With the release of OS X 10.7 Lion Apple inverted the direction of scrolling to match that of their iOS platform. Up become Down, Left became Right, and the setting was named “Natural Scrolling”.
The change to achieve cross-device consistency seems counter to the principle of cross-device coherency, which can be more forgiving and places a stronger emphasis on context. After all, the metaphor on iOS stems from direct-manipulation of an object, whereas the swipe direction on the laptop has its root in indirect manipulation, where one indicates the goal by the direction; the latter is still true with the scroll bar, and perhaps the scroll wheel on many Mice. This, combined with 10 years of acquired muscle memory has made the past week somewhat difficult but eventually my neurons rewired and I have finally come to terms with the brave new scrolling direction, as I chose to give the new paradigm a try.
In the end, Apple is going the route of gesture. As buttons, scroll bars, and mice fade away, gestures will need to become a predictable consistent and ultimately coherent convention.
