You may have always wanted to quickly scroll through a long page (let it be even the or list of records or a long Web page).
So far, this has been impossible. Sure, there have been some shortcuts in some apps. For example, by tapping the upper bar in Safari to quickly scroll up to the beginning of the page or you could use scriptlets like my “quickly scroll down to the bottom of the page” (see THIS). Alternatively, some record/list-based apps (like Cydia or Skype) offer a way to quickly scroll using the scrollbar on the right:
However, there hasn’t been any universal way of doing this working together with all programs (and even SpringBoard - that is, your launcher screen). So far, that is - with an excellent third-party app called QuickScroll, however, this has become a reality! (Note that it’s Cydia-based; that is, you must jailbreak your phone to access it.). It works great on both my 3.0.1 iPhone 3G and 3.0 iPhone 3G S.
Fire up Cydia and search for “Quickscroll”. Select it:
and, then, install. After a SpringBoard reload, quickly tap the screen three times in a row. A new dialog will come up, showing the current viewport (the current screen contents) and the entire area where you can scroll to. When you do scroll (by tapping, holding and, then, dragging the green area), in the background, the contents of the actual page scroll too. That is, you’ll always see what you’ve scrolled to. An example showing this on the SpringBoard:
And two examples showing quickly scrolling a Web page inside the Oceanus Web browser:
As soon as you’ve reached the point you wanted to scroll to, just tap “Close” at the bottom of the dialog.
Note that, should you want in order to avoid starting an app by tapping its icon if you want to quickly scroll over the SpringBoard pages, I recommend going to the SpotLight (search) page first. Then, if there is nothing you’ve recently searched for, there is plenty of empty screen area to triple-tap on:
Finally, should you want to remove the utility, do it from Cydia.
UPDATE (9/27/2009 22:16 CET):
The new, 2 (tested, current version: 0.2-2a) version of QuickScroll (now called QuickScroll 2) has been recently released into Cydia with TONS of new configuration options / features. Now, you can configure how and when it should be invoked. For example, in the following two screenshots (under the system-wide Settings / Quickscroll), I’ve configured it to activate when I scroll anything (see “Scroll” being selected).
This means new vertical and horizontal thumbnails are displayed as soon as you start scrolling. Then, if you do drag these thumbnails, you can quickly scroll around the page. Very clean and much nicer solution than that of the original version.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with lists like the downloaded file list of YourTube, the excellent, free (!) YouTube downloader utility (see review HERE; a later article on the two alternatives HERE) Then, you may want to stick with the original approach; fortunately, the new version also supports the original, dialog-based scrolling, which is also compatible with lists like these.
All in all, one of the best iPhone tools has been made even better…
Other screenshots of suboptions in Settings:
