The problem comes from rapid diagonal swipes. On any other device, rapidly swiping in this direction won’t cause any hiccups, but the iPhone 5 has a tendency to stall and freeze up when users swipe too aggressively in a diagonal pattern. This issue definitely won’t affect the general user, but it may cause some big problems for future game developers and fans of high-energy arcade games.
Take for example the hit iOS title, Fruit Ninja, which has players frantically swiping and slashing across their screen to slice pieces of flying fruit in half. The later levels of this game toss mass amounts of fruit at the player, and it’s situations like that where a rapidly diagonal swipe could freeze the screen up that could downright ruin the game, especially if you’re going for a high score.
It’s not just current games that will be affected. With a glaring error like this, developers may be forced to redesign their control scheme to ensure that stalls and freeze-ups don’t plague their title. This problem could spell disaster for companies that are ready to release their title today, specifically if their game uses a rapid diagonal swiping control.
The cause for the stalling has yet to be determined, but is most likely a hardware or software issue. Apple did just release an update to iOS 6.0.1, but with other devices running the upgraded operating system without issue, it is very unlikely that that problem is from software. That means that the issue is most likely due to a hardware failure, possibly in the iPhone 5’s new touch screen technology. Apple has upgraded to a better, more accurate touch cell system in its latest generations of iPhones, and conflicting parts within the iPhone 5 could easily be causing the problem. A software failure, though unlikely, would be a much easier fix as the company could patch it by releasing an updated version of iOS 6.
Apple has yet to comment about these new findings. For now, it seems that particular game developers are at a standstill, waiting for any news about a potential fix for this issue. We will keep all of you updated about recent findings regarding the problem as soon as we hear about them!
Photo Credit: Apple