What is this Archive about?

This quiz is a tiny archive of iPhone gestures over the years. You will see a short gesture clip, then you pick the gesture name from six options. There are 15 questions.

Gestures are the hidden grammar of modern devices. You do them hundreds of times a day, usually without thinking: scroll, pinch, swipe, drag, tap. The “interface” is not just buttons and icons, it’s choreography. Good gestures feel obvious because they are engineered to disappear into your hands.

And yes, there is serious innovation behind “simple” moves. Apple didn’t just design gestures, it also tried to protect them legally. They were granted patents for specific implementations like “slide to unlock” and multi-touch gestures, and even things like the elastic “rubber-banding” scroll effect. Some of these patents were later challenged or invalidated in parts of the world, which tells you how hard it is to own something that becomes a universal language.

This archive celebrates that creative leap: turning physical motion into a reliable, learnable system. Think of the classics like Slide to Unlock or swiping to answer a call. They taught people how to touch glass, and they reshaped what “using a computer” means.