For the first time since the iPhone’s debut in 2007, Apple no longer sells a smartphone with a home button. The iPhone 16E announced yesterday removes it. The removal was long overdue, having been surpassed by all touchscreen controls many years ago. But while the home button’s time is over, it leaves behind an important legacy.

The home button was crucial to the first iPhone, but it was also jarring; no other phone at that time had basically no buttons. It was both a gamble and a necessary innovation. 

I went back and watched the original iPhone announcement to see how Steve Jobs pitched it. “On the front, there’s only one button down there,†Jobs said. “We call it the home button. It takes you home from wherever you are. And that’s it.†The first time he demoed it, he hopped into the iPod app and then clicked the home button to back out to the homescreen.

It immediately made sense, and it’s something anyone could understand right away. The home button made the transition to smartphones and touchscreens much easier for people: if you got lost in an app or forgot what you were doing, you could always press the home button to back out to the homescreen and reor …

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