Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 652 posts

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#581

Post by kettlecorn »

monkeynotes wrote: post #574
kettlecorn wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took no offense to the title myself. “Hard” is obviously a definition that’s relative and varies from person to person. Maybe you could define it as some sort of objective metric where you poll people about ease of use, but then your definition of hard becomes subjective. For a lot of people any tech is hard relative to the rest of their life, including the iPhone. My mom is very much not computer savvy and she run…

Some people are bound to struggle with any form of technology, no interface can ever accommodate all levels of expectation and comprehension. One size will never fit all, it's just not a reasonable expectation. If that is your standard for 'easy' then yeah, iPhones are hard to use. Within the spectrum of all personal computing, ever, I think today's mobile devices are some of the easiest to use. Blinker yourself from…

After reading your response a few times I think this might come down to whether you jump to using the word "hard" relatively or absolutely.

You seem to describe something as "hard" or "easy" relative to other things.

If your job is lifting rocks and all of them are really heavy, but one weighs slightly less, you might describe the less heavy one as "easy" to lift. Someone else might describe them all as "hard" to lift.

A lot of people in the tech industry, yourself included, seem to be in the first mindset. That mindset can be dangerous as it invites complacency.

This language matters a lot, because who wants to improve something that's already "easy"? Refusing to call something "hard" because it doesn't apply to what you view as the average or ideal user is picking a small semantic point in a way that avoids improvement.

Perhaps this is not you, but I've seen many people use language like yours("idealistic", "naive", "one size will never fit all") to dismiss turning a critical eye towards tech design. The argument seems to be that modern design is actually really good and that efforts to improve it are just a futile quest fueled by people who are unnecessarily critical.

Maybe that argument is right, but I don't think so. Whenever I get a chance to peek outside my bubble in the tech world and I talk with a less tech savvy user it becomes clear their relationship with technology is basically adversarial.

The iPhone can be "great", "easy", "hard", and "terrible" all at the same time. Refusing to accept calling it "hard" and describing someone who would do so as "obtuse, dishonest, or willfully naive" is a constrained and inaccurate mindset.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#582

Post by TimTheTinker »

simonh wrote: post #347
TimTheTinker wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the word you're looking for is discoverability (or perhaps visibility ). The problem with Solaris, Windows, and other desktop workstations at the time was that the second (and even third) mouse buttons were required for many workflows, especially in applications---i.e. a lot of functionality was only available from the right-click menu or via the middle mouse button. This introduced a lot of unnecessary compl…

There were no other desktop workstations at the time, Solaris and Windows didn’t exist for years.

I’m talking about the early 1990’s.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#583

Post by lern_too_spel »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #388
lern_too_spel wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared to the accepted norm that malware apps are almost routinely found in the public Google Play store. To add to the author's list of things that iPhone users don't know that Apple keeps hidden, several orders of magnitude more iPhone users have been infected with malware than Google Play Store users despite the Play Store having several orders of magnitude more users. https://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/20/xcod…

Given that it is reported on a very well known Apple blog and Apple released a statement on the issue I don’t think you can say they are hiding it. So a quick google for xcodegohst brings up a Wikipedia page and widespread main steam news coverage (including BBC), with quotes from Apple - literally not hidden at all.

Apple underreported the number of affected apps by two orders of magnitude, reported that only on its Chinese website (even though millions of users outside of China were affected), took down even that report shortly after (it now loads a marketing page), and left the apps on users' phones. https://www.fireeye.com/blog/executive-perspective/2015/09/p...

I consider anything that Apple says to be an ephemeral marketing gimmick.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#585

Post by knowingpark »

ios phones, android phones, windows phones, mobile phones are ageist. No ifs or buts. I was happy to read this, it needs more attention. mobile phones have forgotten that they are phones. I find that 'contacts' apps, which you'd think would be the heart of the whole thing, quite unintuitive. User interfaces in general have a long way to go, imho!

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#586

Post by dublin »

sizzle wrote: post #570
chaostheory wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one way to solve this problem. Apple knows which users are new and which are not because of iCloud. Just allow new users to schedule a class at a nearby Apple Store at the Welcome screen when users login to their iPhone for the very first time.

I like your idea of identifying if you are new via iCloud registration. I think this event should trigger an extended first-run setup flow that hits all the major accessibility features under the assumption that most new users would benefit from becoming familiar with these features from the get go and how to access them in the future. I know many senior citizens (including parents) who would have greatly benefit fro…

Sorry, but I've been a iPhone user for many years, and will turn on iCloud about the 12th of Never. You totally give up all privacy for contacts, photos, appointments, etc. the moment you turn it on, and you can never undo that. Apple is NOT trustworthy enough to have that kind of insight into my life. (And Google is even worse, which is why I'm stuck with Apple as truly the lesser of two very definite evils.)

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#587

Post by sbuk »

trimbo wrote: post #573
sbuk wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...or trying gestures until something happens. That is a good definition of discovery...

Don Norman and Bruce Tognazzini (an original Apple HIG author) wrote a great article about this a few years ago. Here's the excerpt describing discoverability: "Today’s devices lack discoverability: There is no way to discover what operations are possible just by looking at the screen. Do you swipe left or right, up or down, with one finger, two, or even as many as five? Do you swipe or tap, and if you tap is it a si…

I’m a big fan of Don Norman - I read his book when it was called “The Psychology of Everyday Things” while I was studying industrial design in the lat 80’s. I disagree with him on this. Discoverability varies between products depending on the complexity of the interaction model.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#588

Post by Myrmornis »

There are so many different ways to control silence/non-silence/vibrate, I have to admit I don't get it at all:

- Main volume control

- Ringers and alerts volume control

- switch on side of phone

- Do Not Disturb mode

- Sounds => Vibrate on Ring

- Sounds => Vibrate on Silent

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#589

Post by laythea »

I don't mind if this gets shot down, but I completely agree with the article.

The level of complexity is far too much for me. What Apple seems to think are obvious things (Eg UI interaction elements) are not obvious to me.

A thoroughly frustrating experience.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#590

Post by dublin »

cmurphycode wrote: post #559
bonestamp2 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text size is part of the onboarding now.

I suppose a nice compromise here would be to make an intelligent decision whether to bring up a prompt asking if you want to change the font size. For instance, if the FaceID detects that your face is farther or closer from the screen than normal, or that you're squinting.

Maybe, but I can say without reservation that the times I find my personal technologies the most frustrating are when they're "trying to help me". 99% of the time, this is the WRONG thing to do - for instance if my phone "helpfully" resizes my text, then there's a very good chance that I can no longer see everything I was trying to see on the tiny screen in the first place, as it will have reflowed off-screen! FAIL! It MAY be OK to ASK if I want help, but just jumping in and doing something is most likely to result in, "Shut up and do what I tell you!" (in the words of Beka Valentine...)
Post reply on HN