As regular readers will know, it took a little while for the Apple Watch to really grow on me. But even back when I wasn’t convinced I needed a smartwatch, I still had to admire the design. And the Digital Crown was a large part of how Apple got the smartwatch right when others hadn’t yet cracked it. A fundamental problem with a small touchscreen is that touching it covers up much of the content. The Digital Crown overcomes that, allowing us to scroll content without our thumb getting in the way.
But while today’s iPhone screens may be larger than they used to be, they are still pretty small in the scheme of things. Scrolling with a thumb still covers up a chunk of the content. Worse, it’s easy to accidentally tap on targets accidentally including ads. There have been numerous occasions since using Apple Watch when my thumb started absent-mindedly reaching for the non-existent Digital Crown on my iPhone …
A thumbwheel to scroll content isn’t a new idea, of course. I had one on my very first smartphone, the Handspring Treo 180 back in 2002.
Blackberries had them, as did some early Sony devices.
Technology moved on, touchscreens got more responsive and Apple of course introduced multi-touch. Those quaint hardware scrolling devices all seemed unnecessary.
But using the Apple Watch reminded me that for certain tasks – like scrolling content just to read it, not to interact with it – a hardware thumbwheel is still a very effective solution. The more I use my Watch, the more I find myself missing it on my iPhone.
For a while, I thought I was alone in this crazy thought, but some of you guys have expressed the same wish in comments on various pieces here. There are even concept images for it out there (albeit with the wheel too high up for comfortable operation, I think).
There is, of course, no chance of it happening in the short term. Apple is all about sleek, minimalist design. It has aimed to remove hardware wherever possible (like the mute switch on the iPad Air 2), a principle it adopted long before Jony Ive appeared on the scene. Even on the original Macintosh, way back in 1984 (yes, I’m old, I owned one), Apple decided the floppy drive didn’t need a hardware eject button, that could be done by software – with just a pinhole eject mechanism hidden inside in case the software failed.
The idea of bolting on a physical control mechanism to the side of an iPhone would fill Apple’s design team with horror, I’m sure.
Another possibility would be trackpad-style functionality in the home button. Apple has even patented a pop-up home button that acts as a tiny joystick.
But as I mentioned then, I think Apple is headed in the opposite direction: seeking to lose the hardware home button and find a way to embed one in the display. Mark Gurman even suggested losing the physical home button back in 2011.
However … if Apple does succeed in replacing the physical home button with a virtual one, might losing one piece of hardware then make it acceptable to introduce another? Could that be the time when some very old technology, dating back to 2002, might make a fresh appearance?
After all, by that time, the Apple Watch is likely to be a more mainstream device. A far larger number of Apple owners would be used to the Digital Crown as a control mechanism, and perhaps they too will find themselves starting to wish they had it on the iPhone.
Take our poll, and please let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Digital crown concept images Antonio De Rosa; Macintosh photo tkc8800.
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How about a touch-sensitive area on the bezel? They could have done something similar on the watch but then it wouldn’t have had the traditional watch appearance now that tactile rolling feel. Digital rotary encoders and other mechanical interfaces really don’t belong on a contemporary phone.
+1 … and this is exactly why I came to the comment section was to advocate for this very feature. I don’t generally care for the digital crown on my Watch and especially when I first got the Watch I kept finding myself sliding my finger along the bezel in order to try and scroll. Its so natural… you want your finger to be out of the way of the content but you also want to be able to push/pull your content along as we have done for many years now on the iPhone.
Bezel multi-touch capability could have enormously profound number of uses on an iPhone. The detection of your finger sliding off the main screen, detection of whether you are holding the phone in your left/right hand (or not at all), and the ability to grasp the phone many different ways and simply trail your finger up and down your preferred side/spot to scroll based on how it was comfortable for YOU to hold the phone.
I’ve thought the same thing. Either on the bezel or even on the back near the Apple logo. Just some convenient way to scroll without covering up the screen with your finger.
I do not see having a touch sensitive area on the bezel being beneficial. The reason why touch screens are so popular is the 1 to 1 direct contact with the media below. Having controls on a non-screen section is, in a way, like interacting with a keyboard/laptop & a trackpad/mouse.
Having said that, the digital crown on the apple watch has that same characteristic of controlling a on screen item, without that 1 to 1 direct contact with the media. I believe apple uses the digital crown on the apple watch due to the small real estate of the screen. So using your finger would cover up most of the content while you scroll. While the iPhone does have the real estate to use touch input without covering up the entire screen while the user does so.
I do however, find what “Addilapi” said below about bezel detection of left or right hand holding.
Food for thought: Since apple is more than likely in the long run, do away with any physical movement of keyboards, and already trackpads. What if apple removed the physical home button and used the “Taptic” feedback in order to simulate a home button push. The same could be done for the volume buttons on the side. What if apple removed the volume keys and instead, use the Taptic feedback to simulate a physical press, or allowed the user to swipe up or down the side of the phone (possibly left or right side) in order to change the volume.
…fun thoughts!
