iPhone Use of Drag & Drop

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Calin West on January 8, 2008 at 11:42pm

I hope they make it contextual. When you are actively editing text, a drag and drop gesture should select rather than scroll.

Permalink Reply by Viil on January 9, 2008 at 12:55pm

That's a really interesting question Dan. It seems using touch for the zoom and scrolling functionalities is crashing with the standard selection functionality, and this is probably the reason why this functionality is not offered in the current version of iPhone.
They may have to introduce interaction modes, which will complicate the interaction and learnability of the interface. It's the age old question of what the user's intention is. In this case: scrolling or selecting range?

Permalink Reply by J. David Beutel on March 10, 2008 at 8:48pm

I haven't used an iPhone much, but Fujie just got a MacBook and I like its multi-touch scrolling. Horizontal scrolling was my pet peeve, but not with multi-touch. I wonder why Apple didn't do the same thing on the iPhone.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on March 11, 2008 at 2:57am

Hi Dave. Do you mean multi-touch zoom (pinch, spread), or are you talking about something else? iPhone uses multi-touch zoom. We are referring to a single touch drag gesture.

Permalink Reply by J. David Beutel on March 17, 2008 at 1:53pm

Not zoom. Fujie's new MacBook uses 1 finger to drag the mouse, and 2 fingers to scroll. The 2 fingers are together and parallel with the bottom of the pad, so I use my middle and ring fingers. This scrolls the window with the mouse vertically or horizontally, like the scroll wheel on the mouse scrolls vertically.

This is consistent with scrollbars, but opposite the iPhone. When you move the scrollbar down, the window contents move up. Moving two fingers down on the MacBook moves the scrollbar down. But on the iPhone, when you move one finger down, it moves the contents down.

I guess the iPhone doesn't have any scrollbar or mouse. It makes sense to get rid of the mouse for a touch screen, but Apple still could have used 2 fingers for scrolling (or moving, assuming it works in any direction), leaving 1 finger for drag and drop. The only problem is that it would be opposite of scrollbars.

Sorry it took so long for me to reply. Ning hasn't sent me any email.

Permalink Reply by Mika Leuck on March 17, 2008 at 10:41pm

Hi Dave,

You can control email notification by going to your profile page and selecting My Settings > Email.

Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on March 22, 2008 at 1:34pm

Ah - interesting. They seem to have implemented gestures on the new multi-touch laptop pads that aren't used on the iPhone. I'll have to head over to Ala Moana and give the new laptops a spin.

Based on your description, the iPhone scrolling behavior strikes me as more natural, but perhaps I need to try the new trackpads before commenting further.

Permalink Reply by Johnson C. Ho on October 23, 2008 at 11:02am

How about text copy & paste in iPhone & IPod Touch? I'm surprised this feature was not implemented. Or may it was and I'm just missing it?

Permalink Reply by Mika Leuck on October 23, 2008 at 11:14am

copy & paste is not implemented. This is a common complaint.

J.C. Ho said:

How about text copy & paste in iPhone & IPod Touch? I'm surprised this feature was not implemented. Or may it was and I'm just missing it?