What makes iOS gestures perfectly smooth?

When we look at iOS and Android, it s clear that Apple has given more attention to fluidity and usability than Android. Apple always uses only one way to achieve what it wants – naturalness. The iPhone was inspired by nature, like many other Apple products.

Let s take a look at Steve Jobs s biography. He believed that Apple should create products that everyone can use; even without a user manual.

For example, the iPhone home screen can be compared to a book page. If you look at the iOS animations, you can see what I m talking about.

We cannot turn the page of a book up or down, so we cannot do that from the iPhone either. If you argue that this cannot be done with any smartphone, then you have not seen old Android smartphones.

Another example is a cursor. IPhone screen gestures are designed according to our cursor usage habits. We move our finger across the screen like a cursor. Just like we used the cursor on the computer.

Next, let s talk about the smoothness of the screen.

Delay and response

If, after touching the screen, the reaction is displayed with a delay, then it will seem to us that the phone did not respond to our action. Therefore, fast response seems smoother.

Apple didn t just focus on iPhone responsiveness. The user can also hesitate with the gesture. Apple wanted to prevent this, but how? With gesture design, of course …

With the removal of the physical Home button in the iPhone X, gestures have become very important. It was practically the highlight of the updated iPhone lineup. Because now all digital Home button operations are done with gestures introduced with the release of the iPhone X. How can gesture design speed you up? You work much faster if you use gestures without thinking. So when you interact with the screen and decide what to do next, you act quickly. Don t I explain it clearly? GIFs will help us ?

It may seem to you that these are small and unnecessary details. But you will change your mind about 2 seconds after you open the wrong app.

When you open the wrong app on iPhone using the Home button, you definitely need to move your finger to the Home button. (You slide your finger to the Home button until the app opens, and there is little to no time wasting.) But on an iPhone without the Home button, your finger is already on the screen. If there was no such gesture, you would first have to wait for the application to open. Then you would need to move your finger to the strip at the bottom of the screen and close the application.

Interface response

We are now fully in contact with the screen. When we click on an app, open the action center, and so on, we want to see something happening on the screen. Since the screen provides feedback such as vibration, changing the color of the icon, we understand that the screen has reacted to our action.

In addition, as you can see in the gifs above, the application starts from a small size and quickly covers the entire screen.

Rubber Banding (rubber band)

When we read an article on a website, we scroll through the page several times to see if the article has ended. The same happens when we use apps. For example, in notes or photographs. When you pull the screen up or down, this gesture makes you know that there is nothing more. This is called “rubber banding”.

Chan Karunamuni (presenter on the gifs above) says that if there was no such feedback, you would not essentially know your phone is frozen or you have reached the edge of the screen.

Animations

What animation should be pleasing to the eye and softening the transition? Apple shows that not only the number of frames displayed per second is important for this, but also other criteria, shown in the gif file below.

In this case, the speed of the animation and the appearance of each frame are important. To do this, use the effects of motion blur (blur in motion) and motion stretch (stretching in motion).

For example, when we click on an application icon, it enlarges and stretches to fill the entire screen. A smooth transition is provided by the motion stretch effect.

As a result, Apple unveiled our needs that we never knew existed. Undoubtedly, documentation will remain the most important resource when designing applications. But the details presented in a presentation like this can be good advice for designing user interfaces.