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How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

fastcompany.com

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Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#91

Post by mcphage »

arihant wrote: post #43

You know, a lot of these features are so mindlessly piled that for an existing iPhone user it does not feel like cognitive overload. But my mom used the newest iPhone last week -- she used iPhone 4 as her full time phone back in the day -- and she could not navigate Safari properly. That's how unusable the iPhone is now even for a legacy iOS user. Whatever happened to days when toddlers could figure out iPads? Is thi…

> Whatever happened to days when toddlers could figure out iPads?

Nothing happened to those days; they're still here.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#92

Post by rbrcurtis »

radicalbyte wrote: post #69
jonhohle wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why iTunes is the way that it is, except that was already available on Windows, so it seemed like a good vector for devices. It really is a jumbled bag now though, and seems to go through significant UI changes every release for no good reason (hearts? stars? iTunes has them both!) OS X used to have a separate syncing application, iSync, for PDAs that was simple and generally worked. I was dusap…

The lack of stress relief which means that the cables break very quickly. It's a well known design defect in Apple products. I'm very careful with my technology but I'm already on me 2nd MBP power supply and my wife is on her 3rd USB cable for her iPad. This all in 18 months.

I have a MBP from 2008 with the original t-shaped magsafe power cord, and its still in perfect working order. Maybe you're harder on you're harder on your power cables than you're giving yourself credit for.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#93

Post by rbrcurtis »

bobbyi_settv wrote: post #52
jonhohle wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The production of beautiful objects is only one > small component of modern design… As the authors say, and as Steve Jobs and Jony Ive have reiterated in almost every Apple product launch, how something looks is only a small part of the design Apple focuses on. Historically, the priority is how things _work_. This is probably the most misunderstood aspect of Apple products. A screenshot of software XYZ may look jus…

> Historically, the priority is how things _work_. Right, everyone agrees with this. And as users of their products, we can see that this is no longer the priority today. The question is, how and why did it change? You can see it even in little things like Apple removing the ability to display how much battery time is remaining instead of percentage in OS X. This makes the product work less well, but makes it more co…

I'd guess they removed it because it was so inaccurate due to people changing their use habit. If I'm just browsing the web my laptop might last for 7 hours, but as soon as I fire up some youtube it drops dramatically.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#94

Post by rbrcurtis »

cja wrote: post #13

Moved from Windows to OSX a couple of years ago after hearing for so long how much better the Mac experience and usability was. Some examples of why this was wrong: 1. Cmd-Tab lets me select a hidden window but it won't show it! 2. Many frequently used click targets are too small. For example, the close, minimise and maximise buttons. 3. The close minimise and maximise buttons reveal their functions only when the mou…

check out "rightzoom" to give you a kb shortcut for maximize.

Also, I agree with you that finder is dumb.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#95

Post by digi_owl »

Someone wrote: post #87
digi_owl wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I know that, but that is inconsistent and that inconsistency _is_ the reason the Finder resisted implementing it for years" Inconsistent with what exactly?

1) A cut without a paste deletes stuff, except in file explorers and in ?some/most/all? cut actions in Excel. 2) A copy or cut puts stuff in the clipboard. It stays there until you copy or paste again, except in Excel, where entering new data between copy and paste clears the clipboard.

Thanks. Reminds me that various file explorers do not call it a cut, but a move. They just reuse the same keyboard shortcut as the cut found in text editors.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#96

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

jbrooksuk wrote: post #17
cja wrote: post #13

Moved from Windows to OSX a couple of years ago after hearing for so long how much better the Mac experience and usability was. Some examples of why this was wrong: 1. Cmd-Tab lets me select a hidden window but it won't show it! 2. Many frequently used click targets are too small. For example, the close, minimise and maximise buttons. 3. The close minimise and maximise buttons reveal their functions only when the mou…

Cut can be done with CMD+C and then I think it's CMD+Alt+V for paste and remove original.

I assume we're talking about Cut in Finder, because it works elsewhere. This has been one of my OSX bugbears for ages now, but I always assumed there was a technical/ideological reason for disallowing Cut/Paste of a file. Now you're telling me I can do it, I just need to learn another shortcut, and remember that it only applies in this situation?! What on earth could possibly be the rationale behind that?

Keyboard support in OSX is truly appalling. Window management with the keyboard is also a pain, and even tabbing through controls - even with the stupidly-off-by-default setting - sometimes fails. The reason this annoys me so much is that OSX on Mac hardware is almost a dream setup apart from these flaws, but these flaws are significant enough that, after 4 happy years, I'm actually considering switching back to Windows.

Re: How Apple Is Giving Design a Bad Name

#97

Post by gtf21 »

Drdrdrq wrote: post #68
gtf21 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encounter this problem all the time, incidentally also with calls. Often I'll doing something at the same moment as someone else calls me, I end up hanging up the incoming call by mistake. A delay in "screen change" would be great!

Glad I'm not alone! Not delay in screen change - system can't predict when user is going to press the button. But it is highly unlikely that the change of screen occured, I have noticed it, found the correct button and pressed it - all in 50 ms... The system should just disregard the touch, because it was obviously meant for previous screen.

> The system should just disregard the touch

That's exactly what I meant, should have been a bit clearer!

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