iPhone Search vs. Swipe - A couple of more thoughts…

As I mentioned at the end of my iPhone experiment, I have been making a largely successful effort to get in the habit of using the built in search feature of iPhone OS 3.x to find and launch apps (not to mention data) versus swiping through screens to find and launch an app. In other words, If the app I want to launch is not on my homescreen, I press the home button once, the search box and keyboard pops up, I type in the first few letters of the app, and tap to launch it as soon as I see it in the list.

Assuming I have both hands free, I have found this so far to be a far faster method of launching apps on the iPhone but it also comes with another unforeseen advantage: When you quit the application, you are returned to your main home screen. This is different behavior than “swipe to launch”, which returns you to the screen that you launched the app from. The reason I see it as an advantage is that, due to my experiment, I have only my most frequently used apps on my homescreen. The likelihood that the next app I wish to launch will be one on my home screen is high. Therefore, another speed advantage is often gained as I will not have to swipe to where I want to go next, I’ll already be there.