Multi-Touch Swipe Gestures for iPhone Keyboard [Archive]

MacRumors

Dec 25, 2008, 08:08 PM

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/12/25/multi-touch-swipe-gestures-for-iphone-keyboard/)

Despite the Christmas holiday, the U.S. Patent Office continues to be churning away and has revealed this interesting new patent application from Apple called Swipe Gestures for Touch Screen Keyboards. The patent application (http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20080316183&OS=20080316183&RS=20080316183) is authored by Wayne Westerman. While we always enjoy reading research from the former Fingerworks founder (http://fingerworks.com/), his multi-touch patent applications always seem to be more ambitious than practical. This latest document, however, details some very useful additions to the iPhone's on screen keyboard.

Apple suggests the use of swipe gestures to be used on top of the iPhone's on screen keyboard in order to provide the user with quick access to common keys.
For example, erasing and basic punctuation insertion, directional swipes (also referred to herein as "swipe gestures") over the alphabetic keys can be used as an alternative to striking certain keys. Because the Space and Backspace keys are quite frequently used, they are logical candidates for the rightward and leftward swipes, respectively. Leftward and rightward swipes intuitively match the cursor travel caused by these symbols. Following this cursor movement analogy, the Enter/Return may be invoked by a downward swipe, and a Shift/Caps may be invoked by an upward swipe. Alternatively, as the Enter and Shift functions may be less frequently invoked, these may be substituted for other functions as well. One alternative mapping for the upward swipe, for example, could be to activate an alternative numeric and punctuation keypad or a particular punctuation symbol like an apostrophe or period.
A few sample gestures are depicted in the document:

http://images.macrumors.com/article/2008/12/25/195015-return_425.jpg

Swipe down = return

http://images.macrumors.com/article/2008/12/25/195712-delet_425.jpg

Swipe left = delete

Aside from these single swipe gestures, multi-touch swipes (two fingers) could invoke other special functions. While a single finger left-swipe might delete a letter, a two finger left-swipe could delete a whole word, and a three finger left-swipe could delete a line. Similarly, a single finger right-swipe could add a space, while a two finger right-swipe could add a period. Up swipes and down swipes could also invoke different functions based on the number of fingers used.

Like with Apple's multi-touch notebook trackpads, these optional functions could provide advanced users with many useful shortcuts while not steepening the learning curve for novice users.

Article Link: Multi-Touch Swipe Gestures for iPhone Keyboard (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/12/25/multi-touch-swipe-gestures-for-iphone-keyboard/)

Freelancer

Dec 25, 2008, 08:12 PM

Maybe some of this gestures could be useful for some missing basic functions... :rolleyes:
(Yeah cut/copy/paste, you're the one it's all about!)

dagamer34

Dec 25, 2008, 08:14 PM

Apple has to make sure that these gestures don't get too complicated.

arn

Dec 25, 2008, 08:16 PM

Apple has to make sure that these gestures don't get too complicated.

they are all optional. if you don't remember the gesture for return. just hit the return key

arn

alexbates

Dec 25, 2008, 08:20 PM

This looks awesome! I have never liked how hard it is to type on my iPod.

Luke1robb

Dec 25, 2008, 08:24 PM

I'm loving this idea, I think there's a lot of potential to speed up typing emails/texting on the iPhone. Here's to hoping these features come in the near future.

PlayRadioPlay

Dec 25, 2008, 08:28 PM

Great idea!

I would love to see "Letter Shortcuts". Example: I could press and hold the letter "P", and a small window could come up where I could select "PlayRadioPlay@yahoo.com" to be inputed into the text field, instead of having to type the whole thing.

Similar to the way you can currently press and hold down a vowel's key to be able to select alternate accented vowels.

It would save so much time to have things like your email address, or other words/phrases saved in submenus of different letters.

Just a thought I had late one night :) Steal my idea Apple!

coolfactor

Dec 25, 2008, 08:29 PM

I'm loving this idea, I think there's a lot of potential to speed up typing emails/texting on the iPhone. Here's to hoping these features come in the near future.

This is a fantastic idea, I agree completely! I sure hope these come to fruition.

