“Years from now, will we look back and realize that Apple’s biggest innovation was not a device, but rather a physical gesture?” Scott Gillum asks for Forbes. “The right-to-left swiping motion used with Apple devices to sort through photos or to navigate certain apps is quickly altering how we seek and absorb information.”
“David Payne, chief digital officer of Gannett & Co. Inc., parent company of USA Today, delivered this point eloquently at the Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit earlier this month. In his opening speech, he pointed out that the digital world changed when Apple introduced “touch” with the iPod, and then more broadly with the iPhone,” Gillum writes. “Touch screens had been around for years, but Apple brought them into our daily lives, in particular with the iPhone. As a result, the way we engage and interact with devices has changed, as evidenced by the dramatic decline in sales of the BlackBerry. And now with the explosive growth of the iPad, it’s about to change again. This time, though, it will be even more dramatic.”
Gillum writes, “Payne referred to the “swipe” as the game-changer, or as he called to it, ‘petting the cat.’ This new right-to-left world has caused Gannett to rethink the traditional ‘top-to-bottom’ experience of its websites, in particular how it organizes content. As evidence, Gannett has incorporated this new ‘petting the cat’ thinking into its new USA Today app.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Speaking of swiping. If you’re not yet using a four-finger left and right swipes on your iPad to quickly move between your most recently used apps, you should be.