- Siri AI is getting a new gesture in iOS 27
- It’s taking over the well-established Notification Center gesture
- That breaks 15 years of muscle memory and may be hard to get used to
When Apple introduced Siri AI at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8, it understandably wanted to make its AI-enhanced virtual assistant become a key part of people’s everyday lives. But in doing so, it looks like the company has taken a step that could annoy a significant portion of its user-base.
That’s because invoking Siri AI involves a new gesture: you swipe down from the top of your iPhone’s screen. Well, it’s new for Siri, as swiping down on your iOS display previously launched the Notification Center. That means users of the best iPhones could be left frustratingly confused after they update to iOS 27.
The iOS Notification Center is where you see and interact with all your alerts on your iPhone. Apple has used the swipe-down gesture for the Notification Center since 2011, meaning we’ve had 15 years of training to reinforce this gesture. Having Siri AI take over this swipe movement is going to take some getting used to, if it does indeed make it into the final version of iOS 27.
The Notification Center hasn’t been banished entirely — in iOS 27, you’ll be able to load it up by swiping downwards from the top-left corner of your display. Thankfully, that gesture isn’t used by any other iOS feature, so we’re not going to be left with a cascading set of muscle memory disruptions. But it’s still something that a lot of people won’t be familiar with.
The new order
While I understand Apple’s desire to make Siri AI as prominent as possible, I anticipate I’m going to make plenty of mistakes swiping in the wrong place until I get used to the new arrangement. After all, I’ve had an iPhone since the days of the iPhone 3GS, meaning I’ve gone through those full 15 years of swiping down to get the Notification Center. Undoing that kind of habit isn’t always easy.
As well as that, swiping down from the top-left corner is an entirely new action, as no other feature currently occupies that space. It’s not like I’ll be used to interacting with that side of the screen from past experience.
Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Apple, it’s that its gestures are incredibly intuitive and can be learned with very little effort. When the iPhone X came along in 2017 and changed not just one gesture but the entire way you used iOS, it only took me a day or two to feel entirely comfortable with the new arrangement. I’ve got my fingers crossed for similar good luck this time around.
And besides, if Siri AI proves to be even half as impressive as Apple implied at WWDC, I’ll be happy to have it in such a prominent place on my iPhone. The Notification Center isn’t going away — it’s just having to make way for the new kid on the block.
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alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
