[dmur]

A well-articulated point, but I disagree with ruling out the concept on this basis. Affordances could be made to make this sort of concept more usable. For example, the pinch could work when the user is approximately within the icon dimensions (e.g. only one finger is actually on the icon, the other is close to it) rather than the "strict" implementation requiring both fingers to be within the icon's dimensions.

[Greenisus]

Good point, but I'd worry about overlap, since you'd likely be touching two icons at once with an approximate touch. I suppose you could take the center point between the two touches and expand on whichever icon that lands on (with boundaries of course; it would be strange if you pinched the edges of the screen and it expanded an icon in the center).

Another thing that's bothering me about it being a two finger gesture is that the entire point of this feature idea is to be able to see things quickly at a glance. I would imagine, then, that in these scenarios most people would be holding their iPhones with one hand and only touching the screen with one thumb. This wouldn't be such a big deal on iPad, but I think it would be on iPhone. That makes me feel more strongly that some kind of one finger gesture may be a better way to do this.

Other people in this thread have pointed out some good points too about discoverability: which apps support the feature? How would the API be designed in a way that's performance and power efficient?

This is definitely fun stuff to think about :)

[geon]

> I would imagine, then, that in these scenarios most people would be holding their iPhones with one hand and only touching the screen with one thumb.

I don't think it was meant to be used frequently. More comparable to press-and-hold to enter the app removal/dragging state.