What if you could squize your phone to turn on and off the phone instead of a physical button? (turning on the phone by doing this could be…challenging since the power is “off”…
This is pure insanity! And that’s *my* opinion. (see what I did there?) :-P
Please tell me you are writing satire now Ben. PLEASE!
And – where are the polls? Unless Firefox is blocking them – I don’t see any Polls to vote on.
No. Just no.
Jog dial on my P800, P910i, P990i and P1 were amazing. Not sure if it was because of the resistive touchscreen failings. But i found it useful.
I feel like the issue would come with accessibility. Imagine how hard it would be to make that useful for both left handed people and right handed people. Apple wouldn’t want to make 2 versions for both hand preferences, and unlike the watch it is much more difficult for them to make an iPhone that would have no head, and could be flipped both ways. Although, that might not be a bad idea. Another thing I would worry about would be the ergonomics of the scroll wheel if placed onto the phone like a digital crown. It also would be against the design philosophy, the whole idea of the touch screen is so that you can manipulate digital content with physical controls. It’s supposed to create the illusion of actually interacting with these objects physically. But adding a scroll wheel would destroy that, because instead of you actually interfacing with the content you begin interfacing with a sort of remote and I don’t really see that as progressive. However I really appreciate the digital crown on the watch and think it could be helpful when you have to scroll through things. I just wish there was a better way to execute it. I think there is a post on another website that ponders this question as well their solution is quite nice but still I feel like it would be difficult to implement this solution from a UX stand point
What about making the power button a little longer and touch sensitive. This could allow the user to “Scoll” by sliding their finger over the button. This would allow the device to keep is sleek design.
That would be cool!
What’s up with all these stupid opinion articles lately??
There are probably better ways to achieve that end. Like turning the home button (which I predict will stop having a mechanical click and will adopt the taptic pseudo-click) into a trackpoint when you force-touch it.
lol
Umm Really??? A Jog dial on an Iphone? I thought we were progressing with time, not Digressing… keep it on the Iwatch and off the Iphone. Geez!!! some things people come up with… The less things sticking out of the phone the better…
Do you know why the watch have it? Cause the screen is too small to use it as a touch screen, so why go back in time and use something old when we have a touch screen on the phone…
I’m guessing those who voted “no” either don’t have an Apple Watch (and haven’t become addicted to the digital crown) or never had a blackberry with a scroll wheel (and got addicted to it then). Because anyone I know who has had either of these devices loves the wheel.
No thanks, I love my Apple Watch and its digital crown, but the crown wouldn’t make any sense on the iPhone as there is already plenty of space on the screen to scroll without covering the content!
No, no, no, a THOUSAND times NO. Force touch soft buttons (Home, Vol, ON/Off, Mute) on the screen, embedded scanner; edge to edge screen; and you can squeeze that 6 Plus down to 130mmx72mm (give or take a silly mm). Now that would be worth pursuing, not another feature hanging off the side or back of the device), To rip off a line from Da Vinci Code, that camera “Is a scar on the face of iPhone!”
Completely out of topic… Is just weird to see on 9to5Mac website a auto play video publicity of Samsung Galaxy…
If Apple were to make it a scroll wheel similar to the early days of the BlackBerry then maybe. The Digital Wheel sticking out like that on the phone can very easily become damaged. Especially for those people that keep their phone in their pockets. I for one use the clip for your belt.
Good grief, no! Less moving parts not more!
Flushed buttons are better than a dial
“Simplicity is not the absence of clutter; that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That’s not simple.” JONY IVE
It’s a good thing this is just an opinion.
First time I’ll have said this about 9to5, but this article just seems like pure filler.
That, or it’s the goofiest article uploaded to the site, ever.
I love my watch but any find a point for the digital crown on that let alone adding it to the phone lol
I hope they ditch the crown on the next version of the watch so we can forget it was ever there :)
the thumbwheel was the best part of the blackberry. It all fell apart for them when they removed the thumbwheel
I love… no, wait…. LOVE my Apple Watch, but I think the idea of a digital crown on the iPhone is completely stupid. The digital crown on the watch is 2 things: One its a modern play on a traditional feature of a watch, and Two, it solves a real UI problem on such a small screen. Neither of these are related to a smartphone.
ive been wanting this since apple watch day 1
A knob is the best controller for a number of things. Pong would never have launched the video game revolution without one. Volume knob, scroll knob, zoom knob, lots of contextual uses.
Hey, it looks like they were thinking about it for some of the iPhone prototypes… http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/26/6852327/digital-crown-on-an-iphone
This a step backwards in my opinion
Haptic feedback is okay but not the Crown please.
I’d personally rather see the Touch ID/Home Button also work as a tiny touch pad. ‘Scroll’ on that rather than playing with a digital crown on the side. That way it can go in any direction instead of just up and down.
In fact apple should integrate the floppy disk drive into the iPhone:) We’ve been crying for extendable storage for so long
this is sad.
Just rotate the protruding camera lens. On iPhone 7 this will scroll the current table view or zoom if you’re in the camera app.