Is Apple killing off the iPhone home button?

Apple has posted the biggest quarterly profit of all time despite a fall in iPhone sales. Photo / 123RF

Apple watchers are speculating that the tech giant is planning to kill the home button on the iPhone.

The home button is how users of later iPhone models unlock the device and exit or switch between apps.

But the New York Post reports that Apple informed developers that from April all new apps must be designed to fit on the iPhone X's edge-to-edge buttonless screen.

Apple, earlier this month, posted the biggest quarterly profit of all time despite a fall in iPhone sales.

The world's biggest company posted profits of US$20.1 billion ($27.2b) in the crucial final three months of the year, breaking its own record set two years ago, according to the Daily Telegraph.

It came after the release of the iPhone X in November, the biggest update of the handset to date, as well as the release of the iPhone 8 in September.

Although Apple sold 77 million iPhones in the three month period, a 1 per cent fall from last year, the higher price of the new handsets meant revenues from selling iPhones increased

Additional reporting: Daily Telegraph UK