Apple has finally abandoned one of its most recognizable design elements.

Apple has officially ended the era of the Home button with the iPhone 16e. The new smartphone replaces the iPhone SE and iPhone 14, becoming the company’s most affordable device with Apple Intelligence support. There will no longer be any Apple devices on sale with the classic Home navigation button, which has been used in Apple devices since 2007.

Image Source: Apple

«The decline of the Home button began in 2022, when Apple discontinued the iPod touch and then removed it from the iPad. Despite this, in 2025 the company was still selling the third-generation iPhone SE, which looked like the iPhone 8 released eight years earlier. Now, Apple has gone all-gesture-based, introducing the iPhone 16e, a stripped-down version of the iPhone 16 that costs $200 less. It replaces the iPhone SE and iPhone 14 in Apple’s lineup.

The Home button has been a vital part of Apple’s smartphone interface. In 2007, it served as the only physical control, allowing you to instantly return to the home screen. Apple later added support for double- and triple-tap, and in 2011, the ability to hold to summon Siri.

In 2013, Apple integrated the Touch ID fingerprint scanner into the Home button, and in 2016, it replaced the physical button with a touchpad. Instead of a physical press, the iPhone 7 used the Taptic Engine’s haptic feedback to simulate a very convincing button click. This approach solved the common problem of the iPhone’s physical Home button failing and making it impossible to fully use the device unless users enabled its virtual counterpart in advance.

The abandonment of the button began in 2017 with the release of the iPhone X. Apple introduced the first smartphone without physical controls on the front panel. However, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus remained on sale at the same time, and the company later released the iPhone SE 2 and iPhone SE 3 in the same design.

Now all new iPhones support only gesture control, and with the release of the iPhone 16e, the company finally abandoned the Home button in all current models, thus ending the 18-year history of one of the most recognizable elements of Apple design.