Using HTC TouchFLO™ Gesture Based Technology

The TouchFLO™ gesture based input technology from HTC is a very real advance in mobile device input and control, in my opinion. Similar to some of the gesture based software used in the 2G Apple iPhone™, it represents one of those paradigm changes that comes along every once in a while.

Instead of having to hit (and often miss) specific text or icon graphics on the screen, you simply stroke the screen with your finger in specific directions, and it generally doesn't matter where on the screen you do this.

You can browse and pan web pages just by gesturing, and navigate through contacts (scroll up, down, pan left, right) and other lists just by moving your finger around.

3D Touch Cube Interface: a New Menu System:

-stroke your finger from the bottom of the screen towards the top: the 3D cube menu system is activated

-stroke your finger from left to right across the touch screen when the cube is activated: the cube menu rotates to the next face with new menu items

-stroke your finger from right to left when the cube is activated: the cube menu rotates the opposite way to the next face with new menu items

-stroke your finger from top to bottom: the cube disappears and the regular 'Today' screen appears once again.

The picture above was captured just as the cube is rotating from one menu face to the next. It shrinks as it rotates so that you can see the 3D effect, then the menu expands to full screen once it has rotated. Very cool.

Camera Album:

• stroke your finger left to right across the picture - the screen advances to the next picture in the album
• stroke your finger right to left across the picture - the screen displays the previous picture in the album
• draw a clockwise circle on the picture - the screen zooms in on the picture in the area the circle was drawn (you can zoom again and again)
• draw a counter-clockwise circle - the screen zooms out
• draw a clockwise semi-circle - the screen rotates 90 degrees in that direction (you can keep rotating until you come back to the original position)
• draw a counter-clockwise circle - the screen rotates in the other direction, as above
• double tap - fits picture to screen
• long press enters pan mode where you can drag the picture around to see different areas of it

 The partially completed white circle around the child's face in the picture above shows how you might draw a zoom gesture on the screen. The picture below shows the resulting zoomed image. Simply double tap the screen to return to the 'fit to window' mode, or draw another circle to zoom in further, or draw a reverse circle to zoom out. Very very cool!

NEXT: A Brief History of Mobile Internet