Why can't gestures control browsing?

[Italianblend]

I should be able to swipe backwards anywhere on the screen instead of hitting the tiny back button. This is 2012. Safari and chrome, I would like to see this please. Thank you.

 

[harleymhs]

I agree 100 % !!

 

[PrometheusGeek]

Agreed. It works this way in OSX, and it should in iOS as well.

 

[stevemiller]

Add me to the chorus! It baffles me that I have so many fast elegant trackpad gestures for navigating my laptop, while I'm forced to essentially mimic a "point and click" interface on a touchscreen. Granted much of the additional functionality on the laptop is gained through bettertouchtool, but it's still such a wasted opportunity.

It doesnt make sense from a fitts law standpoint(small button targets, longer travels for your hand), nor does it make sense from a screen real estate perspective (having to dedicate already limited space to a persistent ui).

And to the argument that users will be confused by invisible tools, it seems users get by quite intuitively with no zoom or rotation sliders, and in fact already have experience with back/forward navigation swipes in calendar, iBooks, photos, etc.

Between gestures and voice input, apple seems to be making a habit of introducing novel ui paradigms to users and then leaving them to languish in half-realized implementations. (ok maybe a little dramatic, but you get the idea!)

 

[waveydavey13]

It does.... Just not in Safari.

Dolphin browser (free) and Mercury browser (69p) both use gestures whilst browsing.




Cheers

Dave.

 

[pat park]

if you're not opposed to Jailbreaking, you can install a tweak called Fullscreen for Safari and it has options for swiping left or right - you can assign the swipes to go back or forward.

I have it set up so when swipe right, Safari browser goes back. Swiped left Safari goes forward. Really cool and so convenient.

 

[APlotdevice]

It does.... Just not in Safari.

Dolphin browser (free) and Mercury browser (69p) both use gestures whilst browsing.




Cheers

Dave.

Yeah, but unfortunately using a third party browser means you'll be stuck with the older, slower JavaScript engine. Only Safari has access to Nitro.

 

[myrtlebee]

I wish they would at least give the option to put the forward and back arrows on the right of the search bar in Safari since many of us are right handed and it would be great for me simply to use my right thumb to tap it.

 

[waveydavey13]

Yeah, but unfortunately using a third party browser means you'll be stuck with the older, slower JavaScript engine. Only Safari has access to Nitro.

As with a lot of things in life though there is a price to pay for what you want.

My point still stands that if gestures is sooooo important to someone then you could have them but the browsing experience would be very very slightly slower.


Personally on our new ipad i have never ever used Safari and have only ever used Mercury or Dolphin and i have never thought it is taking a while to load a page.

(By the way my wife uses Safari and i use the other browser so as to keep our browsing history and bookmarks totally separate for things such as e-mail services we both use where by having them on separate browsers means not having to log the other person out before logging in ourselves etc...)



Cheers

Dave.

 

[Risingkazuya05]

If ur also jailbroken, u can use sleipnizer for safari. The amount of gesture customization is awesome #

 

[Fruit Cake]

Icab mobile supports gestures, swipe for new tab, 3 finder swipes etc

 

[Enlightenment1]

Also if you jailbreak you can use SwipeSafari (also has full screen mode) and simply use 1 finger (or 2 or 3 if you wish) to swipe back and forth between pages AND tabs.

First time I've jailbroken and I couldn't imagine my iPad without it now. It opens the OS up to what it should be.

Catch up Apple, either that or you're just being tight with your users

 

[MacJones]

Two finger swipe to go back like on the OS X trackpad would be nice.