Rumor: Amazon Phone Will Support Tilt Gestures

Just like Apple changed the face of smartphones with the launch of its iPhone, Amazon seems to be reaching for a new game changer with its upcoming 3D smartphone. Not only will this device have a 3D interface, but numerous unnamed sources now claim that the four infrared sensors – parked at each corner of the screen – will have a huge role in how customers physically interact with the device.

We’ve heard about the hidden menus before. Sources go into more detail, reporting that by tilting the handset in different directions, the phone will render additional information without the user having to touch anything. Amazon wants users to interact with the 4.7-inch display with one hand, and without having to touch the screen.

BGR provides several examples, such as when the maps app is loaded and the user performs a restaurant search, the user can tilt the phone to see Yelp ratings. When the user has opened the movies app, he/she can tilt the phone to see the IMDb ratings on top of movie thumbnails. And when viewing products on Amazon, the user can apply gestures to cycle through images.

As we’ve heard before, Amazon’s smartphone apps won’t have traditional menu buttons, but rather panels tucked away on each side. When the user tilts the left or right side, these panels pop out and slide over the current screen. As an example, if a user is reading a book, he/she can tilt the phone to open the X-ray menu.

BGR reports that Amazon also created several zero-touch controls that are triggered by tilt gestures. As an example, when reading a book in the Kindle app, users can scroll up and down simply by tilting the phone up or down. The same gestures apply to the web browser, allowing users to quickly scroll thorugh a website’s page.

Finally, the report reveals that Amazon has packed its new phone with software that uses optical character recognition (OCR) and other technology. Thus when using the phone’s rear camera, users can capture an image and pull the text into a separate note.

Naturally Amazon isn’t acknowledging rumor and speculation, so take all of this with a grain of salt. However over the last month we’ve heard a lot about Amazon’s high-tier 3D phone, which indicates that a release could very well be near.

Would you purchase a 3D phone with gesture controls? Is all of this simply overkill? We’ll find out soon enough.

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