The iPhone double-click
June 24, 2010 at 9:30 PM by Dr. Drang
If you got an iPhone 4 today, or if you’ve upgraded your 3GS to iOS 4, chances are you’ve been gradually shifting from the old habit of single-clicking the Home button to change apps by way of the Springboard, to double-clicking the Home button to switch directly via that icon strip at the bottom of the screen.
I predict that within a week, serious iPhone users will be double-clicking almost exclusively, going back to the Springboard only to find that occasional, seldom-used app.
And they’re going to start getting annoyed at having to double-click to do their most common operation.
As several people have said, the iPhone 4’s Home button is stiffer than the earlier iPhones’. It’s certainly not as easy to double-click as a mouse button. People will start to wonder: Why should I be double-clicking more often than single-clicking? Shouldn’t the most common operation be one that’s easiest to perform?
I understand why Apple has chosen to stick with single-clicking as the way to get to the Springboard: it’s what everyone is already used to. Suddenly changing to a new behavior in something so fundamental to the operation of the phone wouldn’t be smart.
But in a week or two, you’re going to curse every time you try to double-click and miss, either because the phone moved a bit on the first click or you were just a little off in your timing. And you’re going to wish Apple had stuck a preference in the Settings app that would allow you swap the single- and double-click behaviors.
[Image blatantly stolen from Apple’s multitasking page].
