4 ms·

It's strange to remember that no-one had ever seen 'swipe to scroll' before the iPhone unveil in 2007. It's so fundamental to everything now. Before, touchscree

It's strange to remember that no-one had ever seen 'swipe to scroll' before the iPhone unveil in 2007. It's so fundamental to everything now. Before, touchscreens had little scrollbars with up down arrows. Nuts.

MichaelGG 9y ago
Pretty sure Windows had this in their tablet PC stuff, thought it was more "flick" to scroll. I remember sitting around the house, browsing using the touch system and thinking it was pretty nifty, and this was before the iPhone was released.
- rospaya 9y ago
  Correct, you could swipe to scroll on Microsoft's tablets, or UMPC's as they used to call them.
- hashhar 9y ago
  Apple made people oblivious to everything that came before the iPhone.
y04nn 9y ago
Prior to the iPhone most touch screens were resistive and you had to use a stylus and press hard on the display, capacitive touch screen made all the difference.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Nah, by the time iPhone came out, many devices used soft resistive screens that one could easily use with fingers. I often thumb typed on a Nokia N800 for example. Thing about resistive screens though is that it has much better precision. Thus one could operate checkboxes and scrollbars that were downright tiny. And speaking of scrollbars, i kinda miss them. I wonder how many times i have tried to scroll or pan and something makes the capacitive sensor think i instead pressed some element. Having distinct scrollbars avoid the ambiguity of input.
  - dpark 9y ago
    I think you might have some rose colored glasses on. Resistive screens suck. Even modern ones are less accurate than the original iPhone with respect to touch. They can be good if you have a narrow tip stylus, but otherwise they have always seemed borderline unusable to me. I always end up using my fingernail because touch recognition is so poor. And anyway, to whatever extent you can type on a tiny keyboard or select a tiny checkbox with your finger, it comes down to software, because your fingertip isn't precise even if the screen is. Scroll bars also suck for touch devices because they have to be so absurdly wide to be usable.
sowbug 9y ago
Lots of swiping to move and zoom objects here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0jmewhXeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0jmewhXeU. Swiping to scroll is a special case of the concept. This is from 1995.

MichaelGG 9y ago

Pretty sure Windows had this in their tablet PC stuff, thought it was more "flick" to scroll. I remember sitting around the house, browsing using the touch system and thinking it was pretty nifty, and this was before the iPhone was released.

rospaya 9y ago
Correct, you could swipe to scroll on Microsoft's tablets, or UMPC's as they used to call them.
hashhar 9y ago
Apple made people oblivious to everything that came before the iPhone.

y04nn 9y ago

Prior to the iPhone most touch screens were resistive and you had to use a stylus and press hard on the display, capacitive touch screen made all the difference.

digi_owl 9y ago
Nah, by the time iPhone came out, many devices used soft resistive screens that one could easily use with fingers. I often thumb typed on a Nokia N800 for example. Thing about resistive screens though is that it has much better precision. Thus one could operate checkboxes and scrollbars that were downright tiny. And speaking of scrollbars, i kinda miss them. I wonder how many times i have tried to scroll or pan and something makes the capacitive sensor think i instead pressed some element. Having distinct scrollbars avoid the ambiguity of input.
- dpark 9y ago
  I think you might have some rose colored glasses on. Resistive screens suck. Even modern ones are less accurate than the original iPhone with respect to touch. They can be good if you have a narrow tip stylus, but otherwise they have always seemed borderline unusable to me. I always end up using my fingernail because touch recognition is so poor. And anyway, to whatever extent you can type on a tiny keyboard or select a tiny checkbox with your finger, it comes down to software, because your fingertip isn't precise even if the screen is. Scroll bars also suck for touch devices because they have to be so absurdly wide to be usable.

sowbug 9y ago

Lots of swiping to move and zoom objects here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0jmewhXeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p0jmewhXeU. Swiping to scroll is a special case of the concept. This is from 1995.