I had to disable double-tap for multitasking (and bunch of other gestures) on my family iPads because they caused a lot of issues with older users. I wonder if there's going to be an accessibility feature to make it more friendly to people who have issues differentiating between "swipe up", "swipe up from bottom", "swipe up from bottom and pause" and other overloaded gestures.
Under accessibility iOS already has a floating menu button, that a lot of people, especially outside the US, enable. It actually works very well, and I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing iPhones sold with it enabled.
It was discussed at length at the time on different podcasts such as ATP and The Talk Show, and I recall it was the case mostly in Asia.
It had to do with the perception of the physical button's flimsiness and unreliability. And was coupled with the far different experience in regards to Apple Repair centers (sometimes not even provided by Apple itself) which made the whole experience an ordeal. So, to preserve the value of the phone, they preferred the software button instead.
Others chimed in to say that, other than having to deal with repositioning the button from times to times because it obscures something below, it was actually a step up in usability as it offers more options (there is a whole user configurable menu there).
Why they continue to do it after the 7's fake hardware button? Probably because of the latter cause.
