Chapter    5

Handling User Touches

The iPhone was a drastic change from every computing platform that came before it in many ways, but none more so than its lack of a mouse or keyboard. Instead of responding to keyboard key presses, mouse clicks, and mouseover events, the iPhone responds to touch. Designing a user interface around touch is more than converting from clicks to taps. The iPhone offers direct manipulation: when you place your finger on a message in Mail and move it down an inch, the contents of the message move down an inch as well. Direct manipulation effectively removes a layer of abstraction between the user and the content dating back to the very first graphical user interfaces (GUIs): the scroll bar. As a result, iOS and other ...

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