Google Maps Adds Kinetic Scrolling

Google Maps has been updated and it now uses kinetic scrolling, a feature inspired by operating systems designed for touch screens. Click on the map, quickly move your mouse and then release it. You'll notice that the map continues to move with the momentum created after you released the mouse.

Now that mobile Google Maps uses the buttons from the desktop interface and both interfaces use kinetic scroll, Google Maps is more consistent.

"Kinetic scrolling is the popular term to denote the scrolling of a long list with a bit of physics so that user feels like moving a wheel. Such a list view is then often referred as a flick list, caused the scrolling involves some sort of flicking gestures. Made popular in iPhone, flick list quickly invades other mobile platforms with touch screen because it just feels so natural and more usable than using the conventional approach of scroll bars," explains Ariya Hidayat.


{ Thanks, que. }