
Google Maps One-Hand Zoom on iPhone - carlsednaoui
http://carlsednaoui.com/post/46803524724/google-maps-one-hand-zoom-on-iphone
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Xuzz
Think about everyone who doesn't see this post. Will they figure this gesture
out? Did you? If it takes a blog post at the top of Hacker News for people
here to find this, it's pretty far from discoverable. Is it really that great
if most people can't use it?

On the other hand, you don't need any instruction for pinch-to-zoom. Intuitive
interactions like that — or even double-tap-to-zoom — are much harder to come
up with, but they're also accessible to everybody. This is a cool piece of
trivia, but it's far from solving the one-handed zooming problem. I hope
Google (or anybody else) is working on something to make this better for
everyone.

~~~
enjo
In usability tests you'll see that pinch-to-zoom is hardly discoverable, or
even particularly easy. It's a learned behavior.

Once users "get it", it's powerful. They'll attempt to pinch to zoom all over
the place. I guess I don't see how this is any different. It's a gesture, and
I find it to be intuitive (it's been available on the Android version for a
really long time).

~~~
r00fus
Which usability tests? Anecdotal evidence - my 2 year old picked it up quite
easily on her own back 4 years ago when iOS was a lot slower and buggier.

There's no "metamode" here and it's tripped over quite easily during normal
interactions.

~~~
enjo
Test I've previously conducted as part of product development. I've,
anecdotally, have heard similar reports from others as well when we've shared
data.

Are you sure your two year old didn't watch you first?

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hkmurakami
Confirmed that it works on my Android phone (JB, 4.2.2).

This is super useful, thanks! (I've nearly dropped my phone several times
trying to do a two point zoom with one hand).

~~~
acchow
Google Maps for Android has had this since September (version 6.12). But in
every other way, I'm always jealous when I see GMaps on my friends' iPhones.

~~~
corresation
Why? Unless I am completely missing something, the iOS version is a subset of
the Android version. The latter is everybit as usable and smooth, with more
integration and functionality.

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shurcooL
Also, I wonder how many people here realize that supporting this tap-release-
tap gesture requires adding a forced delay to tap recognition.

After a single tap happens, you can't react instantly because it's not yet
known if the user will tap a second time until some threshold time (around 200
ms) passes. Alternatively, something else can gets in the way (e.g. quickly
tap anywhere else to "break the combo" and skip the 200 ms tap delay).

It's not a big drawback in this particular case (tapping on things on the map
makes the pin appear slightly delayed), but it's important to realize the
negative effects of recognizing more elaborate gestures.

~~~
mikeash
Isn't the same delay required for recognizing a simple double-tap-to-zoom?

~~~
shurcooL
Yes it is.

~~~
mikeash
And roughly every zoomable view on iOS supports that, so this doesn't add
anything more.

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jader201
_> Dear Apple, I’d love to see you implement this in Apple Maps. Dear
developers, I’d love to see you implement this in any pinch-to-zoom app._

Better yet:

Dear Apple, I’d love to see you implement this in iOS, so that developers
don't have to.

~~~
hnriot
Why? They already have a perfectly intuitive way of doing this. It doesn't
make any sense. I just tried it and its not particularly useful, doesn't feel
anywhere nearly natural and I can already do zoom one handed just hold the
phone so that there are two fingers free to pinch.

~~~
tiziano88
Are you serious? I'm curious to see how you normally hold your phone with one
hand now, I'm figuring you as some sort of contortionist, or one of those guys
that can cut a deck of cards in half with just one hand. I personally love
this gesture, and I use it all the time, especially when it's too cold outside
and I'm using my phone with one hand, with the other one in my pocket instead.

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schrodinger
Does anyone else touch their nose to the screen and use their thumb to zoom?

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improv32
I actually do this

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schrodinger
I just employed this technique to comment to this thread.

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sonar_un
This is great, because you know the most annoying feature of google maps? When
pinching to zoom, it also rotates.

The map not rotating is great!

~~~
thrownaway2424
Is that on iOS only? It doesn't do that on Android. If you are rotating, you
may also zoom, but if you pinched to zoom before rotating, it locks the
rotation and you only get zoom.

~~~
Evbn
Right, but sometimes the fingers rotate unintentionally before zooming (or
separate on an arc)

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kmfrk
A lot of people have a problem with this as _an optional gesture they are
welcome to use, if they want_.

What's the problem here? Should Apple remove keyboard shortcuts, because they
aren't as discoverable?

I use the _exact_ same gesture in Apple iBooks, when I want to highlight
paragraphs, and it saves me so much time and interaction, it's not even funny.

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delinka
How long before this is considered obvious? Does Google have a pending patent
on this? I can honestly say I wouldn't have thought of this.

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ceeK
So this is what has been making Google maps sporadically zoom! I have been
wondering why navigating around a Google map on my iPhone means that it zooms
every now and again. I tend to make a lot of fast and small movements which
must get interpreted as a double tap and then a drag.

Funnily enough, I don't have this problem with Apple maps as I suppose their
sensitivity is less.

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eavc
I first encountered this method of zooming in and out in an Android browser
called xScope a few years back. The developer called it "pin zoom," and it was
one of the major features he touted.

Incidentally, xScope was also the first multi-touch browser for Android. I'm
not sure what that dev is up to now, but I like to give him props when this UI
technique comes up.

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marknutter
Worst part about Google Maps for the iPhone: the drawer. Half the time when I
pinch to zoom in or out it opens the damn drawer. This gesture is a great
alternative but not very discoverable. The drawer should really be done away
with.

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Brajeshwar
Cool. Ain't it? From a Usability View, it's OK not to have made this through
an instruction or tutorial. We were living without it but I moment I
accidentally stumbled on it the other day, I liked it. I always believed I was
the last one to find it.

It's my opinion that these are few of those gestures which are OK to be left
as something to be 'discovered'. Just yesterday, my daughter struggled with my
Macbook trying to zoom-in on the photos she saw, pinching them, dragging them
on the screen. Such gestures and its variations are ones that we have to
consider 'should/might work'.

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timmins
While this gesture may not be intuitive, I have to give credit to the initial
stage double tap and then the zoom calibration with the vertical slide
gesture.

There's another app that has a very similar gesture, Readmill. They allow
brightness adjustment with a vertical slide. The downside is the lack of
initial gesture to toggle its activation. So, while reading, trying to
vertically scroll the page has caused the gesture to activate brightness
adjustment. It becomes frustrating.

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calbear81
Interesting that pulling your finger up is zooming in while pulling it down is
zooming out which I guess is supposed to correspond to "+"/"-" symbols. I
would think the opposite is more intuitive which is pulling down is moving the
camera down from zoomed out position down closer to the map which enlarges it
while pulling up moves the camera back from the map which zooms out.

~~~
goldfeld
I think especially if you think in terms of height the functionality makes
more sense as it is. Think of an aircraft where pulling the yoke in your
direction goes up and pushing it away from you goes down.

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untog
This is fantastically useful. Not so much for zooming in- you can already
double tap for that. But to be able to zoom back out... brilliant.

~~~
siglesias
Although it is rather unfortunate that it only zooms to the center of the view
rather than where you double-tap.

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eyuelt
I think it makes sense to zoom to the middle.

Since you're using this with one hand, tapping anywhere other than the area
where your thumb naturally rests would be uncomfortable.

