Software Technology for Methods, devices and graphical user interfaces for process inputs using touch

APPLE INC. (Cupertino, CA)

While displaying a user interface to the first application an electronic device gets information from the first application which describes a first-touch on a location with a touch sensor that is associated with a specific user interface object. The device initiates the appropriate type of user interface operation that involves the object that is used for user interface if it is determined that the initial touch matches the specified requirements for initiating the operation. The first application receives instructions to disregard the first touch in relation to operations performed by the user interface other than the specific kind of interface operation and also ignores the initial touch with regard to operations that are not related to the user interface other than the respective kind of operation. In some embodiments, the specific type of interface operation is a drag operation, for draggable objects within or from a view within the application.

The use of surfaces that are touch sensitive as input devices for computers as well as other electronic devices for computing has increased dramatically in recent years. Displays with touchscreens and touchpads are just two examples of touchscreen surfaces. They are extensively used to control objects used by users on screens.

Some examples of manipulative techniques include dropping and dragging objects, or elements of the user interface like to move data between applications another, or from one part of an application or data structure to the next. Other manipulations involve touching objects of the user interface according to a set of rules, launching applications by tapping on them or otherwise interfacing with the corresponding launch icons or elements of the user interface. Accessing the features of an application can also be achieved by performing swipe, drag and tap, long-press, deep presses (e.g. with intensity above an amount) or other touch inputs to respective user interface elements.

It can be difficult to distinguish between different gestures based on touch such as drag and drop and springloading gestures (e.g. the ability to open an object so as to see elements of the object) as well as long press and swipe gestures is very important to ensure that the device orsystem perform actions corresponding to the intention of the user. It can be difficult because of the subtle differences between gestures that are based on touch.

To aid in disambiguation, gesture recognizers that identify distinct actions or distinguish gestures are used. It’s still hard to distinguish between touch-based drag-and-drop gestures and spring loading (sometimes called “springloading”) gestures. This inefficiency is due to themechanisms for disambiguation as well as the transfer of information from touch input to different software mechanisms after disambiguation, or at least a portion of the disambiguation, is achieved. In addition, devices using touchscreen input methods are becoming more complicated and less efficient. This is because there are more active gesture recognition systems available for some applications and applications.

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