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iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

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Re: iPhones are hard to use

#111

Post by rayiner »

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…

It's gotten worse. Screens keep getting bigger, but more and more functionality keeps getting hidden behind undiscoverable swipes and taps. I've been an iPhone user since the 3G, I used to program computers for a living, and I don't have a reliable mental model of what the available gestures even are these days. I'm reduced to randomly tapping and pressing and swiping like some sort of idiot.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#112

Post by agumonkey »

varenc wrote: post #110

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…

It's even anti-ergonomic in general to overload features. It's probably an easy frequency based relationship.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#113

Post by krrrh »

stiGGG wrote: post #95
nilkn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

On devices with 3D Touch you can also press harder to activate text selection, which is something I use daily.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#114

Post by jpindar »

codetrotter wrote: post #87
screye wrote: post #32

I have been an android-windows user for the longest time, and using Apple devices is among the most difficult things I've had to do. I have used windows phone, linux, chrome OS, Blackberry's palm-like UI over the years, but I have gotten the hang of each over a small period of time. Apple devices however, are simply counter intuitive for me. Apple seems to design UI for 2 types of people. 1. Old Apple users 2. The pe…

When the Android phones came on the market, I was extatic. Linux, in my pocket! However, Android did not live up to my expectations at all. I don’t know what I was hoping for, but Android was not it. After a while I came to understand that for me personally Android was a bad fit, and everything I had envisioned about running Linux on my phone was ill-adviced. Linux and FreeBSD are my main two operating systems I run…

I have had the same experience with iPhones - being unable to figure out how to do things should have been easy. Ended up having to use my Android to look up how to do things.

It's not that things aren't possible (sometimes), it's that they're not discoverable.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#115

Post by mixmastamyk »

My top 5 annoyances:

- Too many features I'll never use, that mostly can't be removed. Less is more.

i.e. I'll never use Siri or facial recognition. Never owned a bluetooth device. "Screen Mirroring" What? in the Control Center. Yet those and more always in the way, sometimes draining battery.

- When radios are off to save energy, constantly nags about connection with modal dialogs that prevent use of the home button.

- Can't use it as a flash drive (w/o grudging workarounds)

- Insists on using white backgrounds at night. Night mode saved my life but would prefer a dark theme at night. Clock is the opposite, hard to read in the day time. All hardcoded.

- Can't disable the always accidental swipe from top stuff I'm never interested in.

Btw, thanks to the author for linking to how to disable apps in iMessage, just more clutter I didn't want. Totally unintuitve, BTW.

Bonus: There's App and Microphone icons in the iMessages entry field that take up 1/3 of the space. Don't use Apps there and might use the microphone button once a year. Hit it mistakenly often.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#116

Post by merlinsbrain »

lightyrs wrote: post #49
rrauenza wrote: post #37

My biggest difficulty is moving the edit cursor when trying to edit text. It takes too many tries to get it exactly where I want. I wish they'd add cursor keys...

Another hidden UX: you can long press the keyboard and it'll turn into a touchpad that you can use to move the cursor (still not as easy as cursor keys but much better than the long press and drag method).

Heh, I did not know about either of these. How did you discover them?

It’s kinda like the “tap the clock to scroll to the top” feature, I think I discovered it by accident one day.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#117

Post by Steko »

screye wrote: post #32

I have been an android-windows user for the longest time, and using Apple devices is among the most difficult things I've had to do. I have used windows phone, linux, chrome OS, Blackberry's palm-like UI over the years, but I have gotten the hang of each over a small period of time. Apple devices however, are simply counter intuitive for me. Apple seems to design UI for 2 types of people. 1. Old Apple users 2. The pe…

> Apple won't fare as well if they were to be evaluated by an audience unfamiliar with their brand and devices all together.

Haven't they spent the last decade expanding into new markets successfully though? And from what I gather their new customer retention and satisfaction is among the best in the industry.

People like to explain away Apple's success as merely the product of "fanboys" they've had for decades, as though the same 10 million guys who bought the first iphone are somehow responsible for the 50+ million phones apple sells each quarter. The truth is simpler: (1) yes they do have many loyal customers and (2) those customers keep buying Apple products because they have good experiences with them. It's also true that their design priorities are not universal and some are especially ornery for power users. But the idea that their UI design is inherently bad seems off and the fact that people keep copying them [1] seems like the best evidence.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17988564/chinese-phone-s... , money quote: "judging by the accuracy and specificity of the rip-offs, the camera app from iOS 7 has a serious claim to being one of the most influential software designs of the past decade."

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#118

Post by lozenge »

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.

Opening the app switcher is essentially a gesture. As is opening quick settings. Opening notifications makes a little more sense as notifications appear at the top of the screen. Rearranging the home screen is also a gesture.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#119

Post by [deleted] »

julianz wrote: post #102
fastball wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#120

Post by Joky »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #97
nilkn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You need to do 3D touch on the keyboard itself.
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