Safari for iOS needs a text size preference and text reflow

One of the features I miss most in Safari for iOS is the ability to increase text size. Sure, zooming in increases text size, but all too often it also makes the lines of text too long to fit on the screen of my iPod Touch. Having to swipe left and right for each line of text makes reading zoomed text on a small iOS device very annoying very quickly.

It would seem that this could easily be fixed by Apple by giving users a text size preference or an easily accessible control to increase/decrease text size. Most importantly, the text would need to reflow after a text size change to allow word wrapping and adjust line length to the viewport width.

Why this is not already possible beats me, but maybe there is a technical reason. Regardless I think it’s one of the most obvious usability problems with browsing the Web on an iPhone or iPod Touch and needs to be fixed.

Posted on January 3, 2011 in iOS, Browsers