Regarding iPhone Touchscreen Accuracy

Nick Arnott, regarding the results of a robot-driven test that suggested the Galaxy S3 has vastly superior touchscreen accuracy to the iPhone 5S and 5C:

I haven’t been able to find official documentation on this, but I think this behavior is intentional compensation being done by Apple. Have you ever tried tapping on an iPad or iPhone while it’s upside-down to you, like when you’re showing something to a friend and you try tapping while they’re holding the device? It seems nearly impossible. The device never cooperates. If the iPhone is compensating for taps based on assumptions about how it is being held and interacted with, this would make total sense. If you tap on a device while it’s upside-down, not only would you not receive the benefit of the compensation, but it would be working against you. Tapping on the device, the iPhone would assume you meant to tap higher, when in reality, you’re upside down and likely already tapping higher than you mean to, resulting in you completely missing what you’re trying to tap.

There’s no doubt in my mind that iOS touch recognition is offset in this way. It is interesting, though, that the test results suggest that the iPhone has a built-in right thumb bias.

Update: A little birdie tells me they “don’t think there’s a right-thumb bias” in iOS. Could just be a problem in OptoFidelity’s testing, which is impossible to prove given the dearth of documentation provided about how the tests were actually performed.

★ Monday, 28 October 2013