iOS 8's new "slow tap" heuristic

Hey all,

just a quick heads-up on some weird new heuristic behavior that I've 
encountered in iOS 8 / Safari (and the new WKWebView, but NOT the old 
UIWebView) concerning touch events. I came across this while doing a bit 
of documentation on approaches to remove the 300ms delay [1]

It seems Apple implemented a "slow tap" heuristic, which distinguishes 
between a quick tap (where the time difference between touchstart and 
touchend is < 125ms or thereabouts)  and a "slow tap" (where the time 
delta is > 125ms). [2]

Quick taps behave the same as before in iOS 7 - they cause the classic 
300ms delay after touchend and before mouse compatibility + click events 
are fire. Nothing new here.

Slow taps, however, optimise away the 300ms delay - mouse compatibility 
+ click events are fired instantly after touchend. [3]

More bizarrely, though, slow taps now also fire mouse compatibility + 
click events when touchend has been cancelled (e.g. with 
preventDefault). [4] [5]
This seems to be a bug, rather than a feature - suspect this is an 
unforeseen consequence of this heuristic behavior, as I can't come up 
with any good reason why this should be so. I'll be filing a bug on 
WebKit and see if we can get some clarification on this...

[1] 
http://patrickhlauke.github.io/touch/tests/results/#suppressing-300ms-delay
[2] https://github.com/ftlabs/fastclick/issues/262#issuecomment-56363076
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-UiuPp2CK0
[4] https://github.com/ftlabs/fastclick/issues/262#issuecomment-56642232
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i787lZCL_YQ

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
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twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

Received on Wednesday, 24 September 2014 09:24:45 UTC