Button Bars
Button bars are one of Apple's solutions for a universal device with no physical buttons. With iPhone applications so rich in features, many have four or five important functions that the user may need to get to quickly. Located at the bottom of the screen, button bars provide what would traditionally be looked at as shortcuts. Going back to Apple's book metaphor, button bars are the bookmarks to different chapters.
Many of the preloaded iPhone applications use button bars, including the Mobile Phone application, YouTube, and the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store. They are used to separate related pages of data (e.g., Featured Music, Purchased Songs, etc.) and to provide shortcuts to different functions within a single application (e.g., Contacts, Recent Calls, Voicemail, etc.).
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