Button sensitivity issue on iPad, iOS 6

[jangles4]

REQUIRED INFORMATION

Sencha version tested:

• Touch Charts 2.0.0 beta - 2.0.0b

Browser versions tested against:

• Safari on third generation iPads running iOS 6

Description:

• We have a fairly complex application running reasonably well on a variety of iOS & Android phones and pads. On upgrading to iOS 6 on our iPads we have a new issue. For periods of time all of our buttons require multiple presses before acting. Sometimes 5 or even 8 presses are needed. The buttons transition from normal to pressed to normal immediately, as though without a handler. By chance we stumbled on a workaround. When this happens we begin touching the screen with the lightest possible touch (we call it feather-touch) and the buttons respond perfectly every time, as does the app. A stylus has the same effect. Obviously the touch area is probably the primary result of the feather touch but our buttons are pretty big and were big enough before the iOS upgrade.

Steps to reproduce the problem:

• None at this time. It comes and goes when we run our app but 10 minutes of usage is guaranteed to invoke a several minute occurrence. We wanted to get the feather-touch workaround out as quickly as possible in case anyone else was being frustrated by the issue. I don't think we see it on the example apps. We'll see if we can put together a case.

The result that was expected:

• Working buttons and app as before

The result that occurs instead:

• Button require many presses unless feather-touch is employed

Test Case:

• none at this time

[jangles4]

It seems we have another symptom that starts when the buttons are misbehaving. Touching a field in any form in the app causes the vertical scroll to appear on the right side of the form and the field to not be selected. It can take the same number of field touches as extra button touches, 5 or even more sometimes, to get the field to finally be selected. This only happens when the buttons have the issue. Finally, the workaround is the same. Use the feather-touch when the problem starts and the field is selected on the first touch every time.

[mitchellsimoens]

I would need a test case to reproduce this. My forms work on iOS 6 with no issues on iPad and iPhone.

[jangles4]

Since no one else is reporting it I guess we have to conclude it is something unique to our app. The native app we are generating is much less affected by the problem. As that is the primary target I guess we're not going to try to extract a test case from our app at this time but we may come back to this later. Thanks.

[potnurikumar]

I am having the same issue with IOS6. In IOS5 the application is working fine.
But in IOS6 i am facing touch sensitivity issue with buttons. some times i need to tap the button nearly 4 to 6 times to make it work.
It is a Hybrid application which is meant to be run on iPad.

[Johan Casier]

Same problem here. In particular Sencha Touch 2.1.0 with itemTap and iPad 3rd gen on ios6.
I'm working around the issue by using ItemTouchStart but it ain't pretty.

I am seeing similar issues with normal buttons, in particular the navigationview back button.
Buttons don't expose the TouchStart events though so some more invasive surgery will be needed.

iOS simulators and iphone do not seem to show the problem.

[warrean]

I'm currently also looking for a workaround for issues like this, a way to increase the button sensitivity.

This is a major performance issue, because it gives the impression that the app is unresponsive or very slow. I've seen lots of users pressing harder on the screen, making it even less likely for the button-handler to be called.

NavigationView back buttons are very insensitive, and tabBars with icons docked to the Top too (you really have to press the center).

[Johan Casier]

Something needs to be done to make Sencha Touch more resilient to 'Sloppy Tappers'.
I can be mitigated somewhat by doing this (courtesy of the Touch devs) :

Ext.application({


   ...


    eventPublishers: {
        touchGesture: {
            moveThrottle: 5
        }
    },

   ...

It makes it 'acceptable' though not 'fixed'.

There is indeed still a different 'feel' to a Sencha Touch app vs a native solution.
There is a button implementation out there that fixes it for buttons that you can control but it's not a real solution. This also affects embedded buttons like the navigation view back button, dataview and list item tap and things like the tap-to-focus textfields in forms so the fix has to go into the framework.

I would really like Sencha to make this a top priority because it's very visible and it may be a deal breaker for many.

[shepsii]

+1 on this. It needs to be looked into, especially with the advent of iPad minis.

[william.cheung]

+1 on this. This problem is getting worst as the displays are retina since each pixel on screen is very small, and it's very hard to tap perfectly. The moveThrottle only temporarily fix the issue but it makes the sliding a bit choppy - makes people to think the app is not responsive either.