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iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

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Re: iPhones are hard to use

#171

Post by nemothekid »

entee wrote: post #137
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…

I think the points that are well taken are those around identity, relationships and contacts. I've been using iPhones for something like 8-9 years and I didn't know I could specify a contact as a specific family relationship. A while ago when I wanted to configure emergency contact information it took me a google search to figure out that I needed to find the Health app buried on the last screen of the phone. At the…

It's a niche feature that has been there since at least iOS 4, (or at least I've known about it since iPhone 4, when I had the time to meticulously comb through every app on my Phone), but it wasn't actually useful until several interations of Siri later.

Relationships is one of the features, to me that feels like Apple ended up building functionality on top of years after the feature was released, but since it was useless for so long nobody ever uses it.

Did you know not only could you specify your relationships, but other people's relationship's as well? I'm not sure if Siri lets you contact people this way ("Call John's mom"), but I wouldn't be surprised if a hidden update to Siri enabled this feature as well.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#172

Post by snuxoll »

throwawaywindev wrote: post #156
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…

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.

Apple Watch uses Bluetooth to communicate with your phone, not WiFi (unless it’s out of Bluetooth range, in which case it will connect to a known network if possible, then LTE if you own a cellular model).

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#173

Post by inetknght »

Bud wrote: post #164
karmakaze wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Form over function" is not "Apple's way". Apple's way is function, period, paragraph. And often, what "function" means is, don't bury the user under 200 options they will never use. Make choices. Be willing to say "no" to having every single option front and center. Added to this is the obvious point that with a touch interface on a small screen, you cannot make everything obvious. It's impossible.

200 options one person will never use is 190 options that other people won't use. And they're not mutually exclusive.

I'd rather present all of the options and let the user learn what options are there even if they never use them.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#174

Post by yborg »

NoPicklez wrote: post #77

As someone who worked heavily in sales in the telecommunications industry, and having spoken to many customers of all ages. This article is not constructive at all, it's terribly fraught with emotion. The intrusive reminders of WiFi networks? Really, that required an entire paragraph? I can't remember the last time I was interrupted by it, probably because I switched it off on the welcome screen when setting up my de…

Apple (used to) market the ease of use of the features of iOS very heavily. iPhones don't get a pass because Android phones are complicated as well since Apple (used to) stress that they were so much better than the competition.

Nowadays I notice Apple mostly just markets the new shiny. The XS commercial is a masterpiece of vapidity, they don't even pretend it's anything but brand.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#176

Post by twodayslate »

lightyrs wrote: post #58
TheKnack wrote: post #50

> If Apple actually cared about accessibility (it does not), on the setup screen for every iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch would be a step you could not skip wherein you have to choose your preferred text size. iPhones literally do have an unskippable screen during setup that prompts you to choose a text size https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/xlarge/pu...

Display Zoom is a different setting than Text Size.

And also not an option on all devices.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#177

Post by bubblethink »

>There are people who know what address bars are but not search bars, so they go to google.com

I've been forced to do this recently on android. In chromium, the default search engine has location permissions by default. No way to disable this without patching and recompiling chromium. So if you leave google as your default search engine, which is what it ships with, google (i.e., *.google.com) gets location permission. So my workaround has been to set AOL as the default search engine. When I really want to google something, I have to go to google.com.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#178

Post by philliphaydon »

My mum is 68 now. I first got her a windows phone. I taught her how to make calls. That was it. Then a month later I got a string of text message.

Hello

Son

Is

This

Working

?

She worked out how to send texts.

I upgraded her to an old iphone. I sent it to her in the mail. She worked out everything including how to take photos. I told her about LINE and she found the App Store and downloaded it.

Her phone died so I bought her an android cos I couldn’t afford the iphone.

She can’t figure it out at all. She had to go to the store to ask how to connect to wifi. How to use the play store, etc.

I thought cos she went iphone > android she would be able to pick it up. That isn’t the case.

iPhones may have hidden features. But they are a lot easier to pick up than an android phone by a Long shot as far as I’m concerned.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#179

Post by graeme »

Bud wrote: post #167
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the user manual. Which is, btw, one of the very best user manuals you will ever see. It's very easy to find, and the fact you haven't found it tells me you probably didn't bother searching, since almost any Google search finds it instantly: https://support.apple.com/manuals/iphone And no: Apple does not "believe their product is so easy to understand that people will just get it". You just made that up. It's...sur…

I'm an avid apple user and honestly had no idea that manual existed. They could do a better job advertising it. Is there anything in the box mentioning it?

Edit: and according to the article, the manual doesn't cover a lot of the hidden features described in the article.

I learned at least five new things: select multiple pictures, announce calls, swipe right for forward, and a couple others I don't recall. I would rate myself as an advanced iphone user. I've made very complicated Siri shortcuts. But a lot of stuff has been rather hard to discover.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#180

Post by mszczepanczyk »

A couple of things I absolutely hate about Apple's products:

1. Whenever switching an app in iOS and going back to the same app I don't know if I'll find it in the same state as before, even after only few seconds. It's unbelievably annoying to read an article opened in embedded browser in Facebook app, check something quickly in Chrome and be forced to look for the same article again.

2. Some apps don't allow me to open a url in Chrome, for some reason I have to do it in Safari. And why can't I delete Safari altogether? How's it's different from Microsoft and IE in the 90s?

3. There's no easy, automated way to disable background running, bandwidth consuming apps while connected to hotspot in macOS. This should be obvious I don't want to backup 30GB of data to Backblaze while on my data plan.

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