Also, and more importantly I think, what if you wanted to zoom in to a
position near the top of the screen? You would have to tap near the top of the
screen and move your finger up, causing your thumb to go off the screen. So
you wouldn't be able to zoom in to an area near the top of the screen or zoom
out from an area near the bottom. If such a large segment of the screen is
unusable for this feature, you might as well just have it zoom to the middle,
and make the user center the place they want to zoom to on their own.

~~~
siglesias
_Since you're using this with one hand, tapping anywhere other than the area
where your thumb naturally rests would be uncomfortable._

Not any more uncomfortable than single tapping any other part of the screen
one-handed. Of course this depends on screen size...

 _what if you wanted to zoom in to a position near the top of the screen?_

Point well taken.

Assuming that the content of interest is a good centimeter or so in from the
edge, you could map that point-to-edge distance to cover the remaining zoom
scale. If it's inside that centimeter, zooming into the middle is useless
anyway.

~~~
eyuelt
_Not any more uncomfortable than single tapping any other part of the screen
one-handed. Of course this depends on screen size..._

You're right, this would probably be perfectly fine on the iPhone, though it
could be annoying on something like a Galaxy S3, especially for someone with
small hands.

 _If it's inside that centimeter, zooming into the middle is useless anyway._

True, but if it always zooms to the middle, the user knows that they need to
center the point that they want to zoom into before they actually zoom.

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shivamantrik23
I love google and all the nice tricks... but every time something google does,
people have orgasm.

Samsung Browser on Galaxy S3 has one hand zoom already. In a browser, drag
your finger up and down to zoom in or out. I miss it on Chrome on Android.

So.. that being said, I am not sure, who is first in implementing one hand
zoom, Google or Samsung or somebody else.

~~~
ville
Nokia N900 had one hand zoom back in 2009. Due to lack of multitouch screen
the zoom gesture was spinning your finger around in circles.

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atesti
Do we actually need multitouch? For zooming webpages I always double tap to
zoom in and have the Android browser rewrap the page. I figured that I
actually don't need multitouch, except for maps. And with this, I could get
rid of it and back to resistive sensors for example

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shurcooL
I don't know what to say here other than that I already knew this for a long
time. :/

Some other tricks I know but no idea if others know also:

\- double tap with one finger to zoom in

\- tap with two fingers simultaneously to zoom out

\- tap and hold finger over selectable content, then move finger to move
selection

\- shake iPhone to undo typing

~~~
monomaniar
And Chinese best Map APP AMap has done it long ago on all platforms also.

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afterburner
You can zoom out with one hand using the spread technique...... it's just more
awkward (you use your thumb tip and the bottom half of your index finger).

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arb99
Never knew about this. It'll probably be something that will catch on fast in
different (non google maps) apps over the next few years.

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sahaskatta
This has been on Android for quite sometime.

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mattprime86
Uh... when I downloaded the new update it specifically mentioned this gesture
and suggested I "try it myself!"

That was months ago.

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qas1981
Wow this is the best find ever! Thanks! I have also found myself nearly
dropping my phone attempting to zoom!

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mlex
Brilliant. Wonder how long it is until this sort of thing is standard on iOS
(a la pull-to-refresh).

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chanux
This was too good (and not that obvious) I first thought it's an April fool's
prank.

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sgloutnikov
I need to double-tap+hold then move up/down to zoom, not just tap and hold.

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ck2
Neat but I sure hope you aren't using this to drive while using your phone.

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bitwize
This is one of those stupid UI tricks that's really clever and neat -- if
you're savvy enough to have already known about it or smart and curious enough
to discover it on your own. In other words, it's like an Emacs keybinding.

What it is NOT is intuitive. Which Apple's pinch-to-zoom IP is.

~~~
gcr
I know I'm being pedantic, but Emacs actually has a _really_ nice built-in
help. You can call up a list of _all_ active bindings, sorted by mode, and
then jump to documentation, and then jump to the elisp implementation. It's
like having your own cheat sheet -- something the iPhone couldn't do.

...why am I comparing iphones to emacs?

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hmottestad
That's not very useful. It just zooms to the center of the page. That's not
really what I want in a map. Two finger zoom lets you pan around while
zooming. So much nicer.

~~~
tsahyt
It is useful for people who either lack a second hand entirely or might not
have it available for whatever reason.

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Evbn
FYI it is a Maps app feature, no an iOS Maps app feature.

