In an official blog post, Microsoft is touting Internet Explorer 11 as offering an “even better” touch experience in Windows 8.1. In the blog post, Microsoft goes over several of the new features that IE11 offers, including reliable hover menus via touch, improved link highlighting, swipe gestures for navigation, and drag/drop support.
“Internet Explorer 11 builds on the modern, fast, fluid experience that’s perfect for touch, even for today’s Web that isn’t necessarily designed for touch. With hardware accelerated direct manipulation, pages stick to your finger while panning and zooming for a fluid and natural experience. The browser UI stays out of your way when you start interacting with the page so sites come alive,” Microsoft states in an official blog post.
Microsoft has added a new feature in IE11 on Windows 8.1, allowing improved highlights for fast visual response to a user’s touch. In other words, IE11 offers feedback which helps users “build confidence in touch” by confirming the element you have touched on the web page, making the experience similar to that on Windows Phone 8.
Swiping your finger to the left or right of the page offers a better experience in IE11, making it faster and more fluid on all devices. Microsoft has also made it to where memory efficiency and battery life is preserved. Internet Explorer 11 is also the first browser to support HTML5 Drag and Drop using touch by default.
“Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 brings the same hardware-accelerated pan and zoom technology to mouse, keyboard and touchpad in addition to touch. This allows sites to take advantage of the smooth panning and zooming across all input types,” Microsoft adds.
Microsoft recently released IE11 Preview for Windows 7 and also recently touted IE11 as the only browser to offer the best daily browsing experience across devices. The company has put up two short videos showcasing the new touch experience in IE11, which we have embedded for your viewing pleasure below.