SnowLeopard2008

Dec 25, 2008, 08:30 PM

ajbrehm

Dec 25, 2008, 08:32 PM

Great. Gestures are back.

Remember when one had to invent something to get a patent?

Luke1robb

Dec 25, 2008, 08:34 PM

Awesome... good to see them still improving upon the already greatly improved. Most companies release something awesome (think Moto RAZR and how it is faring today) and just make a huge deal about it and never make it better. I hope they can have this out when I buy my iPhone next Jan/Feb.

I think this is the greatest thing about the iphone, its one of the only consumer electronics products that continually gets better.

wheezy

Dec 25, 2008, 08:43 PM

Multi-touch is what separates the iPhone from the other 'touch' phones; all they can muster is one finger point and click. I hope Apple doesn't stop at the patent house on these, it seems that laptops have more multi-touch features than the iPhone does now and it's time to bring in some new gestures!

I do like the idea of a shortcut menu for often-used long text strings; email address, web address, the secret 26 word combination quote for having top secret conversations with illegal nationalists.

PlayRadioPlay

Dec 25, 2008, 08:46 PM

I think this is the greatest thing about the iphone, its one of the only consumer electronics products that continually gets better.
I think most products are expected to improve over time, from version to version. The iPhone is just improving so fast. It's a completely different phone now than when I bought it the week it came out a year and a half ago (I think that's when it came out.)

If Apple had already delivered copy/paste, push notifications, video, and a few other simple additions, they would be golden.

queshy

Dec 25, 2008, 08:53 PM

woo! more gestures! bring them on!!

Rojo

Dec 25, 2008, 08:55 PM

Oooh, I like!

I still, to this day, press the delete key whenever I mean to press the return key -- so the "swipe down for return" shortcut will be nice for me. :D

NewSc2

Dec 25, 2008, 09:03 PM

Whole Foods??

Bubba Satori

Dec 25, 2008, 09:03 PM

Apple has to make sure that these gestures don't get too complicated.

They've got their work cut out for them.

jincongz

Dec 25, 2008, 09:10 PM

My WM6 has been having this forever. As well, by using the stylus, I get accurate taps. I drag up from any letter for Shift that letter, drag down for enter, left for backspace and right for space. Innovation? What innovation?

Phat_Pat

Dec 25, 2008, 09:14 PM

down for some sweet gestures... update!

MarkMS

Dec 25, 2008, 10:12 PM

Maybe some of this gestures could be useful for some missing basic functions... :rolleyes:
(Yeah cut/copy/paste, you're the one it's all about!)

Exactly the same thing I was about to say. C'mon Apple!

KingYaba

Dec 25, 2008, 10:43 PM

they are all optional. if you don't remember the gesture for return. just hit the return key
Matted screens used to be optional. :p

QCassidy352

Dec 25, 2008, 10:44 PM

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

wow. Yes please. I already type faster on my iPhone than on my bb (for work... Hate it) and this would speed things up even more. Sounds wonderful.

leandromp

Dec 25, 2008, 11:07 PM

That's great!
Cmon apple, bring those gestures ASAP. :D. Can't Wait.

I would like to have some of the icons (when my phone is lock) so i wouldnt have to be unlocking my phone every 2 minutes, specially when i get a new email.

gwilli

Dec 25, 2008, 11:09 PM

Maybe some of this gestures could be useful for some missing basic functions... :rolleyes:
(Yeah cut/copy/paste, you're the one it's all about!)

My sentiments exactly, with the amount of time they're taking to implement this, it better have some super fabulous gesture to copy and paste, like... smashing your head against the screen (I do this with every update they don't include this in)

oticon6

Dec 25, 2008, 11:18 PM

The single touch gestures sound awesome.. but other than 2 fingers left deleting a word, I don't think they should bother with any others. It'd get too weird.

Pretty sure they should implement MMS and the ability for apps like NetShare and Air Sharing to have a background process (subject to a very strict approval process that questions the necessity), then work on the fun stuff :cool:

Djcyder

Dec 25, 2008, 11:24 PM

better yet why don't we see accelerometer based functions like smack the side of the ipod/phone for return as a throwback to the typewriter days complete with a ding sound...

