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Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

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Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#61

Post by Wowfunhappy »

charlesism wrote: post #10
krackers wrote: post #7

I feel that for OSX, everything past Mavericks has been a downgrade. What's the point in having a beautiful hiDPI display if you're going to flatten all UI elements into a solid color?

Everything past Snow Leopard . Lion was a disaster, and there is literally no feature I use that I prefer in any Mac OS created since then. What's more, the OS has become uglier and buggier. Edit: actually, I like the addition of Finder > Cut, and Finder > Rename. So, hey, there is something!

Snow Leopard (10.6) also lacks batch file rename, automatic file versioning, full screen app support, trackpad gestures, and autosave. IMO that last one is huge—I remember losing many hours of work in Snow Leopard as a high school student, because whenever I got into the "zone" of writing I'd stop remembering to hit ⌘S.

Lion (10.7) has all of these features—Apple added a lot in that release. And while Lion itself was a buggy mess, Mountain Lion (10.8) and Mavericks (10.9) are basically just Lion with stability fixes.

I do prefer Snow Leopard aesthetically for it's higher contrast UI, but 10.7–10.9 are still well ahead of modern macOS in that respect, and there are even some individual visual elements I prefer in those versions, such as the Dock.

Mavericks is my favorite release overall. Launchpad is stupid, and probably the first place where Apple really began to break OS X's internal consistency, but it can be hidden away easily enough. Yosemite (10.10) is where things got really bad.

(Just for fun: Mavericks > Snow Leopard > Mountain Lion > High Sierra > Sierra > El Capitan > Mojave > Lion > Yosemite > Catalina)

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#62

Post by auraham »

heavenlyblue wrote: post #42

You know what I hate? I hate the fact that every time I open an app (most of which I use relatively rarely), I get a bunch of popups trying to introduce me to a variety of features I never needed in the first place. That goes beyond iOS, but also websites including Slack. E.g. Why does iOS, instead of silently allowing me to use it's new version, feeds me this gamified introduction to "what's new in 13.x.y.z?". What…

I feel the same. Recently, I updated Spark just for the dark theme option. I don't mind the short introduction of new features. However, I hate when the app dramatically changes, as Spark did. Now, the UI of this version is significantly different to the previous one. I experienced the same issue on Pocket. They removed the "Open with Firefox" option when sharing an URL. I don't like these kind of updates.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#63

Post by m11a »

lostmsu wrote: post #57
heavenlyblue wrote: post #42

You know what I hate? I hate the fact that every time I open an app (most of which I use relatively rarely), I get a bunch of popups trying to introduce me to a variety of features I never needed in the first place. That goes beyond iOS, but also websites including Slack. E.g. Why does iOS, instead of silently allowing me to use it's new version, feeds me this gamified introduction to "what's new in 13.x.y.z?". What…

A contrary indie developer perspective: some features are just really hard to discover even when you know what are you looking for. I don't have time for making those introductions, and end up getting feedback requests for some features my app already has.

Problem: Half of the time I'm not even familiar enough with the core features of the app, never mind learning the new niche features they just added in the latest version. And since many apps believe in updating a lot and often I see this "What's New" stuff way too frequently.

I imagine frequent users of the app would appreciate knowing what's new more than users that aren't so familiar with the app. I like to know what's new in iOS/macOS, since they update once a year and I'm familiar with it, and they make it brief.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#64

Post by colejohnson66 »

scarface74 wrote: post #48
criddell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suggestion would be to just stop adding new features to iOS, macOS, Windows, etc... They are done and only need updates to add support for new hardware, fix bugs, reduce resource consumption, and close security holes.

At least the Mac needs a few things. - a low power mode - a restricted data mode - a modern scripting interface , basically port Workflows to the Mac

> - a modern scripting interface , basically port Workflows to the Mac

What’s wrong with AppleScript? Genuine question as I don’t use macOS.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#65

Post by CamperBob2 »

lostmsu wrote: post #57
heavenlyblue wrote: post #42

You know what I hate? I hate the fact that every time I open an app (most of which I use relatively rarely), I get a bunch of popups trying to introduce me to a variety of features I never needed in the first place. That goes beyond iOS, but also websites including Slack. E.g. Why does iOS, instead of silently allowing me to use it's new version, feeds me this gamified introduction to "what's new in 13.x.y.z?". What…

A contrary indie developer perspective: some features are just really hard to discover even when you know what are you looking for. I don't have time for making those introductions, and end up getting feedback requests for some features my app already has.

A contrary indie developer perspective: some features are just really hard to discover

Maybe tackle this problem first, then fall back to exposition.

