[Leslielbk]

If I wanted an iPhone with one friggin button I would have stayed with iPhone - 12 years and I've gone to wp and love it. Particularly the fabulously useful back button. What a wonderful thing - and now they want to go to one button? Like an iPhone? Really??

[TechFreak1]

argh lol I just made one, http://windowsphone.uservoice.com/fo...e-back-button-
I searched for others but nothing came up oddly enough. Let me see if i can amend it.


Edit: I can't.. -.- oh well at least it should give it double exposure (hopefully!) lol

[Dev Jaykrishnan]

Lol! Yeah, hopefully MS sees the amount of attention this gets!

[Dev Jaykrishnan]

So the poll just hit 100 votes. WPCentral, please do make a post out of this. We need more votes!

[MyNL822]

How will multitasking work if they drop the back button? Will they make us double tap the windows button like apple? I've always expected them to move forward, but not like this! Also, what about internet, does that confirm we will be getting a back and forward button in explorer(saying that makes me see how behind we are).

[Dev Jaykrishnan]

I hope MS isn't pulling our legs with this though. No, wait. I hope they ARE.

[chezm]

What's actually funny is my wife hates my 920,but when she does use it...the one main thing she knows is how the back button works...its universally accepted and they've implemented its use so well removing it wouldn't be good or beneficial. The bezels there might as well use it.

[SwimSwim]

The Windows 8 gestures are amazing, on Windows 8, on the large screen devices it was intended for.

Windows Phone is meant to share a lot of design philosophy with other parts of Windows, but still be optimized for the mobile platform. In this case, that's the back button. I hate how on competing devices, apps need to have a back button thrown in, wasting valuable screen space, and not to mention how because those buttons are virtual, the button's placement can vary between apps.

I very much like the simple, very clean, three button design on Windows Phone. It works very well. I am open to a concept from Microsoft as to how removing the back-button would work, but for now, I'm against it. Windows Phone is just too small for Windows 8 gestures, and virtual buttons? Blegh, one of the things I like about Windows Phone is how everything is in the exact same place 85% of the time, no matter what app you're using. Having to use virtual buttons would kinda screw with that unity and streamlined-ness.

I devoted three votes to the cause, I want to preserve my back button.

[raycpl]

How about placing two finger tips on the screen
swipe right to go back to previous page, swipe left to go to "next page"
Too easy !!!

[xandros9]

How about placing two finger tips on the screen
swipe right to go back to previous page, swipe left to go to "next page"
Too easy !!!

pretty cool, but I think it could be hard to get straight, having seen some less than stellar implementations of that idea.

my only problem with that is I often use my 920 one handed.

[Villain]

I'm sure they got a solution to replace it... I'd rather all swipe gestures with no buttons with more screen.

[SwimSwim]

How about placing two finger tips on the screen
swipe right to go back to previous page, swipe left to go to "next page"
Too easy !!!

Interesting, but that of course would make one handed operation impossible. Of course, the extra screen real estate would be nice if two fingers left was Back, two fingers swiping down was Home, and a double tap with two fingers was Search. Still, that whole system has it's own fair share of problems, and I'm still rather fond of the buttons. But nice ideas, Blackberry gave a good go at ridding itself of buttons, instead opting for gestures. Maybe Microsoft can take what's already there and build upon it.

[Dev Jaykrishnan]

How about placing two finger tips on the screen
swipe right to go back to previous page, swipe left to go to "next page"
Too easy !!!

This would make it difficult for one-hand use of the phone. But its an interesting idea nonetheless. If MS is going in that direction, all I'm asking is to make it optional. I don't want a dud button on my phone if I can help it.

[raycpl]

.. this one is already in used as screen magnifier

and a double tap with two fingers was Search.

... I wouldnt mind having a two finger swipe down for the mythical Notification centre though!!!

[Dev Jaykrishnan]

I thought the Notification Center was a live tile as shown in screenshots before. I remember seeing a swipe down arrow in some of the screen shots but then will they have both swipe down as well as tile ? I'm confused on that. But I don't think two fingers are necessary to implement notification. We already have the option of swiping with one finger to see cell reception, time and connectivity. The notification center could be like the three dotted menu bar we have; revealing depending on how much we swipe. If we just want the call log or IM's we don't need to swipe all the way and for more notifications, a swipe from top to center slides down the whole thing. This is off the top of my head and obviously could use some refining.

[JustlMe]

i think i will have to wait till its out before i can vote, i agree not having a back button would be quite weird ( using the L1020) but then again i would like to see how microsoft would implement it, gestures maybe ? I'm sure they won't just toss away the back button and not add any alternatives to it.

[neo158]

I have a feeling that on older devices the back button will function how it always has, newer devices will probably get a multitasking button in place of the back button.

[EchoOne30]

Losing the back button would as stupid a move as forcing a tablet interface on a desktop computer. Or instituting an always on spycam on a videogame console. Oh wait, those things happened.

Microsoft, don't be stupid, learn from your mistakes. If anything get rid of the useless search button that no one uses.

[ohgood]

Please go to the uservoice page and vote for this. Not having the Back Button working will be awkward and will do more harm than good to this beautiful OS
Don't lose the Back Button in Windows Phone 8.1

the best implementation i've used is from the cyanogenmod team:

one press = back (wether it's a web page, setting, menu, text input block, whatever, it depends on the current UI's functions/processes)
double press = switch to previous application
long press = kill current app completely (good for a hung beta app), (and then a preset settting of the user's preference to...) back to app list, or desktop, or whatever was defined by the user



i can completely understand why users don't want to loose their back button. if this implementation was used, i can see real benefits in actually having one.

[gedzum]

I do like the functionality of the buttons, but does anyone think that they are a waste of potential screen real estate? Not to mention they are easy to accidently hit when watching a video or playing a game for example.

I'd be interested to see if it would be possible to implement similar gesture based navigation like in Win8. But as some have mentioned, it may not be practical on a somewhat limited phone screen size.

[nohra]

How about placing two finger tips on the screen
swipe right to go back to previous page, swipe left to go to "next page"
Too easy !!!

And sometimes two finger movements are used to move pictures around in photo editors... I realize that's not gonna be a big deal to a lot of people, I'm just throwing it out.

I personally love more buttons. I would think more buttons are easier for older people as well who might be new to a phone. tapping the back button with an arrow going backwards is pretty intuitive... any kind of swiping has to be learned and remembered until it becomes a habit. heck, there's even the button at the bottom of the start screen just incase people forget how to swipe to get to the apps list!

i'm not calling for button overkill, but BUTTONS ARE OUR FRIENDS! I'm so happy WP has a camera button, for example! SCORE!

[jenni122701]

I love and constantly use the back button! Why would people NOT use it?!

[NinjaPenguin777]

If they are intent on getting rid of all buttons on screen then why don't they add a fifth button to the side of phones and allow it to be programmable? You would have volume up/down, lock screen, camera and then add a button to the other side that could act as the windows key or back button does now? Just make it a hotkey that people can launch a program with or any function they want such as back or home screen or notification list or app list.

[Adretheon]

I do like the functionality of the buttons, but does anyone think that they are a waste of potential screen real estate? Not to mention they are easy to accidently hit when watching a video or playing a game for example.

The one thing I don't like about our buttons haha. I like that they aren't actual buttons, but it's so irritating when I reach across the screen and hit back with my thumb.

[poddie]

I haven't seen this posted in here yet:

I bought an iPhone 5s, but I returned it the next day | ZDNet

Saw this in the ZDNet news email I get. The author is talking about why he returned the new iPhone he bought... because it doesn't have a back button! Ironic timing.

I think WP's button config is perfect the way it is!