Tapping sliders on the iPod

I found a new bit of functionality on my iPod Touch at the weekend. I was turning on the wireless connection so that I could check my e-mail without needing to power-up my desktop machine. To save power, I keep wireless turned off until I need it, and to turn it on I need to go in to the preferences section and move a slider from the 'off' position to 'on', or the reverse to turn it off again.

This doesn't sound too complicated, but the Touch searches for and lists all available wireless connections on the same screen as turning the connection on and off, and although this is the right place to do so it can cause a slight delay in response when trying to slide the switch to turn off the connection.

I assumed this switch needed to be pushed sideways using the touch-screen interface because the design of the switch is of the same type as the interface to unlock the Touch, which requires moving a slider across the width of the screen and teaches the behaviour to slide that kind of switch.

What I found out is that although it is possible to do so I don't need to slide the preference switch to toggle it. The switch acts as a basic toggle when it is tapped, with no sliding required. The device also recongises a simple tap on the switch immediately, unlike trying to slide the relatively small control, and so speeds up changing the settings.

Posted in Audio, Technical |
Tags: apple, ipod