There is a much faster way to scroll on your iPhone

Do you know how to scroll efficiently on iPhone? How to master the scroll bar on iOS.

When you start scrolling through a long web page, conversation thread, or any document on your iPhone, you’ll see a scroll bar appear on the right edge of the screen. This one is thin, grey, slightly transparent and disappears almost instantly as soon as you stop scrolling, as if the apple branding didn’t want it there. But it’s better to have it there. In truth, if you’re ignoring that scrollbar on your iPhone screen, you’re misunderstanding the art of scrolling.

Do you know how to scroll efficiently on iPhone?

Scrollbars serve several purposes in our operating systems. First, you can click on the top of the latter to go to the top of the page, or at least go up, and on the bottom to go down the page. But interfaces got better over time, we could click anywhere on the panel itself and use the mouse to move vertically on the page with ease and precision. This is how we’ve been using scrolling on our desktops since the 1970s, and it’s still used today (although scroll wheels and other trackpads are more popular).

How to master the scrollbar on iOS

It turns out you can do the same on your iPhone. Swipe once to bring up the scroll bar, then touch and hold the gray bar at the edge of the screen. When you feel your iPhone vibrate, that’s a signal: you can now control the scrollbar. Swipe up or down to navigate much faster. Once you get the hang of the movement, you can scroll through long pages very quickly and accurately on your iPhone.

It’s not the only slightly odd gesture that makes it easier to navigate the iPhone. You may already be familiar with the touch gesture at the top of the screen to go to the very top of the current page, but you can also use a three-finger swipe to undo or redo text anywhere. Apple’s mobile operating system is full of such tricks, not necessarily well-documented, but which can be very handy in everyday life.