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iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

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Re: iPhones are hard to use

#101

Post by nrb »

bobthepanda wrote: post #98
nrb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 use…

Yeah, the Tips app is new in iOS 11. It might have been relegated to some "Preinstalled" app group somewhere or pushed to one of the last pages. It's definitely front and center on new phones now.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#102

Post by julianz »

fastball wrote: post #70
JCSato wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same way. I've gotten used to using a Mac for work; there are the few things I need to know how to run, and I've more or less figured those out. Even after that, though, I was utterly useless last week trying to send an email for my mom on her iPhone.

1. Open Mail 2. Click compose button How could that possibly be difficult of all things?

I've never been able to understand why mail apps insist on the word Compose. Is it an American thing? I've never wanted to compose a piece of text, and never heard the word used in that way.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#103

Post by trimbo »

bobthepanda wrote: post #39
pcmoney wrote: post #21

Ok, I need to say it. This article just has iPhone in the title to get more views. This is a problem with not just all smartphones but all rapidly evolving technology products. Do you think you could hand an android phone to one of those example cases and have them do any better with it? Also half of the time I am in an apple store I am helped by someone who needs to use the accessibility features to check me out/in.…

Just because all companies handle the problem space really badly, doesn't mean we should excuse it. Apple products, as far as I can remember, do not come with any sort of manual describing the nifty little shortcuts that they have. Even as someone who did IT support and handled a lot of iPhone troubleshooting constantly, I got blindsided by lots of small things, like when they switched the force reboot from power+hom…

> Apple products, as far as I can remember, do not come with any sort of manual describing the nifty little shortcuts that they have

You would not have needed a manual in the past. Discoverability used to be a core tenet of the Apple HIG. Now that's apparently gone, and we're reduced to hunting through a "Tips" app or trying gestures until something happens.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#104

Post by brokenmachine »

onemoresoop wrote: post #68
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…

I am older, ~40, and my relationship with technology changed over time. I'm no longer eager to learn a new interface as I was when I was younger. When I was younger a shiny thing would make me excited, take my eye and sort of fool me that this new thing is cool. I'd be excited to learn what the new thing was all about. I'd spend a few hours and figure it out. Back then apple was winning big with consistent and intuit…

100% agree. I'm on Android and it seems to be going further and further away from simple, consistent home/back/menu buttons that are always available.

The hardware Menu button was the best way to make advanced options easy to access, and it has been removed completely in favor of an inconsistent three-line icon that might or might not appear in any location on the screen, so you have to look around for it. Stupid.

I'm sort of waiting for them to bring those back before I upgrade my phone.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#105

Post by gmjoe »

This is just silly. News flash: software UX isn't perfect, and it never will be.

When you have a phone that can do 10,000 different things limited to a screen a few inches wide, of course it's going to be harder to do some things than others. And there will be some inconsistencies and some annoyances.

It's not like any other phone is obviously way better. Yes there are plenty of UX things that could be improved... but "iPhones are hard to use" is a clickbait title, and the content is just a totally random laundry list of one person's annoyances. Doesn't really seem like HN material.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#106

Post by bootlooped »

fudged71 wrote: post #7

Phones are computers now. We can't expect everyone to know AND USE all of the features. Many of the features are obscured on purpose.

I thought that when I read, "He (a senior citizen) also thought he had to use the Gmail app to read his Gmail"

Like what do you want, an unskippable popup about the difference between email providers and email clients, and instructions on configuring IMAP and SMTP on a 3rd email app? That would only lead to more fear and confusion. The Gmail app is fine.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#109

Post by asaph »

sutterbomb wrote: post #86
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…

Can you give some specific examples? I’m so thoroughly baked into iOS that I don’t notice these potential issues.

1. Copying/pasting text on iOS is far from obvious.

2. Quitting apps completely (not having them run in a background thread)

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#110

Post by varenc »

Most of this article just lists semi-advanced features that people don't know about. I think that’s Apple’s intention...

Having every feature and option up in your face can reduce usability and make simple tasks harder for the average user. Apple wants a product that's easy for anyone to use and that often means keeping non-essential features out of the way.

I’d be more interesting in seeing feedback for Apple on how to improve the situation without compromising on ease of use.

(Regarding the WiFi thing...I agree this is a very annoying default setting, but I think a worse outcome is when a user shows up in their friend’s house and has no idea how to connect to the WiFi. Making the user go to Settings -> WiFi to disable this prompt means they’ve demonstrated they’ll be able to go back to that page to manually connect to a network in the future. If you turn this setting off on a friend's phone, be sure they still know how to connect manually.

(Though I do think iOS could be smarter and not prompt you to connect to intermittent networks while you’re driving around a city...))

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