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iPhones are hard to use

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Re: iPhones are hard to use

#191

Post by saagarjha »

wlesieutre wrote: post #184
askafriend wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Drag space bar is new in 12, but two finger drag on iPad has been around a bit longer. It’s a bonus for SE users without force touch. Seems obvious to include this, but I assume the reason they went back and bothered with it is the new XR taking force touch back out.

> but two finger drag on iPad has been around a bit longer

Since iOS 9. Early in the betas this feature existed for non-3D Touch iPhones as well, but then it was removed and restricted to models with 3D Touch.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#192

Post by PhasmaFelis »

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.

> "Form over function" is not "Apple's way". Apple's way is function, period, paragraph.

I like Apple's design, but that's...definitely not true. You could charitably say that Apple's goal is a seamless marriage of form and function, and they do that better than most. But they have always cared more about aesthetics than any other important developer, of hardware or software.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#193

Post by philliphaydon »

aetherson wrote: post #189
philliphaydon wrote: post #178

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 bou…

Once you get used to one O/S, the other becomes harder, because instead of just not knowing any of the conventions, you've actively trained the wrong ones.

My mum went from Windows Phone to iPhone without issue. I didn't have to teach her anything about the iPhone. To me that suggests either Windows Phone / iOS are similar (they aren't) or intuitive.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#194

Post by toast0 »

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…

It's not like typing at all. Typing is fairly obvious: hit the button with the letter you want, and it will always be in the same place, so maybe you don't have to look too often; anyway lots of people will teach you to type. Cute cats (paws), Mario, Mavis Beacon.

How can you learn to press and hold , or press harder, or shake the phone, or whatever else when there's no manual, you don't even know there's some other way of interacting, there's no getting started video, etc. I firmly believe that if companies actually wrote a manual for their software, they would ocassionaly make things more obvious, so it would be easier to write the manual.

Yes, a lot of people wouldn't read the manual, or wouldn't understand it, but not providing a manual means those few that would read it can't.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#195

Post by beatgammit »

inetknght wrote: post #173
Bud wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

And that's fine, you have other options available to you. Apple's target demographic prefers simplicity first, convenience second, with niche features way down the line... and Apple delivers.

Personally, I prefer the Android ecosystem, and honestly I'd very much prefer even more control than that. In fact, I'm really excited about the Librem 5 project, which is pretty much the exact opposite of Apple. However, many of my friends prefer the Apple experience.

A product doesn't have to cater to everyone. If it tries to, it ends up alienating everyone.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#196

Post by saagarjha »

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.

What word would you use to describe the action of creating a new message?

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#197

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

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…

I'm sure that everyone has something that should be stupid simple to find.

It's a hard problem. Has anyone really solved it well that offers the use cases our current smart phones/computers have?

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#198

Post by PhasmaFelis »

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…

> And no: Apple does not "believe their product is so easy to understand that people will just get it". You just made that up.

You're being weirdly hostile about this.

I like Apple's design for the most part, and I enjoy a good comprehensive manual as much as the next guy, but the expectation these days is that software should be self-teaching. Presenting the user with an incomprehensible pile of options is bad, but so is only giving them a tiny subset of practical functionality. Good design presents the common/important options front and center, then lets power users drill down into advanced settings if they want. And all that should be at least nominally discoverable with recourse to the manual.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#199

Post by toast0 »

brandon272 wrote: post #93

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,…

Get people onto unlimited data plans with a limited amount of fast data. Most (all?) US carriers have a plan like that, although I don't know how common they are overseas. You can usually pick how much fast data you want, and if you go over, it's not the end of the world. Sometimes I've had phones that didn't have matching lte bands, so the 'slow' data rate was faster than what I could manage anyway.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#200

Post by saagarjha »

delinka wrote: post #62
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...

But the folks needing the setting are letting the employee at the mobile carrier store glide through all that for them so that the new phone is immediately ready to use.

That's a different problem.
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