Dreamer2go

Dec 25, 2008, 11:29 PM

I wonder if they work with current iphone

igazza

Dec 25, 2008, 11:35 PM

MacsBestFriend

Dec 25, 2008, 11:35 PM

awesome! this will greatly improve typing on the iphone (greater than it already is!)

GoneFishing

Dec 25, 2008, 11:39 PM

Am I getting too old :confused:

You guys still remember the Palm gestures just a decade ago? Swipe left is delete, swipe down then left is return, etc.

great that Apple is looking into it, but nothing that we shouldn't have already expected.

(Forget all the gestures apple, give me UNIVERSAL HORIZONTAL KEYBOARD like in mobile safari)

leandromp

Dec 25, 2008, 11:44 PM

great i like updates, dont forget these apple

copy/paste,forward sms,custom tones for sms,horizontal email/sms,character count,mms,individually delete calls/sms,search email,RSS email,video recording,sharing numbers via bluetooth.search music...................:rolleyes:

The iPhone is great and everything but is missing a lot of things like you just mentioned.
We need those features and less app store.
They're now more focused on the app store that they forgot about the basic stuff that were asking for.

APPLE READ THIS. :P

BTW

Dec 26, 2008, 12:11 AM

It would be nice if they added some more gestures to the older MacBook pre-late 2008 models.

We just got the gesture for right-clicks. The scroll gesture is always good for the browser and the like. I'm sure it is feasible to get the pinch and rotate going as well.

alexbates

Dec 26, 2008, 12:29 AM

This reminds me of the old Palm Pilots. This seems like a combination of those and multi-touch. Maybe in the future, iPhones could also recognize text to make the process of writing on one faster.

harley3k

Dec 26, 2008, 12:42 AM

Whole Foods??

LOL... yah I noticed that too.
Clearly a bunch of liberal organic hippies working at that company ;)
Gotta love it :apple::apple::apple:

alphaod

Dec 26, 2008, 12:59 AM

For some reason these "gestures" seam rather familiar with the graffiti shortcuts on the Palm OS. I wouldn't be surprise if they decided to implement some sort of gestures for the other commonly used keys.

SFStateStudent

Dec 26, 2008, 01:03 AM

These added gestures can only help out those of us that are challenged. I'm holding my breath for an app that can type my voice commands and send an email or TM to someone in my contacts w/o any swipes or touchscreen operations...:cool:

CocoaPuffs

Dec 26, 2008, 01:12 AM

Stealing ideas from jailbroken apps huh?

rockosmodurnlif

Dec 26, 2008, 01:17 AM

Maybe some of this gestures could be useful for some missing basic functions... :rolleyes:
(Yeah cut/copy/paste, you're the one it's all about!)
Bold it. Print it. Mail it to Cupertino.

Stealing ideas from jailbroken apps huh?
Yes! Take all the ideas.

slapppy

Dec 26, 2008, 01:27 AM

It's all nice and good, yet all these other companies are slowly copying more and more features of the iPhone. Well slight variations of it. Seems as if these patents do zero to protect apples work. Where is the rest of the stuff we need to catch up with other smartphones? Maybe they are too busy updating the calculator again. At least that's not being copied by RIMM. :-)

Kevster89

Dec 26, 2008, 01:56 AM

I think this is the greatest thing about the iphone, its one of the only consumer electronics products that continually gets better.

Very true. Many products by huge corporations (eg Motorola, for example) remain static after being invented and implemented into mainstream markets. However, with continuous software updates, the sky is the limit when it comes to improvements for the iPhone and other Apple products.

stainlessliquid

Dec 26, 2008, 01:57 AM

I would much rather have a swipe gesture for music. The navigation is genuinely horrible, if you could swipe the screen backwards to go back instead of having to hit that tiny button in the upper left part of the screen (which is a huge pain to position your thumb on) then it would be so much better. Navigating the music screens with just one hand is so crappy I cant believe the testers let that slip.

