WP 8.1 and physical buttons

[Marcin_S]

So I keep hearing that WP 8.1 hardware will not have physical buttons, instead it will use software buttons (on screen) like most android phones. Does anyone know what is going to happen when WP8.1 gets installed on hardware with the physical buttons? Will they be replicated on the screen or the system will be smart enough to recognize that the physical buttons exists and won?t duplicate on screen buttons?

 

[DBDev]

It will probably recognize the hardware buttons

 

[narv]

It will be recognized as having physical buttons. Also from the leaks it seems you can enable / disable the bar so in theory, you could probably disable the physical buttons and use the onscreen one as well (if you choose).

 

[neo158]

My guess is that it will recognise physical buttons and disable the software buttons. New hardware is a different story, it will be up to the OEM to decide if they want software or hardware buttons.