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paulbart

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 26, 2008
70
44
Hello -

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this (just started happening on my iPad)

If I am holding the iPad in the palm of my hand (no part of my body touching the glass), sometimes the browser's "back" button will light up by itself, and it will go back to the previous page. Sometimes it'll quickly back-up thru a bunch of pages.

It's very annoying!

As an experiment, I left the iPad turned on and sitting on the table for an hour. It did not happen.

So, I think it has something to do with the capacitance of my hand underneath the iPad causing a "false touch".

Has anyone else run into this? Could something else explain this? (for example, is there an accelerometer-based gesture that causes a "back" that I am accidentally causing?

Thanks for your input!
 

khanriazaoif

macrumors member
Aug 26, 2007
83
0
Interesting

paulbart said:
Hello -

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this (just started happening on my iPad)

If I am holding the iPad in the palm of my hand (no part of my body touching the glass), sometimes the browser's "back" button will light up by itself, and it will go back to the previous page. Sometimes it'll quickly back-up thru a bunch of pages.

It's very annoying!

As an experiment, I left the iPad turned on and sitting on the table for an hour. It did not happen.

So, I think it has something to do with the capacitance of my hand underneath the iPad causing a "false touch".

Has anyone else run into this? Could something else explain this? (for example, is there an accelerometer-based gesture that causes a "back" that I am accidentally causing?

Thanks for your input!

Mine does the same but in the AppStore. Sometimes I'll be looking at the apps and neither hand is touching the screen and then it will go into the screen of a random app. Very strange
 

Scott-n-Houston

macrumors 65816
Apr 27, 2008
1,021
334
Houston (duh)
Is there a shake to undo like on the iPhone? Maybe there's something like that for back space or something...

That shake to change songs on the iPhone was driving me crazy until I found how to turn it off! :D
 

paulbart

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 26, 2008
70
44
Is there a shake to undo like on the iPhone? Maybe there's something like that for back space or something...

That shake to change songs on the iPhone was driving me crazy until I found how to turn it off! :D

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I think there's a shake to undo, but it turns out that isn't the problem.


The problem happens even when the iPad is on the table.

Other people have seen similar problems:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11351291


I made a short video of the problem happening (sorry - it's "sideways" - that's how my iPhone recorded it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K053VFq9UZ0


At about 16 seconds into the video, I select a bookmark to go to Engadget.com. Then, at about 34 seconds, I do three quick "swipes" to scroll down the page. I remove my hand, and at about 38 seconds, the browser 'back' button lights up a couple of times (sort or hard to see in the video) and it backs up a couple of web pages.

I then (at about 50 seconds) scroll thru the new page, but (second swipe on new page), it jumps all the way to the top of the page (as if the top menu bar in safari had been touched - although I didn't).

I spoke to Apple today. They are sending me a replacement. It does seem to be a known issue ('phantom touches' or something).
 
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