Apple Patents A Clever UI Trick For Using Your Phone With One Hand

The patent shows an iPhone that can dynamically adjust its UI to the way it’s being held

Criticizing larger, so-called « phablets, » Steve Jobs once said that the iPhone was the perfect size, because you could easily use it with one hand. Today, though, the majority of smartphones Apple makes are too big for ergonomic one-handed use, and while iOS has a built-in one-handed mode called Reachability, it’s pretty limited, essentially cutting the screen in half. A new patent from Cupertino suggests an intriguing alternative: an iPhone that can dynamically adjust its UI to the way it’s being held.

In the newly published patent, which was first filed in late 2014 around the time of the iPhone 6’s debut, Apple describes a way for an iPhone to detect how it’s being held. The phone dynamically adjusts where buttons and on-screen controls are positioned, accordingly. So if you’re holding your iPhone with the right hand, iOS might display a special keyboard for one-handed use on the bottom right of the device, or adjust the buttons in an app so you can hit them with your thumbs.

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