Two years after Apple, Android phones still do not have access to gesture navigation

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This article may contain personal opinions and opinions of the author.

The very mention of the Apple brand seems to elicit an emotional response from just about every technology enthusiast: some swear loyalty to the brand, others hate it with passion.

With so many emotions, it is often difficult to look objectively at the Apple side of the industry, and any strong claim – whether it is positive or negative – inevitably provokes a strong reaction. Fully aware of this, I am still convinced: for almost two years now that the iPhone X is launched with its brand new gesture navigation system, Android phone manufacturers have rushed to catch up with Apple and despite the many efforts were made, no one was able to do it. just right.

But to criticize the approach of the makers of Android phones in terms of gesture navigation, we need to look closely at what makes the iPhone X with its navigation so different gestures and so special.

What improves gesture navigation on iPhone?

It's different, but how do you describe a feeling?

Let's be clear: the iPhone has undeniably been the first to introduce a gestural navigation system. Unlike other internet controversies, no other Android phone was using gesture navigation throughout the system when launching the iPhone X. This would matter little: be the first just for fun n & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; & nbsp; Is ultimately not something to be proud of, but it clearly shows that Apple has clearly innovated. The fact that many other Android phone manufacturers have started using gesture-based navigation soon after iPhone X suggests that they were catching up and reacting to Apple's trend.

It's very easy to understand how the iPhone X has used gestures: you slide up to return to the home screen, slide and pause briefly to access recent maps, then from the edge of the screen to go back.

Such a superficial description of the work of the gesture navigation system, however, may convince the unsuspecting user that any other company implementing the same directional gestures may simply call it a day and assert that it had properly implemented the gestural navigation.

The devil is as always in the details and this detail is brilliantly explained in a presentation of the WWDC 2018 entitled "Designing Fluid Interfaces", where the Apple designers explain the little things they had to spend long hours to work to work well.

There are a few key details, some events that happen behind the scenes to make the iPhone's gesture navigation so light, sweet, and enjoyable. We will soon review them, then quickly see what is happening on Android.

Latency

Two years after Apple, Android phones still do not have access to gesture navigation

The first thing you'll notice is disabled on many Android gesture implementations is latency. Things are either a bit nervous or do not happen instantly. And latency is an extremely difficult thing to get: it's a simple definition, make everything turn at 60 fps permanently, and you're done, but … how do you do it?

Apple explains the importance of correcting gesture latency with some analogies and claims to have worked longer to reach 60 fps:

You know, our tools depend on latency. Think about the difficulty of using a tool, playing an instrument or doing anything in the physical world, if there was a delay in using it. And we found that people are really very sensitive to latency. You know? If you introduce a certain amount of lag, things will suddenly fall apart as to how they respond to you.

There is all this extra mental burden. It feels super disconnected.

It does not look like an extension of you anymore. So we are working very hard to reduce the latency. We have designed the latest iPhone to respond more quickly to your finger, to detect all the nuances of your actions as instantly as possible. So, we really care about this stuff and we think you should too. And, that means looking for delays everywhere.

Reversible interface

What does that mean? Redirection means changing your mind, pressing to open an app and deciding in the middle of it that you first have to go home, then open the multitasking, then again and again. The "redirect" part is our ability to change the mind constantly doing something. Some of the best Android implementations simply lack this feature (for example, Huawei's gesture system essentially copies Apple's gesture instructions, but does not support gesture redirection).

Here's how Apple explains its redirection interface:

Thus, our bodies and minds are constantly being reoriented in response to a change of thought, as we have discussed. So, if I headed towards the end of this stage here and realized that I had forgotten something there, I could simply turn around right away. And, I would not have to wait for my body to reach the end before doing it, right? It is therefore important that our interfaces reflect this constant reorientation capability. And this gives the impression of being connected to you. That's why, for iPhone 10, we built a fully redirectable interface. So what is it? So, the iPhone 10 is a pretty simple gesture in two axes. You go horizontally between applications. And you go vertically to go home.

But you can also combine the two axes to be on the way back home, take a look at the multitasking and decide whether to go or not. Or, you can move on to several tasks and decide, in fact, no, I want to go home.

A gesture

Having a redirection and perfect latency means that the gestures are not seen separately, but rather as a single movement, but in different directions. Here's why it counts:

And if the only actions you could do were this horizontal gesture between applications, then a vertical gesture to go home, and that's all. You can not do any of these intermediary things I just mentioned. … So, you should think, do I want to go home? Do I want to go multitasking? Then you make your decision, then you make the gesture, then you release. But what's cool is that when it's redirect, the thought and the gesture are parallel. And, you sort of think with the gesture, and it turns out that it's a lot faster than thinking before you do it. You know? Because it's a multi-axis gestural space. These are not separate gestures. It's a gesture that does all that. At home, multitasking, quick application change, so you do not have to think about it as a separate gesture. …

And, it allows you to superimpose gestures at the speed of thought.

The lightness of multitouch

The other secret aspect of Apple's iPhone gestures is what is called lightness or how a tiny gesture is magnified into a larger animation and action, but still lightweight, you do not have to so no need to slide from one end of the screen to another get an application to close.

You know that the lightness of multitouch is one of the most underrated aspects, in my opinion. It allows sweeps and airy parchments, as well as all the faucets and things that we are all used to. Everything is super light. But we also want to amplify their movement. You want to make a small contribution and make a great outing, to give that satisfying sensation of moving or throwing something and of getting an enlarged result.

So, how does this apply to our interfaces? Well, it starts with a short interaction. A short and light interaction. And, we use all our sensors, all our technology, to understand as much as possible. To, in a way, generate a profile of energy and momentum contained in the gesture. By using everything we know, including position, speed, speed, strength, everything we know about it, we generate a kind of inertial profile of this gesture.

And then we take that and generate an amplified extension of your movement.

Android gestures

Android phone manufacturers have tried to create a gestural interface, some phone manufacturers copying the way to make gestures from Apple (Huawei, Xiaomi, more recently Google), while others have their own taken (Samsung, Apple).

The struggles of Google are quite revealing: the company introduced a strange mix of gestures and navigation buttons with Android 9 Pie, but it was a strange mix that never felt fluid and that has been blasted even by the most loyal Android blogs. Finally, Google gave in and he works on an iPhone compatible navigation system with Android 10 Q, but first, the beta show that it lacks the refinement, the aforementioned lightness, the latency and a gesture that Apple worked hard for achieve it.

Others, like Samsung, for example, have adopted their own gestures, but they may feel congested, all starting from the bottom of the phone and not using the sides (probably because they would conflict with Samsung's Edge panel functionality). The animations are far from being fluid and the experience is not as fluid.

We have already mentioned that Huawei and Xiaomi have basically copied the gesture system for iPhone, but Huawei does not support redirection and latency is simply not present, even on their best phones, not to mention more affordable devices .

OnePlus is the only one to get latency close to that of Apple, but it's not quite there. Its own navigation also includes a ton of slips from the bottom that often interfere with the buttons on the application.

Overall, we each act in their own way and nobody does them well, which shows that all these companies reacted and often rushed to seek a solution after Apple, but none had for the moment the refinement of the gestures of the Iphone. Hope this changes in the near future.

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