One suggestion might be to start by removing hieroglyphic icons, or at least augmenting them with text labels.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#66

Post by mihaaly »

pvorb wrote: post #53
mihaaly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as we miss SI unit for the "hard to use" attribute we will have to fall back to user opinions and debates - and potential randomly constructed half cooked polls. The opinions and debates are not looking well for Apple though.

You still could set up a study where you have tasks that users must complete and you get countable results. But this would quickly get expensive, so you need a sponsor. This could either be Apple, Google, or some other company in the market interested in making their opponent look bad. And I wouldn't take such a study for granted.

Not only expensive but making a comprehensive one that people actually finish is practically impossible. And there are many many further aspects that make the measurement non-reproducible - and so unreliable - or biased.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#67

Post by fortran77 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #52
heavenlyblue wrote: post #42

You know what I hate? I hate the fact that every time I open an app (most of which I use relatively rarely), I get a bunch of popups trying to introduce me to a variety of features I never needed in the first place. That goes beyond iOS, but also websites including Slack. E.g. Why does iOS, instead of silently allowing me to use it's new version, feeds me this gamified introduction to "what's new in 13.x.y.z?". What…

I could not agree more. This is also what really bothers me about Windows 10. Notably in that case, Microsoft makes an enterprise version of Windows 10 called LTSC/LTSB, where you get security updates but never feature updates. Unless you're a huge enterprise, they'll refuse to sell to you.

1. You can buy LTSC with as few as 5 licenses. And they don't all have to be for Windows. If you need 5 MS licenses of anything you can get it. Don't spread misinformation

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/bbof9s/windows_10...

2. You really don't want LTSC on your desktop.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#68

Post by pcurve »

threeseed wrote: post #8
meerita wrote: post #5

Apple made a huge mistake when it launched iOS 7: it failed to improve its UI. I don't know if it was a matter of the best and most capable designers leaving the company or bad decisions by the managers, but the truth is that iOS 7 was never a good UI for iPhones, especially the biggest ones. There are many things that are missing that are obvious, such as being able to organize the icons on your Home screen as you w…

Not sure why you are talking about iOS7 since it was released 7 years. But anyway the reason Apple doesn't allow for customisation of the home screen is because it adds complexity. And given they are trying to sell to people who are computer and technology illiterate you don't want complexity.

I feel ios7 had lasting negative impact not just on ios, but also general usability on the web. Even Apple back peddled on some of its design decision in subsequent updates.

iOS has gotten already too complex that I don't think avoiding complexity is a strong enough reason for not offering home screen customization.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#69

Post by Wowfunhappy »

fortran77 wrote: post #67
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not agree more. This is also what really bothers me about Windows 10. Notably in that case, Microsoft makes an enterprise version of Windows 10 called LTSC/LTSB, where you get security updates but never feature updates. Unless you're a huge enterprise, they'll refuse to sell to you.

1. You can buy LTSC with as few as 5 licenses. And they don't all have to be for Windows. If you need 5 MS licenses of anything you can get it. Don't spread misinformation https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/bbof9s/windows_10... 2. You really don't want LTSC on your desktop.

The link you gave makes it sound like it's a huge hassle to get LTSC as an individual, which is what I'd read in the past. You need to go through a reseller and provide details about your business.

> You really don't want LTSC on your desktop.

Because why?

I have used LTSC, and it is in fact exactly what I want on all my Windows computers. It's just normal Windows 10 except without the Windows Store†, and with a Debian-esque update model.

† And there are ways to add the Windows Store back in, if you really want it.

Re: Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)

#70

Post by t-writescode »

threeseed wrote: post #6
bitwize wrote: post #3

Apple has fallen into the same trap that Microsoft has -- changing their UI not to advance the state of the art, but just for the sake of changing it so they have something new to sell.

This comment makes no sense. Apple hasn't fundamentally changed the UI on iOS or OSX since the initial releases apart from say the iOS look & feel refresh and gestures to support iPhone X. And in the last few releases there have been almost no UI changes. It's actually one of the disappointments of the Apple platforms.

I’m sorry, what?

Their phone UI used to have a button you could tap on the bottom. That button powered many things and now it is gone.

Now ‘take screenshot’ and ‘turn off screen’ are nearly ergonomically indistinguishable. Now ‘shut down’ is somewhere random.

Seeking through text has changed, too. It used to provide a bit of a zoomed in view when you slid your finger across the text, so you could see where your cursor was going. This is gone now, to usability’s detriment, and now you’re required to use the undiscoverable ‘hold space bar to turn keyboard into a seek function’ to see where your finger is moving, if you want precise control.

The swipe down features on the newer iPhones where the side of your mammoth phone needs to be selected to view calendar or help apps is also new and random and forgettable.

iOS UX has changed a lot and a lot for the worse.

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