iPhone Has Most Accurate Touchscreen?

By Geoff Duncan January 11, 2010

google-nexus-one-front — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Moto Development Group—no connection with Motorola—decided to test the Google Nexus One, the Motorola Droid, and the Apple iPhone to see which had the most accurate touchscreen? The winner? The Apple iPhone…although even it showed a few shortcomings.

The Moto group claims to have heard of experience developing capacitive touchscreen products, and came up with a simple DIY test to evaluate the accuracy of touchscreen sensors: use a drawing application to create a grid, print it out, rotate the grid so its lines are at about a 45 degree angle to the vertical axis of a touchscreen, then use a drawing application while tracing over the grid using both light and moderate finger pressure.

The Moto group found the iPhone touchscreen did a reasonable good job of capturing straight lines, while all three Android phones fell short, particularly with light pressure. The iPhone did demonstrate some loss of sensitivity at the edges of the display—the Moto group declared both the Droid Eris and Nexus One better at the edge. Overall, however, Android phones seem to exhibit significant waving and stair-stepping across their displays.

“On inferior touchscreens, it’s basically impossible to draw straight lines,” the Moto group wrote in its blog. With light pressure, “artifacts will increase significantly, showing which device is really the best with a weak signal. This is important because quick keyboard use and light flicks on the screen really push the limits of the touch panel’s ability to sense.”

apple_iphone_3g-251x300 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Of course, fans of various Android platforms are disputing the results of these DIY tests, and claim to achieve much better results on their Android-based devices than the Moto group’s video and results. Regardless, one of the Moto groups main points bears some consideration: “When a manufacturer gets it right, the device tracks touch inputs almost as if they were connected to physical objects in the real world. Get it wrong and consumers end up with inferior touchscreen systems that are inaccurate, insensitive, and absolutely infuriating to use for typing.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Mobile

This one Apple Fitness feature completely changed how I exercise

Someone holding an iPhone with the Apple Fitness app open, showing the Custom Plans feature.

I have a confession to make: I'm not good at sticking to a workout routine. I love running, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), strength training, etc. In the moment of those exercises and in the post-workout euphoria, I feel amazing. But when it comes to waking up early in the morning to do these things before work? Well, that's where I really struggle.

This has been a problem for a while now. I go to bed with the goal of waking up early and going to the gym, but as I groggily open my eyes to snooze the alarm on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, I end up falling back asleep. And I've been repeating this over and over and over again.

Mobile

Best refurbished iPhone deals: Get an iPhone 14 for $513

An iPhone 13 in white color option.

The Apple iPhone is one of the best phones on the market, and because of it they don’t often come cheap. There are some great iPhone deals out there, but it’s rare to find significant discounts on newer models without having to commit to a longterm contract with a carrier, and it’s even less frequent you come across one of the best iPhones with a major price drop. This is where shopping refurbished can come in handy. Refurbished iPhones — for the most part — will come backed with a functionality guarantee or extended return window, making refurbished iPhones as safe of a purchase as shopping new. There are a lot of refurbished iPhone models seeing great price drops right now, which is why we’ve done the heavy lifting of rounding up all of the best refurbished iPhone deals. You’ll find them below, as well as some information on which refurbished iPhone might be best for you.
iPhone XR -- from $136

A refurbished model but one that's unlocked and comes with a full one-year warranty, the Apple iPhone XR is still pretty stylish for its age. It has a large 6.1-inch LCD screen with 1,792 x 828 resolution with Liquid Retina technology ensuring it looks super sharp. Powered by the A12 Bionic chip, it's starting to show its age but still has potential. There's also a 12MP back camera that can shoot 4K videos while the front-facing camera is 7MP and ideal for selfie-taking.

Mobile

Nomad’s new iPhone case and Apple Watch band may be its coolest yet

Nomad Glow 2.0 Sport Case and Apple Watch Sport Band in daylight.

Though the world of Apple accessories is a dime a dozen, one of the better brands that you can buy is Nomad. Nomad has a variety of amazing leather Apple Watch bands and cases, as well as non-leather options, too. In August 2023, Nomad released a one-of-a-kind Glow in the Dark Apple Watch band that sold out in about 12 hours.

Since that Glow in the Dark band was a limited edition, no one was sure if Nomad was going to re-release it, and this explains the high resale prices you’ll find on eBay. But Nomad just released the Glow 2.0 Apple Watch Sport Band as well as a new Glow 2.0 Sport Case for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. And, yes, they're just as wonderful as before.
The new and improved Glow 2.0