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iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

151–160 of 652 posts

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#151
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is really great, thank you. I wish Apple’s weird “intuitive” gestures were more discoverable, on both macOS and iOS. They are often good, but they lack the visual hinting that you get from keyboard shortcuts.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#152
I think Apple intention was for people to grow with iOS. iOS has added more and more features, but if you started with an earlier version, and kept updating there are only minor changed to learn each time. Jumping into an iphone these days would be hard for someone coming from no smartphone.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#153
post #91

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.

This exact function is duplicated by long pressing on the space bar. This has been there since iOS 11, I believe.

So you don't actually need 3D Touch to have the benefit of the awesome cursor UX.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#154
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…

Ok, but honestly, where does Apple list the instructions for using iOS as well as the preinstalled apps? They believe their product is so easy to understand that people will just get it. But then they go and change things like where they put the autobrightness switch and even seasoned iOS users have to hunt for it. Or go on Reddit.

They just changed the battery page in settings. Where's the tutorial? An obvious place would be apple.com/batteries but I don't see it.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#155
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…

The problem lies in what's semi-advanced to one is critical or basic to many others. Apple has been known to hide (aka. make subtle) basic operations. How often have you wanted to load a page in 'desktop mode' in mobile Safari? It's there, just invisibly so. The UI does not teach in the name of clean/minimal design which is Apple's way: form over function. Edit: it's the equivalent to not putting keyboard shortcut ke…

Theres a lot of armchair design going on here. Obviously there is some sort of balance between showing the user too many options or not enough and making the important stuff obvious without cluttering the UI. I imagine if Apple had gone too far in the other direction (which they would never do IMO) that people would complain there are too many options.

There is definitely room for improvement though. There are some regressions that are too obvious. The recent regression that comes to mind is forcing the end user to go through extra taps to switch the camera between front and back during a FaceTime call when previously it was a one-button click

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#156
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…

The WiFi thing is made more complicated by how the Apple Watch works. It uses an adhoc WiFi connection to your iPhone, so you don’t want the toggle to disable that. And it would be confusing to have different behavior depending on whether or not your watch is nearby.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#157

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,…

Since iOS doesn't know your plan billing dates, this is up to the carrier. Verizon, as much as I despise how much I pay them, has a fantastic app that does exactly this (show used data this billing cycle), which after installation is in your notification center, one swipe away.

Adding two fields to iOS to enter your billing cycle date and your monthly data limit seems trivial in the grand scheme of things. I believe Android does this? Perhaps I’m wrong.

Also simple would be intelligent alerts for data usage, including alerts for apps that are known to use large amounts of data. (i.e. “Are you sure you want to use Netflix while not connected to WiFi? This may cause you to exceed your data limit.”)

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#158

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.

"3D Touch seems to be the Touch Bar of the mobile world."

No, it is the right-mouse click of touch interfaces.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#159
On the one hand, I agree with the author. A lot of iPhone features have serious discoverability issues, and I am constantly googling how to do certain things on my iPhone. After probably thousands of hours spent using an iPhone, I just learned today (from this article) that you can shake to undo.

On the other hand, my mother who in her 70s recently got an iPad and an iPhone and is able to engage more confidently with those two devices than any PC or laptop she owned in the 30 years prior. And my son who is 4 years old is able to move around between and within apps fairly effortlessly - without even knowing how to read.

So while there are definitely some things that could be improved in iOS, I think it's also important to recognize that the iPhone has ushered in an era of unprecedented usability for the general public.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#160
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…

The problem lies in what's semi-advanced to one is critical or basic to many others. Apple has been known to hide (aka. make subtle) basic operations. How often have you wanted to load a page in 'desktop mode' in mobile Safari? It's there, just invisibly so. The UI does not teach in the name of clean/minimal design which is Apple's way: form over function. Edit: it's the equivalent to not putting keyboard shortcut ke…

Personally, I use the "Request Desktop Mode" features lots! I also moved it so it's the very first option listed for quick access. But I wouldn't do that on my grandma's phone...

While 'desktop mode' is super useful the HN crowd, I don't think most users would benefit from it.

A non-technical user is probably only minimally aware that mobile and desktop sites might have different features at all. And even when you do use it, it might not have the desired affect. I might have been browsing around on "mobile.site.com" for a while and repeating my request with a desktop User-Agent is still going to get me the mobile version. (this happens to me on m.facebook.com) To fix this I have to know how to modify the URL to point to the non-mobile-only version...easy for this crowd, but not for the average user.

Certain CSS @media queries also don't seem to be affected by "Desktop Mode". (It only changes the User-Agent I believe?) So in other situations, it won't work no matter what and that's pretty frustrating/confusing/inconsistent if you don't know the details.

Even if I do succeed, a desktop webpage on mobile can be a pain with all the zooming and zooming out needed. Sometimes desktop sites don't even work properly on mobile browsers! Now...we understand the constraints, but all these details come together to make it a pretty confusing feature for the average user.

I think most users wouldn't get value from this so it's obscure by default...but for the technical types that love this, it's not too hard to figure out how to move this feature to a place where it's convenient to access.

Overall I think the current design is a pretty good balance all things considered.

(though I do wish the ability to move the desktop mode button to the 1st slot was more obvious. Definitely took me a while to figure this out)

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