devices are largely on borrowed time—at least for the most part. He talks about how he was using AirPlay to send video to his TV, and his toddler then concluded he could play his favourite iPad game on the same TV.

When handed the iPad, he looked down at it and launched this week’s favorite app, The Monster at the End of This Book. He looked up at the screen and was excited to see Grover on TV. Then he looked down at the book and flipped the page. Then he looked up and was again excited to see Grover on TV. Then he looked down and turned the page. After just 60 seconds the thrill was gone and he was mostly just playing with the iPad, only intermittently looking up to confirm that Grover was still on TV.

After a few minutes he exited the app and looked up to see the icons of all his favorite apps on the TV. He immediately set down the iPad, walked up to the TV, and tried launching an app by touching the TV screen. My wife and I instinctually told him not to touch the TV, but he looked back at us quite puzzled. The thing is, Luke has never used a mouse-like pointing device. Other than using the TV remote to turn the TV on and off, or turning a light switch on and off, he’s never used one object to remotely manipulate another.

Barnard doesn’t go all sensationalist by then arguing that all remote-manipulation and abstract pointing devices are doomed, but instead claims we’re in the midst of a fundamental shift that will see such things become increasingly niche. I think he’s right. And for those who think otherwise, bear in mind your world-view is coloured by your experience. If you don’t believe me, try handing a cassette Walkman to a young teenager and see how well they get on using it.

Joshua Topolsky for This is my next…:

Our sources are saying that not only will there be a newly designed iPhone coming in the fall, but there is going to be a new entry into the iPad family as well. As hard as it might be to believe, the new tablet is said to sport a double resolution screen (2048 x 1536), and will be dubbed the “iPad HD.” The idea behind the product is apparently that it will be a “pro” device aimed at a higher end market — folks who work in video and photo production possibly — and will be introduced alongside something like an iPad version of Final Cut or Aperture. This product is specifically said to not be the iPad 3, rather a complimentary piece of the iPad 2 line. Think MacBook and MacBook Pro.

Sounds like bullshit to me. I’ll be amazed if the iPad doesn’t follow one of the following two patterns:

1. A full-line ‘upgrade’ to a 2048-by-1536 display.
2. An iPhone-style system, with the lowest-end model being a version of the previous tablet, but the rest of the line being the newest spec.

The alternative—having an iPad HD in a niche and high-end position—would be a dangerous move, as would signifying it’s some kind of ‘pro’ device. Right now, all iPads are relatively equal. The point is that they are everything, from a children’s colouring book to a tool for professional writers and artists. By making a single high-end iPad HD device, Apple would immediately position the rest of the entire iPad line as something not for professionals, and it would also further fragment the line. You’d also have a situation where it wouldn’t be obvious to most developers when and how to update their apps to take advantage of the new display.

My thinking: when it’s financially viable to do so (or when Apple’s hand is forced by a competitor), we’ll see the entire iPad line shift to 2048 x 1536. At the same time, the internals will get a pretty significant boost (RAM, chip speed) that Apple will entirely avoid talking about, because the display and what you can do with the device is all that’s really important.

No, I’m not dead in a ditch, nor have I succumbed to the joys of Windows and Android, thereby skulking away from this blog in an embarrassed fashion. Instead, I for the first time in years went somewhere with naff-all Wi-Fi (south-eastern Spain, where you get odd looks in phone shops for asking if someone will sell you a SIM card without a phone already wrapped around it), and spent a happy couple of weeks oblivious to news, technology and Tim Langdell continuing to be a total dick. (More on Langdell later.)

Still, I also got a number of messages from people who I’ve never met but who were nonetheless concerned for my well-being, asking through the silence if I was OK. So, occasionally, the internet is indeed full of lovely. Also, clearly, I am a noisy bugger (to the point that two weeks away makes people think I’m being held hostage by giant rabid weasels (or perhaps something less exciting) or come across so stressed sometimes that perhaps people thought my head had exploded due to my disbelief at someone doing something so unbelievably stupid that it all got a BIT TOO MUCH.

Anyway, Revert to Saved is open for business/bile again, but may have a mildly cheery edge for a short period of time, right up until the first of the many deadlines lurking menacingly in the distance whizz past my ears while making DAGGADAGGADAGGADAGGA noises. The bastards.