Study finds iPhone 5s and 5c touchscreens inaccurate

[Draconian Guppy]

So, iPhone touchscreens are fast in terms of responsiveness but are they accurate? They are not, says test automation firm OptoFidelity. Using a couple of home-brewed machines the company found that the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are quick to react to user input but can?t track your finger as accurately as a 18 months-old Samsung Galaxy S III.

 

The test was performed by an accurate robotic finger that touched the screen at specific coordinates and compared it to what the phone reports as the touch coordinates. You can see one of their machines here.

 

The Samsung Galaxy S III is accurate over the whole screen except for the very edge, while both the iPhone 5s and 5c screens are accurate only over a relatively small area in the bottom half of the screen (which, not coincidentally is where the on-screen keyboard is).

Here?s the chart made by OptoFidelity ? green means the reported coordinates are accurate to within a millimeter, while red means an error of over a millimeter.

 

 

One millimeter doesn?t sound like much, right? The real-life implications are bigger than the number would suggest though. The iPhones are especially inaccurate around the edges, which means that letters Q, O and P are on the on-screen keyboard are hard to hit. Here?s how the accuracy chart overlays the top row of the iPhone keyboard.

 

 

And here?s the same image for the Galaxy S III.

 

Have you ever had problems with accuracy on your iPhone 5s or 5c? If you have, now you know why.

 

 

 

Sauce:  http://blog.gsmarena.com/tests-show-iphone-5s-and-5c-touchscreens-are-inaccurate/

[Astra.Xtreme]

Hmm, well I never would have guessed that.  I just typed a few test notes on my 5S and the accuracy seemed fine to me.  I could drift my finger over towards the bezel and it would still pickup the Qs and Ps just fine every time.

 

I'm not doubting their results, but personally I would think a laggy response time is much more severe than a tiny inaccuracy.

[Sandor]

Quick...pull up every Jony Ive video, ever, where he talks about "build quality"

[DConnell Member]

Obviously the testing machine was touching it wrong . . . :rofl:

[User6060]

after jobs died the quest for perfection was put aside....the accelerometers on the new devices are much less accurate and apparently so do the touch panels.

 

why change parts from the 5 if they are working well??

[Xilo]

after jobs died the quest for perfection was put aside....the accelerometers on the new devices are much less accurate and apparently so do the touch panels.

 

why change parts from the 5 if they are working well??

1. Switch to inferior parts

2. Save on production costs

3. Sell phone for same price

4. More profit for Apple

[Growled Member]

I've had tremendous problems texting on my wife's iPhone, and now I know why.

[Astra.Xtreme]

after jobs died the quest for perfection was put aside....the accelerometers on the new devices are much less accurate 

The accelerometer thing was a software bug which was repaired in the update that was released this week.  It was a calibration issue, but it works fine now.

[User6060]

The accelerometer thing was a software bug which was repaired in the update that was released this week.  It was a calibration issue, but it works fine now.

 

it was calibrated wrong because the older parts had a different bias. the new chips have a much larger bias and the software now needs to reflect this. 

[Draconian Guppy]

after jobs died the quest for perfection was put aside....the accelerometers on the new devices are much less accurate and apparently so do the touch panels.

 

why change parts from the 5 if they are working well??

 

 

The accelerometer thing was a software bug which was repaired in the update that was released this week.  It was a calibration issue, but it works fine now.

 

 

it was calibrated wrong because the older parts had a different bias. the new chips have a much larger bias and the software now needs to reflect this. 

Yeah it something to do with the new chips per se and that they had to be calibrated  ( or needed bigger calibration bias, don't recall, but it is supposedly a hardware issue, that was fixed the accelerometer, but reduce the sensitivity by 0.001 or something like that... )