Notecard

Dec 26, 2008, 02:02 AM

wonder what they would make the two fingers going up?

It'll be cool if the fingers flicking them up would take you to another sms text from a different individual lol :0

likemyorbs

Dec 26, 2008, 02:12 AM

Apple has to make sure that these gestures don't get too complicated.

think about it this way, the chinese have to learn hundreds of different symbols in order to be able to read and write. that's how it might be with multi-touch, users will just have to know their devices and vica versa

wizard

Dec 26, 2008, 02:40 AM

Really unless this delivers something needed, like Copy & Paste, then to me it is a waste. It has the big negative of making the keyboard even more sesitive to inadvertant swipes and touches. Worst the are adding gestures for keys already on the keyboard.

Frankly I'm with some others here, Apple have a lot of other things they need to fix or implement. Like the auto correction feature for text input which does lots of stupid things. For example always changing thus to this. Shutting auto correct off isn't right either as it can be helpful. But really Apple is "thus" that uncommon of a word in English?

Dave

Mattjeff

Dec 26, 2008, 03:09 AM

Whole Foods??

haha someone else read it :p
I would prefer Wegmans but hey... Whole Foods sounds good!

Doctor Q

Dec 26, 2008, 03:18 AM

I'd like to be able to swipe left and right on the bottom row (across the space bar) to switch among multiple keyboards, from the standard one to other keyboards with different sets of keys, including the ABC, 123, and #+= keyboards. Other keyboards could then be added, perhaps based on iPhone user settings.

Veri

Dec 26, 2008, 04:26 AM

For a comma, I hold it down for four seconds, release it for two, and then rat-a-tat-tat. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=noe3kR8KqJc)

Boxing Day rant, related: Is it me or does no-one have a job any more where they are allowed to sit down and concentrate without interruption in one convenient environment for hours at a time? Notebooks surpassing desktops, enterprise ubiquity of "smart" mobiles, these things imply to me that availability is more important than quality. It doesn't matter how many wikiwikiwiki movements you add to the iPhone, it's still a tiny flat surface, and that makes it impossible to process information at any decent speed.

Progress happens when man, provided with the best tools, sits down and thinks.

Edit: Information entry can be sped up with a chord keyboard app, of course, taking us back to '60s UI design originally planned for use *on* a mouse (ever get annoyed by having to flip hands from one input device to another? this was not intended). 15 combinations with 4 fingers, 255 with 8. In this case, on a touch screen.

wizard

Dec 26, 2008, 04:48 AM

haha someone else read it :p
I would prefer Wegmans but hey... Whole Foods sounds good!
Wegmans, let's see that puts you in the upstate NY area.

As to whole foods sounding good, that is a bit of an open question in my mind. It is sort of like learning complex jesters to navigate a Touch screen when you already have fully processed keys to do the job.

Hey I had to tie this in to the thread some how.

Dave

talkingfuture

Dec 26, 2008, 05:09 AM

looks good, anything that makes typing a little easier will be welcome. I got an iPod touch yesterday, this may make it even better.

tjcampbell

Dec 26, 2008, 05:31 AM

This is great, but where is copy/paste? And could it be ANY more difficult to share a contacts number etc...

hdm42

Dec 26, 2008, 05:40 AM

to all of the "apple should be working on X, Y, or Z improvement, not wasting time with this extra stuff thats cool but we dont need":

this is a patent. apple is (probably) not working on this, at all. not trying to develop it. they just had an idea in a brainstorming session, and want to make sure that IF in the distant future they ever want to use it, nobody else got to it first. so they wrote up a patent. but the actual developers doing software for these things likely never even were consulted. I doubt that we will see this for a long, LONG time to come, and rightly so. Cupertino's got its' priorities straight.

happydude

Dec 26, 2008, 10:25 AM

how about some f*$king copy/paste?!:eek:

ppdix

Dec 26, 2008, 10:53 AM

Enough with all the freaking useless gestures.

Here's my middle finger gesture to Apple for being so retarded as not to add copy and paste after 16 months of millions of users asking for it... :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

knightlie

Dec 26, 2008, 11:40 AM

Enough with all the freaking useless gestures.

