Only Time Will Tell
Why is there a short wait if you press a button on your headphone remote or your AirPods to pause the music? Because the interface has to let a bit of time pass to figure out if you’re going to press the button again, making it a double press (advance to next track) instead of a single press.
This kind of disambiguation delay is everywhere for simple gestures.
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Why is there a short wait if you press a button to go to the next track on your car’s steering wheel? It’s a delay of a different kind, but the same principle: the function cannot kick in on press down, because press down and hold mean “fast forward.”