Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 652 posts

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#91

Post by nilkn »

reaperducer wrote: post #73
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #15

There's a lot to unpack here, and a lot to disagree with, as I believe there's plenty of evidence Apple cares a lot about accessibility. Also harping on specific terminology like password vs passcode is not really productive in terms of improving the underlying UX, as the word gets translated into tons of languages which may or may not have the same level of nuance. While I don't necessarily agree with the premise, e…

3D Touch seems to be the Touch Bar of the mobile world. Both are great ideas, but only sparsely exploited even by Apple, itself.

For what it’s worth, I use 3D Touch pretty much every day. The number one usage for me is moving the cursor around while editing text. I actually did it while writing this post; I decided I wanted to add a comma after “worth” at the beginning and did so easily with this feature.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#92

Post by [deleted] »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #15

There's a lot to unpack here, and a lot to disagree with, as I believe there's plenty of evidence Apple cares a lot about accessibility. Also harping on specific terminology like password vs passcode is not really productive in terms of improving the underlying UX, as the word gets translated into tons of languages which may or may not have the same level of nuance. While I don't necessarily agree with the premise, e…

[deleted]

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#93

Post by brandon272 »

One thing I have come across in trying to explain phones to older people is that they have difficulty grasping the difference of cellular vs. WiFi and where they can and can't use data.

I have a parent who is terrified to use the internet while on WiFi because they don't want to get a huge bill at the end of the month. I have done some explaining to reduce that anxiety and I'd like to tell them not to worry about it, but frankly, iOS doesn't help at all, both in terms of managing data, communicating how much LTE data you are using, etc.

I know others who spend hundreds of dollars extra per year on "unlimited" data plans even though they have no need for it. But it's easier than trying to manage their data. Imagine how many people who don't understand data usage are spending hundreds of dollars annually on data plans they don't use "just to be safe" because the phone company might send them a $5K bill if they accidentally misconfigure their phone to allow Netflix access to cellular.

If iOS wants to be layman-friendly, there has to be a better way of handling data and communicating to a user what the status of their data usage is. This is just one example.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#94

Post by brokenmachine »

mmagin wrote: post #72
brokenmachine wrote: post #31

It's not surprising at all to me that people who don't take the time to learn how to use the supercomputers in our pockets are unable to use them. It's like typing. Learning to touchtype was one of the best things I've ever done on a return for investment basis. All I did was stick a little printout of the keyboard layout under the monitor, and committed to not look at the physical keyboard ever again. It was slow fo…

No, it is not like touch-typing. That is a skill that won't be obsoleted when a vendor decides to change the user interface on a whim with the next OS release.

I contend that doing a course or learning how a computer works at a fundamental level is a skill just like touchtyping that will remain even into the next generation of phones.

For example we bought my gf's mother a smartphone and she has a very limited understanding of what the difference between her plan data and storage on the phone is, which causes a lot of confusion.

She uses it mostly to take photos which eventually filled up the storage on her phone, so she became unable to send or receive photos from her children.

She was confused by the error messages coming up that the phone storage was full and thought they meant that she had used up her phone plan data. Because of her limited understanding of how it works, she was unable to deduce that those two things might be connected, so she was expecting the phone to become properly functional again at the end of the month when her plan data resets.

That's just the first example that comes to mind, but there have been many others.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#95

Post by stiGGG »

nilkn wrote: post #91
reaperducer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D Touch seems to be the Touch Bar of the mobile world. Both are great ideas, but only sparsely exploited even by Apple, itself.

For what it’s worth, I use 3D Touch pretty much every day. The number one usage for me is moving the cursor around while editing text. I actually did it while writing this post; I decided I wanted to add a comma after “worth” at the beginning and did so easily with this feature.

Since iOS12 you can do this by holding the spacebar on devices without 3D touch

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#96

Post by Thriptic »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #76
Thriptic wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't even know that they have a problem because they are unaware of what they should be able to do. They think that any preventable annoying behavior is the natural state of the machine. I was spending time with my parents awhile back and happened to look over to watch my mom try to communicate some content from a website she was looking at to a friend. She would go back and forth from the browser, to th…

Easy to complain about copy/paste functionality, but how else would you implement it? I agree with most of the criticisms in the article, but copy/paste is just one of those things that is never going to be 100% reflexive or intuitive on a touchscreen.

I'm not complaining about the implementation. The problem isn't just how features are implemented, it's that many users lack the mental models to successfully use these devices at even a basic level.

Sure someone can Google "how do I copy paste on an iPhone", or maybe Apple could somehow make the feature more intuitive (they probably can't as you say), but fundamentally the user is required to understand that:

* The iPhone is a computer underneath

* Computers have standard sets of features for text manipulation, one of which is copy paste.

* Being a computer, the iPhone should likely also have this functionality implemented in some way.

If you don't understand these three things then why would you assume that there would be ANY implementation of copy paste? My Mom didn't understand that copy paste as a concept was a thing

This is why the educational programs that the grandparent poster was talking about are important and it's a shame that they're gone.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#97

Post by IggleSniggle »

nilkn wrote: post #91
reaperducer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D Touch seems to be the Touch Bar of the mobile world. Both are great ideas, but only sparsely exploited even by Apple, itself.

For what it’s worth, I use 3D Touch pretty much every day. The number one usage for me is moving the cursor around while editing text. I actually did it while writing this post; I decided I wanted to add a comma after “worth” at the beginning and did so easily with this feature.

That’s odd. On my iPhone, moving the cursor is activated with long touch, and 3D Touch does nothing...and yet I do have 3D Touch

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#98

Post by bobthepanda »

nrb wrote: post #75
CamperBob2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “Tips” feature (Swipe left from home) I think this is sort of his point. How in the world am I supposed to know to do that?

Well there are many ways to get there, tap the Tips app that is preinstalled on the home screen on a newly setup iOS device. As I said, it also sends a notification shortly after device setup directing you there.

I've literally never seen the Tips app. Granted, I haven't had a new device in a while; but I don't recall this being present when I bought my iPhone 7, and it certainly didn't show up when I upgraded to iOS 12 over the weekend. And as someone who has had iOS devices for a while, I'm not sure that I would ever get it, since my first thing is usually to just transfer a backup to my new phone.

The point is, devices used to come with a manual that had at least some guidance on how to use a device. It may not have exposed everything, but it told you the basics. Apple, anecdotally, has outsourced this to Google and the kindness of strangers like yourself, to tell me how my device works. And that's the biggest CX failure for me.

I've honestly considered switching to Android many times because the iOS premium no longer seems justified in terms of hardware or UX, and at this point the only thing stopping me is my suspicion of Google.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#99

Post by CarVac »

codemac wrote: post #64
devinus wrote: post #28

I recently switched to iOS from Android after years on Android. I'm coming from being a daily macOS user for almost a decade. I would argue that iOS should no longer be considered the more "user friendly" of the two. That might have been the case years ago, but iOS seems to expect prior experience with what I can only guess are iOS paradigms specifically. Almost every important action I need to take in an iOS app is…

The new Android gesture navigation is their first huge step towards ruining Android's UX.

It's great for power users. I personally really love it.

But there goes the discoverability. The three nav buttons were simple and effective.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#100

Post by [deleted] »

nrb wrote: post #75
CamperBob2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “Tips” feature (Swipe left from home) I think this is sort of his point. How in the world am I supposed to know to do that?

Well there are many ways to get there, tap the Tips app that is preinstalled on the home screen on a newly setup iOS device. As I said, it also sends a notification shortly after device setup directing you there.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN