iPhone Hardware

Screen and interface

The 9 cm liquid crystal display HVGA touchscreen with scratch-resistant glass is purposely formed for use with a finger, or multiple fingers for multi-touch sensing. Because the screen is a capacitive touchscreen, bare skin is necessary; a stylus or a normal glove prevent the essential electrical conductivity.

Almost all input is given throughout the touch screens, which understand multifaceted gestures using multi-touch. The iPhone user interfaces enable the user to move the content itself up or down by a touch-drag movement of the finger. For example, zooming in and out of web pages and photos is done by insertion two fingers on the screen and dispersal them farther apart or bringing them closer together.

Similarly, scrolling during a long list in a menu works as if the list is pasted on the outer surface of a wheel: the wheel can be "spun" by sliding a finger over the present from bottom to top.

A single "home" hardware button below the show brings up the main menu. Subselections are finished via the touchscreen. The iPhone utilizes a full-paged display, with context-specific submenus at the top and/or bottom of each page, sometimes depending on screen direction. Detail pages display the comparable of a "Back" button to return to the parent menu.

The iPhone has three physical switches on its sides: wake/sleep, volume up/down, and ringer on/off. These are made of artificial on the original iPhone and metal on the iPhone 3G. All other multimedia and phone operation are done via the touchscreen. The iPhone 3G features a full plastic back to augment GSM signal strength. It also comes in white wholly for the 16GB model.