With the new "natural" scrolling direction from Apple (which I think is something that should have always been that way) I'm finding it increasingly difficult to scroll on my work PC.

Also, I was looking at a document with a colleague the other day on their PC. She was looking at part of the document near the beginning and I wanted to see further ahead in the document. I asked her to scroll up a bit and she moved the document down. I eventually changed and asked her to scroll down and she did... by moving the document up.

It really is a lot easier the other way round

On a mouse, it still doesn't make sense to me. On my phone, yes, on the desktop, no...

Ah, see, at home I have a trackpad thinger so it makes sense to have it that way round on my desktop.

After fighting it I changed the scroll on my Magic Mouse to the new Apple way™ and I hate to say it but I'm now used to it to the point where I get it 'wrong' constantly on my work PC.

Is it just inverted?

Can someone please explain what the hell Oli's on about?

Surely scrolling down and scrolling up is quite self-explanatory and doesn't require Apple to fiddle with it?

Apple changed the default scrolling behaviour of windows in OS X Lion to match the scrolling in iOS. If , for example, you want to scroll down in a document you have to swipe 'up' on the mouse/track pad just like you would do if you were doing it on an iPhone/iPod touch. You can change it back to the more standard PC way of doing things but the default is the iOS way of doing it. With one exception all Apples pointing devices are now touch sensitive so they are nudging people in the direction of doing stuff the iOS way even on the desktop.

Essentially with "natural" scrolling you push the content, rather than moving the viewport. It does sort of make sense, and I transition seamlessly between using a mouse scroll-wheel going the traditional way, and using a touchpad the "natural" way.

I turned it off straight away, more so that I didn't get confused at work. Curiously though, I do sometimes finding myself using the "natural" way...

But you move your head and eyes when reading, not the paper.

Only if you're reading a specific kind of "paper".

Scrolls have been around for a lot longer than books - and the analogy is a very striking one

Try swiping your finger over a scroll and see what happens.

It moves the Apple way, obviously

The writing is on the inside and scrolls usually opened horizontally.

Really? That's not the way I remember it from all those documentaries with Doctor Jones