They're not useless, they operate features of the phone. If they were useless they then would do that, would they?

Here's my middle finger gesture to Apple for being so retarded as not to add copy and paste after 16 months of millions of users asking for it... :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Now that you have been bleating about it for those same 16 months, could you pipe down about it for a while? I think we get the message.

herbiehancock00

Dec 26, 2008, 11:52 AM

ppdix

Dec 26, 2008, 11:55 AM

They're not useless, they operate features of the phone. If they were useless they then would do that, would they?

Now that you have been bleating about it for those same 16 months, could you pipe down about it for a while? I think we get the message.

They are useless, at this time, since there are more important things users have been asking about for a year and a half.

Instead of introducing new things, they should take care of the requests and listen to us. :mad:

Apple should be looking at why the iPhone is the best phone out there but not forgetting there are too many things to address before it really beats the rest.

ppdix

Dec 26, 2008, 11:58 AM

how about some f*$king copy/paste?!:eek:

My girlfriend has a POS $29 samsung phone. She tried to send me a picture she took via MMS. Of course, I didn't get ******... She thought I was joking when I told her I can't receive MMS. She went on and on about how cool the iPhone is and still can't do a simple task like a picture attachment on a message.

Pisses me off that :apple: doesn't listen. :mad:

ppdix

Dec 26, 2008, 12:00 PM

Did anyone try a test run of using gestures for functions like space and delete? I tried doing it and it feels really awkward. It actually seems much faster to just tab the space key instead of having to do an actual motion. Maybe it just takes some time to adjust but I felt it made my typing slower.

They should also have a number lock instead of all this unimpressive stuff. It pisses me off that every time you are typing a number and need to type a space in between it cancels off the numbers!!!! :mad:

Brianstorm91

Dec 26, 2008, 12:33 PM

Surely if we just end up with hundreds of different types of swipes and motions etc., it's just going to become impractical to learn them all.

RTiii320

Dec 26, 2008, 01:16 PM

Couldn't they make a gesture that involves cut&paste... I know that after this long it most likely will never happen but it would be so easy to incorporate. Annoying really, it's like Apple is toying with us.

sjo

Dec 26, 2008, 01:50 PM

think about it this way, the chinese have to learn hundreds of different symbols in order to be able to read and write. that's how it might be with multi-touch, users will just have to know their devices and vica versa

it's thousands of symbols chinese have to learn, and they have to start studying them at age 3 in order to ever master them sufficiently to be considered well educated.

in addition, lots of the signs have become obsolete, making the learning even more tedious. 200 years ago it probably made sense that fish + sheep = fresh, but nowadays no-one understands the connection without learning it first.

chinese symbols are fascinating, but i really don't think that's the way mobile phone usage should go...

twoodcc

Dec 26, 2008, 03:33 PM

looking forward to this. i think apple needs to take advantage of this kind of stuff with the iphone.

Digital Skunk

Dec 26, 2008, 06:39 PM

It's about time!

Too bad it took Apple this long to get this idea out. Palm has been doing gestures like that for a while now with Graffiti but being able to do such things on an iPod Touch or iPhone will make it a hell of a lot easier to type on.

Next thing we need is XT9 like the other phones have so that the buttons can be bigger and inputing text much faster.

HiRez

Dec 26, 2008, 07:02 PM

I'm all for the gestures, but I think Apple could do a lot more to make the basic typing more intelligent. For example, If I type "folwer", it never at any point suggests "flower", which, at least towards the end, is by far the most obvious word. The same for "flpwer". In this case, the 'p' is right next to the 'o' button, and the iPhone should know this and guess that I fat-fingered one letter.

azaas

Dec 27, 2008, 05:23 AM

I can see me using those gestures...They could also introduce a pinch like one for copy-paste! I mean given that the software and the hardware is ready for it i seem unable to understand why it's not already there. Two fingers highlighting a part of the text,a menu popping up with copy/paste options and voilla there you go :) Meh anyways those gestures are a sweet add on to the already amazing experience ^^

