Life without a Home Button

Yes, the home button on my iPhone has died. For those of you without an iPhone, this button is the way you quit one application and can choose another. This is because the iPhone software (currently) only permits a single application to be running at the same time.

As you can imagine, this makes it very difficult to use the iPhone as you get stuck in a single application.

But, there are ways you can switch applications without using the home button. The iPhone software does actually run in the background, it only allows a single user application but the OS still runs. Thus when you receive an SMS for instance you will be presented with an alert. If you touch the alert you will be switched to the SMS app.

 Whalla! So, you wonder, how many apps can you switch between like this?

I have begun to think this through and have come up with the following so far:

1. From any app, receive SMS to get to SMS app
2. From any app, receive a phone call to get to the phone call app.
3. From any app, receive an SMS with a URL in it to get to Safari via the SMS app!
4. From Safari, find a link to an app in the app store to get to app store app.
5. From app store app, install any app to get back to the home screen (what the home button would normally do in a single press!)

I haven't thought of any others yet but so far, just enough to get me around. If I really have to swap apps, then I have to reboot to get back to the home screen. I guess this should go into a state diagram like a FSM?