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iPhones are hard to use

blog.fawny.org

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Re: iPhones are hard to use

#601

Post by fit2rule »

josho wrote: post #527
fit2rule wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language? I'd quite like to be able to change that frequently. I see no good reason to have mono-culture enforced by the OS. There are three languages spoken in my household, by various family members. Changing the language dynamically for them would be a benefit, not a hindrance. Text size? Same - I often have to show something to my elderly family members, but digging deep into the menu's to find the Text Size sett…

I would argue that Apple actively doesn't want to support your two use cases because they'd much rather sell a device to each member of your household and make it incredibly easy to share the page you are looking at between each member of the house. This is what frustrates me about consumer electronics, that if you have a use case that the vendor doesn't want to support then you'll be constantly frustrated over what…

>I would argue that Apple actively doesn't want to support your two use cases because they'd much rather sell a device to each member of your household and make it incredibly easy to share the page you are looking at between each member of the house.

Bingo! Apple have acquired immense expertise in applying this anti-pattern.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#602

Post by fit2rule »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #385
fit2rule wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eyesight changes over time. People learn new languages, and want to switch. Making these decisions for the user and then forcing them forever is decidedly un-user-friendly.

Forcing them forever is not the case, IDK where you're getting that from. Language settings and text size / other accessibility settings are in the settings and nowadays ios even has a search function in there.

If an elderly person can't find these settings buried in some menu system, they're as good as set forever.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#603

Post by pjmlp »

dublin wrote: post #591
Piskvorrr wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. "ASCII is mostly OK if you're USian and only use English, therefore no problem exists."

It was good enough for UNIX... Heck, it was a big deal when early uucp and Internet links were finally 8-bit clean! (Only 7 bits are needed for plain old English ASCII, and when you were paying many thousands of dollars a month for a T1 (1.5Mbps) connection, using 7-bit was an instant 12% bandwidth boost...)

Which is why then you have to come up with tricks like typing c, instead of ç, eh instead of é and so forth.

Then everyone does it a bit differently and there is this pre-parsing phase trying to understand which idiom people have written the text.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#604

Post by jacobush »

ashildr wrote: post #579
jacobush wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be simpler but the questions are not simple? So don't ask them. Default to a non privacy invading mode. Ask the questions later of people who wants the features. I don't buy "this is the pinnacle of ease of use" and we can't get further.

I lost count of the people who complained about their iDevices features not working properly because they intentionally (so they thought) turned them off. Having eg location services turned off by default and not ask about it will just lead to tons of people complaining that directions don’t work properly. And asking them the moment they open the builtin maps application will make them close the app because ‘it does…

I think you will find much of this is because of the current balance struck between privacy invasion and usability. If brilliant minds were put to it, I am sure location services could be mostly client side and not server side. And so on. Just writing it feels heretic and crack-pot, except it wouldn't have to be.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#605

Post by georgespencer »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #554
simonh wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you do it in an Apple Store, at least in my experience.

Siri says that the nearest Apple Store to me is 265 miles (a 4h 38m drive) from me. It seems a bit of a stretch to ask everyone around me to drive go there every time they get a new phone.

> everyone around me [...] every time they get a new phone

Reality: people who feel that they need help, and for most features it's a one-time trip with settings passed from phone to phone as you upgrade.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#606

Post by kkarakk »

badwolf wrote: post #553
kkarakk wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no the word gmail uses is "+"

https://imgur.com/a/dFx48CV

I do see a "+" front and center though,which is not the case on apple devices. even if I don't know what compose means, I do know that + probably means creating a email

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#607

Post by kerbalspacepro »

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…

You realize 15 years ago was 2003.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#608

Post by benzoate »

CarVac wrote: post #491
benzoate wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can however consistently swipe from the left side of the screen to go back. There are a couple of apps which I suspect were not written by iOS users where this functionality is broken (such as Valve’s Steam iOS app), but those are far in the minority.

It isn't necessarily consistent. I used my coworker's iPhone yesterday, opening a link from a text message, and couldn't figure out how to go back to the message. Swiping in from the left side went back... within the browser, which had no back history. I had to go to the home screen and open text messages again. On Android, you just hit the back button and it goes back to the previous app in the stack if you launched…

It’s consistently going back in the context of the app you’re in.

If you want to go back to the previous app you can swipe from the left on the home indicator, or on older iPhones swipe from the left with force.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#609

Post by yoz-y »

robterrell wrote: post #567
ehsankia wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that's how Android does it too. Text size is a very important option for older folks, and having people pick it during the initial setup alongside other accessibility options, helps a lot.

I just set up a pixel 3 and it didn't ask anything about text size? Onboarding was like 3 steps, including "plug in your old phone".

Onboard if tends to be quite different if you already had a device though. With an iPhone you can just put it close to your old one and it will suck in everything. But if you set it up anew it will ask questions about privacy setup, text size and so on.

Re: iPhones are hard to use

#610

Post by danaris »

jacobush wrote: post #549
JiNCMG wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's literally the whole reason for that article. It's "hidden" because these older people are too scare to even click on a setting button.

Maybe I suck at the Socratic method. Maybe the onboarding should be much easier. I think that if people must ask a friend to set up the phone, something has failed. It should just work and setup should be optional. If you wanted to migrate all your data and settings from a previous phone, you should be able to do that later, without wiping your phone. There's a lot yet to do in UX, not much explored. Apple really own…

It doesn't matter how easy a particular procedure is on an iPhone or anything else if the person trying to use it is so scared of technology that they don't even try.

I know many people (yes, most of them older) for whom the idea of trying to look at an unfamiliar process on a computer (including smartphones) and see if it's something they can do themselves is just a completely alien idea. If it's not something they're already familiar with, it's Scary Technology Stuff, and they need a Technology Person to handle it for them.

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