Digital Skunk

Dec 27, 2008, 01:27 PM

how about some f*$king copy/paste?!:eek:

that and the ability to create new text documents like MS Word and/or Pages like all other smartphones.

ppc750fx

Dec 27, 2008, 01:46 PM

My girlfriend has a POS $29 samsung phone. She tried to send me a picture she took via MMS. Of course, I didn't get ******... She thought I was joking when I told her I can't receive MMS. She went on and on about how cool the iPhone is and still can't do a simple task like a picture attachment on a message.:

My friend has a POS $50 Nokia. She was about to send me a picture she took via MMS. Then she realized that she would be paying damn near $0.50 to send me a low-res version of something only mildly amusing. She e-mailed the picture instead, I could view it, and neither of us had to pay additional money to AT&T.

ppc750fx

Dec 27, 2008, 01:47 PM

that and the ability to create new text documents like MS Word and/or Pages like all other smartphones.

All other smartphones? Exaggerate much?

Very very few smartphones can create Word documents. Besides, how often do people really edit Word documents on their phones...

Digital Skunk

Dec 27, 2008, 02:03 PM

All other smartphones? Exaggerate much?

Very very few smartphones can create Word documents. Besides, how often do people really edit Word documents on their phones...

You don't research much do you.

Most smartphone do, not just the ones that run Palm OS or Windows Mobile.

And obviously someone that doesn't know that wouldn't be able to comprehend people creating, editing, sending, printing such documents from their phones.

Are you serious?

Not to mention the amount of iPhone fans that seem to think the iPhone is a much better device to carry around then their Macbooks. Giving the phone the ability to do such things would justify leaving the laptop at home even more.

I am starting to think many people weren't aware of the features of smartphones and PDAs for the past decade and a half. :confused:

ppc750fx

Dec 27, 2008, 02:10 PM

You don't research much do you.

Most smartphone do, not just the ones that run Palm OS or Windows Mobile.

And obviously someone that doesn't know that wouldn't be able to comprehend people creating, editing, sending, printing such documents from their phones.

Are you serious?

Not to mention the amount of iPhone fans that seem to think the iPhone is a much better device to carry around then their Macbooks. Giving the phone the ability to do such things would justify leaving the laptop at home even more.

I am starting to think many people weren't aware of the features of smartphones and PDAs for the past decade and a half. :confused:

Mmm.. I love the smell of ad hominem in the morning. :D

Anyways, yes I am aware that some (not most) smartphones offer this feature. As someone who used to own a phone that boasted Office support, I can say: it was completely useless. Typing edits of any non-trivial size is a pain on any pretty much any mobile keyboard.

And printing? Really? I've _never_ seen someone print a document from their cellphone, barring demonstrations of the capability.

Do some people use these features? I'm sure they do. I'm also sure that the vast majority of users don't -- and since Apple has limited resources, it makes sense for them to provide features that are usable by the majority of their users, rather than a handful of power users who'll go out of their way to use every feature their phone offers, no matter how poor of a "desktop replacement" it may be.

Digital Skunk

Dec 27, 2008, 02:18 PM

Mmm.. I love the smell of ad hominem in the morning. :D

Anyways, yes I am aware that some (not most) smartphones offer this feature. As someone who used to own a phone that boasted Office support, I can say: it was completely useless. Typing edits of any non-trivial size is a pain on any pretty much any mobile keyboard.

And printing? Really? I've _never_ seen someone print a document from their cellphone, barring demonstrations of the capability.

Do some people use these features? I'm sure they do. I'm also sure that the vast majority of users don't -- and since Apple has limited resources, it makes sense for them to provide features that are usable by the majority of their users, rather than a handful of power users who'll go out of their way to use every feature their phone offers, no matter how poor of a "desktop replacement" it may be.

I am not starting this bu!!$h!t with you dude.

Check out the other smartphones on the market, what has been here and what is currently on the market. Fact: smartphones do it. Fact: iPhone doesn't. Fact: You are posing your own logical fallacies as well, so don't start pulling that ad hominem $h!t. Let me know when you stop using your own personal experience to prove your own biased opinion and assumptions.

Otherwise ****.