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What does native scrolling refer to on mobile platforms and tablets ? Does it refer to the inertia feel of a scrolling list ? The ability to pull down the list for refresh ? Or both. I'm having a hard time finding a true answer. And where can I find a list of devices/OS that support these feature ?

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  • I think that it refers to scrolling with a swipe finger motion, as opposed to scrolling with a keyboard or with a scrollbar like on desktop/web apps.
    – Felipe
    Nov 18, 2012 at 2:37

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"Native scrolling" is controlled by the core scrolling engine of the native operating system.

"Native-style scrolling" closely mimics the feel of native scrolling including speed, momentum, bounce-back, response, control, appearance, etc.

"Native scrolling" tends to be used as shorthand for both, hence your confusion.

Update: To answer your last question: every device or operating system that scrolls content has its own native scrolling. In computing systems, "native" refers to the basic, built-in functionality.

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"Native scrolling" simply means using the scrolling mechanisms (APIs) that are built into the OS.

Using JavaScript in a web app you can process swipe events and perform a scroll operation. If the scroll operation does not call the operating systems scroll APIs to perform the scrolling it will probably not feel exactly like a native app's swipe-scrolling (speed, inertia, etc.). This is not native scrolling, and is undesirable because it doesn't feel like most apps (but it's sometimes unavoidable with the current state of mobile web technology).

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