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Use iPhone button to change pages? Plus the TeleBlog’s new look for iP fans—and a way to make iP screenshots
July 19, 2008 | 8:41 am
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By David Rothman
The iPhone desktop needs an e-book icon appearing on every new unit.
I’ve already said the book industry should pursue that idea with Apple and others in the name of literacy, not just profits.
Now how about something else—this time aimed directly at the iPhone-related technical community? Why not turn the button at the bottom of the iPhone and iPod Touch into a page-advance control for e-reading software and maybe even other apps such as the Safari browser?
The nuts and bolts
Right now the button serves as a way to go back to the iPhone desktop/home or wake up a snoozing iPhone, and in fact it could function that way normally.
But when you were inside an e-book program, a quick press of the button would send you ahead a page rather than back to the iPhone’s home page. By holding down the button for a longer time, you indeed would go home.
Touching the screen in the lower right is fine as a page-changer; and some programs like Stanza allow this. But the button approach would allow page-aheads without obscuring text and it would also make one-handed operation of the iPhone a little easier. I’d especially welcome thoughts on this from iPhone app developers. Is it even possible you could pull off the button trick without changes at the Apple firmware level? If not, maybe this is something to happen when the next update occurs. Care to lobby Apple for it? Longer term, how about physical controls on the iPhone and iPod Touch to make this workaround unnecessary? Meanwhile a detail: Yes, purists will say I mean screens rather than pages. So be it.
The TeleBlogs iPhone look for iPh/Touch owners
Elsewhere on the iPhone front, I’ve just installed the IWPhone plug-in for WordPress, so that iPhone and Touch owners reading the the TeleBlog can enjoy an interface similar to the usual one on their devices. Actually this could be a reinstallation. We had iPhone capabilities earlier but had to disable them because of a plug-in conflict. The current IWPhone may not work with certain caching programs. If the gods are on my side, the special view will be visible only to iPhone and iTouch users.
An easy way to make screen shots—using built-in iPhone/iTouch software
In case you’re wondering how I made the above screenshot, I used a tip from Gizmodo. Then I synchronized my iPod Touch with my Windows PC. A window popped up asking if I wanted to import the image, and I said yes, then went on to paste it into the Windows Live program I use to write posts. Same basic concept should most likely work for other sets. So now if you write an iPhone-related article for us on an e-reading topic, you’ll have an easy way to show what you mean.
Updating your WordPress blog with the iPhone
Finally, if you want to use your iPhone to update or administer your WordPress blog, you may want to check out this plug-in (screenshots).
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Comments:
No no no no no. Don’t mess with the one button on the iPhone! (Well, thereare others, but that fat one on the front!). It does one thing, let it alone to do that. Besides, using buttons is just so … antique!
Wow, Teleread looks GREAT iPhoned!!
Another approach to page-turns in the iPhone is to use the accelerometer. Jerk the phone to one side and back, and the page flips.
I don’t know how feasible it is to build this in, but it would be easier than accessing the button, I imagine.
There’s absolutely no way this will ever happen. Consistency in the user interface is a religious covenant at Apple, and there’s not even a remote possibility they would provide application developers with the ability to change the behavior of that button. This is, IMHO, a Good Thing.
Well, Apple itself enhanced the button by allowing it to do screenshots (in combo with the Power button), but going further than that is the Way of Nokia. Don’t Go There!
“Don’t Go There!”
Oh, please do, Mike! For us e-book fans, what’s a more basic function than page changing? It’s a lot more important than screenshots. Here’s one rule worth breaking again.
Thanks,
David
I can’t believe suddenly you’re complaining about having to swipe to change a page. You did it with p! Did you ask for a button then?! What abomination of a change will you ask for when your ebooks have Cover Flow?! Ha!
Oh, and David, I think you’ll eventually *adore* that screensnap function. Just wait til you hit a book passage you want to keep. That might be the *only* way to do so. Better hope the function is global and can’t be *disabled* for ebooks!
Actually, Mike, with Stanza and also BookShelf if I’m not mistaken, a mere touch will change the page. BUT that obscures text even if just briefly, and it makes on-handed operation of the iPhone/Touch more difficult.
As for the snapshot function, I love it. And it works when you’re also pressing the switch. So you could still have both that and the page-changing button. No “either or.” I mentioned the snapshot capability in agreement that the rule already had been broken.
Oh, and I also like Pond’s accelerometer idea.
Thanks,
David
I have Stanza on my iPhone, like it a lot.
I do not like this proposal at all.
It is *way* easier to tap gently on the screen than to push a button designed to respond only to deliberate pressure. Similarly, jerking the phone would be a big hassle.
I have no problem tapping the screen one-handed.
Hi, Dance. Thanks for speaking up. Hey, at least we agree on Stanza. As for the tap function, maybe it could be enabled in a set-up mode for those who wanted it. Thanks. David