The past and present of gesture interaction
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Yang Ye” (ID: yangye365), author Yang Ye.
With the development of touch screen and sensor technology, there are many opportunities for interaction, and gestures are often considered to be the most natural way of interacting with the screen. The popularity of gesture interactions reduces the barriers to communication between people and devices, and brings a revolutionary experience and convenience. Today, I will take you back to the past and present of the gesture interaction.
Before the iPhone was released, many mobile phone manufacturers were looking for a touch screen design that was really suitable for mobile phones. But they don’t look smart, because 40% of the phone’s area is a physical keyboard, which means that fixed buttons don’t provide customization for the app.
“Smartphones”
2007. Revolutionary sliding unlocking
– First iPhone
The first iPhone of 2007 set off a revolution in smartphones. The iPhone with high-resolution, multi-touch Multi-Touch capabilities truly sets the standard for gesture interaction. Jobs released five years of madness ahead of the opponent, the classic sliding unlock design, even more people are amazed.
first generation iPhone
2009. Classic multitasking
– webOSCard interaction
The card-like multitasking form we saw on iOS and Android was first proposed by webOS. This demo of the webOS interactive interface is very classic and conquered almost all viewers at the 2009 CES conference.
webOS Multitasking Demo
Compared with webOS, the current iPhone is still only in a single-tasking state. It was not until 2010 that iOS4 Apple officially introduced the multitasking concept. Going back to the present, similar card-based multitasking can already be seen on most mobile phones, but it is basically the same as the results demonstrated by webOS in 2009.
Operating system multitasking background
Although WebOS is dead, the card interface has flourished. In addition, Safari and Chrome replaced their label view with a card view with the same gestures. To be frank, it’s a lie to say that these operating systems are not affected by WebOS.
2011. Three King Kong Keys
-Android 4.0
On October 19, 2011, Samsung and Google jointly released the first mobile phone GALAXY Nexus equipped with Android4.0 in Hong Kong. The latest Android operating system introduces an on-screen virtual navigation bar. Eventually, the combination of the return key, the home button, and the multitasking key has become increasingly popular, and the name of the “Three King Kong Keys” came into being.
Android three diamond keys
The advantages of the virtual navigation bar are actually quite a lot, which is in line with the development trend of the touch screen becoming the mainstream. But the downside is that the bottom bar in the app program and the virtual navigation bar form a “double chin”, which is unbearable.
2012. Meizu’s small circle
-Small circles
Meizu’s unique way of interaction has always been its advantage. In the context of the use of three diamond keys in the Android camp, Meizu took the lead in making a small circle design. It can implement a variety of gesture functions, such as lock screen, return, and outgoing voice.
Meizu MX 2
-mBack
“mBack, touch back to the previous level and press to return to the desktop.”
Meizu mBack is another iconic design after the small dot. Meizu uses a physical button to realize both return and back to the desktop. Multitasking is given to the bottom of the screen.
2012. Heroes End
– BlackBerryOS 10 for touchscreens
In May 2012, BlackBerry held a press conference in the United States to showcase its new mobile operating system, the BB 10, specifically developed for the Z10.
BlackBerryZ10
Blackberry Z10There is no Home button or menu button on the front of the fuselage to interfere with the line of sight, because gesture sliding is the core interaction of BB 10, and this operation still memorizes me so far, but 2012!
Blackberry once called this function flow, which is to unlock it, slide it back to the home page, and operate the same way as iPhone X. However, due to the lack of application ecosystem software, it finally failed.
2013. Hover gestures
– Sony XperiaSola
Sony introduced “Floating touch” on XperiaSola, you can slide the web page without touching the screen, and trigger the action gesture when the finger enters the range of 15 mm from the screen. And its sensor is very sensitive, able to recognize effective clicks, swipes, swipes and other gestures.
This feature was also applied in the Samsung Galaxy S4:
Samsung Galaxy S4
2017. The rise of gestures
-iPhone X turns on the full screen era
The release of iPhone X in 2017 officially opened the era of full screen. In the past, the main role of the Home key was to click back to the main interface and double-click to bring up multitasking. The new iPhone cancels the Home button, maximizing the efficiency of screen space by moving up and swiping gestures.
iPhone X
Unlike graphical UI elements, gestures don’t require visual representation, so you can leave more room for content, and a higher screen ratio has a better operating experience.
2018. Hug full screen gestures
With the full-screen trend sweeping, major manufacturers followed suit and began to embrace “full screen gesture interaction.”
– vivo
Among several mobile phone manufacturers in China, vivo first introduced full-screen gestures. By hiding the three King Kong virtual keys, the bottom area will be divided into three left, right and right, corresponding to the functions of the original three buttons.
It is also easy to operate. The upper bottom slides up to the home page directly. The bottom bottom slides up to the next level, and the left bottom slides up to bring up the multitasking and control bar.
– Xiaomi MIUI
For Xiaomi, the operation logic of MIUI is different from other ones.
The operation of sliding in the middle is similar to that of Apple. It also has two functions. When you slide up, it will return to the home page, and pause for one second to call up the multitasking interface. The difference is that the adjustment to the previous level is adjusted, and the left and right edges slide to the screen, and all of them return to the upper level, which is very good to avoid the inconvenience caused by the difference between the right and left hands.
– Meizu Flyme
Meizu Flyme 7 has added a full-screen interactive gesture outside mBack, with the bottom up and short-sliding back, the long-sliding back to the desktop, and the up-and-down pause is the multi-tasking backend. It is worth mentioning that in addition to these three main gestures, sliding back and forth from the side edges of the screen also supports the return function.
2019. Unification rivers and lakes
-Android Q
At this year’s Google I/O conference, the new version of Android Q, in addition to retaining the traditional three virtual buttons and Android P’s two-button design, enable the new gesture interaction scheme, the return button will not appear at the bottom of the screen. And the navigation bar, there is only one indicator bar left, all gestures have also changed to the same operational logic as the iOS system, the two camps finally reached an agreement on the interaction.
– The future has come: gestures across the sky
LG’s G8 ThinQ released this year by MWC brings Air Motion gestures, and Google has confirmed that Pixel 4 will support face unlocking and gestures. The Pixel 4 incorporates a Soli radar remote control solution that allows you to mute, cut songs, etc. with gestures. You see, this function is very convenient when eating crayfish?
Summary
As time goes by, mobile phone related technologies and functions are constantly moving forward. After the trend of the full screen, where will the future of gesture interaction develop? Let us look forward to the new technological revolution coming soon.
References:
1.iPhone X: The Rise of Gestures · nngroup
2. Why Do All Mobile Roads Lead Back to the Palm Pre?
3. Why does Android do not have good gesture interaction? – Digital tail
4. It took 2 years, Android still didn’t find a gesture operation better than iOS–爱范儿
5. From BlackBerry10 to Android, the hero of the BlackBerry is dead and dying
6. Invented the card-type interactive company, which could create its own full-screen era