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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)

#271

Post by remarkEon »

CydeWeys wrote: post #257
ecaradec wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can still multitask using mouse only. It’s ok to have a hidden fast interface if you have a discoverable slow interface.

Using the mouse to switch to a given program in the take bar isn't necessarily slow. It's actually faster if you have a decent number if windows open; clicking on exactly the right one straight away is faster than repeatedly pressing Alt-Tab and seeing if the new window brought to the foreground was the right one.

Im sure you know this but in Windows 10 if you hold down Alt after hitting Tab the first time it’ll display which windows you already have open, and hitting just Tab again will cycle though them. You can even hold down Shift as well to cycle through the list of icons but in reverse.

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

#272

Post by arvinsim »

techslave wrote: post #202
alien_ wrote: post #177

I don't have much to complain about the usability of the software, but they are making hardware that should not be made. I'm the unfortunate user of a MacBook Pro company laptop with 8GB RAM and just two USB-C ports. This sort of hardware should not be made anymore. The memory is insufficient (my laptop is always paging) and the USB-C is forcing me to always carry a dongle, not to mention that just two is not enough…

nobody that knows better is buying this spec hardware. it is made to satisfy purchasing departments. i’m sure it’s fine for word or google docs users that want to feel like they have an elite (“pro”) laptop so it also ticks that box. rather than be upset that it is made, be upset that you had this spec hardware forced on you by your company policy.

> nobody that knows better is buying this spec hardware.

He literally showed you that some companies do buy that spec.

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

#273

Post by wang_li »

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.

Everything that has correct and up-to-date documentation is easily discovered. There’s no need at all for notifications or pop ups. Just create end user documentation.

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

#275

Post by arvinsim »

wayneftw wrote: post #169
mellowdream wrote: post #75

I've wanted to like Apple's way of doing things for years - Unix-like and support for MS Office, "ecosystem" integration - but every time I've used their products I've returned them or passed them off to my family members hoping they'd get more use out of them. Nowadays, I get more questions than ever asking for help on how to do X Y or Z thing that seems really trivial on Android/Linux/Windows systems (like copying…

I never got how people could even get past Mac window management or rather lack of window management. They've never had a Maximize function and they always pushed that stupid Zoom functionality instead, which every window implements differently. Then they moved onto making Full Screen the default which I find utterly frustrating as I wait for some junior programmer, who chose a Macbook, swiping furiously to find that…

BetterTouchTools for window management and Alfred for feature discovery is indispensable to my MacOS use. I couldn't imagine using MacOS without them.

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

#276

Post by wang_li »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #261
darkteflon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Catalina was what ended it for me. I understand that mobile OSes need to change somewhat generation to generation as we’re still scratching around to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I don’t want or need that for my workstation though. I built a tower, installed kubuntu 18 LTS and don’t intend to upgrade until they stop supporting it. It made sense for my workflow and I’m happy with how it’s worked out.

> I understand that mobile OSes need to change somewhat generation to generation as we’re still scratching around to figure out what works and what doesn’t. ...do we though? The iPhone came out more than a decade ago now, and I feel like we got it pretty darn figured out around 2015 or so. Newer versions of iOS have brought some improvements, but also a lot of miss-steps, and performance decreases on older devices (t…

The current versions of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 having obvious and frequently encountered rendering bugs in safari. If they let this out to users your expectation that they’ll allow the user experience to interfere with their awesomeness is surely going to be unfulfilled.

Not to mention those stupid flashlight and camera buttons on the iPhone lock screen whose only explanation is some manager somewhere wanted to make their mark.

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

#277

Post by headsoup »

xvector wrote: post #185
drifkin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a three-finger swipe, isn't it? Though while trying it out, I did discover that a three-finger tap now shows another menu that makes undo/redo a little easier.

ah, you’re correct!

And so this thread has highlighted the issue nicely

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

#278

Post by christefano »

xvector wrote: post #102
vardump wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was so confused and panicked once I accidentally overwrote some text from an important note on an iPhone. For a few minutes I desperately searched for any menus, long presses, weird nearly hidden menus, finger gestures etc. but couldn't discover anything . Apparently there was no way to undo! After some googling I found out you have to shake the phone a few times. Seriously? I think there must be a lot of people wh…

The gesture is now a two-finger swipe back. For some reason Apple couldn’t be bothered to add an “undo” to the cursor dialogue though.

Starting with iOS 13, it’s a three finger left swipe. To redo, it’s a three finger right swipe.

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

#279

Post by BurningFrog »

hs86 wrote: post #25

I never owned an iOS device personally and when I offered my help to an older relative who wanted to bookmark a page on their home screen, it took me like 10 minutes to find out that I have to scroll horizontally on that Safari share menu. Due to the auto-hiding scrollbar and no cut off icons to the right, I had no idea that scrolling horizontally was possible. This gets worse whenever I see new Apple keynotes about…

One basic rule of UI design is that the state of the application, and what you can do to it should be VISIBLE.

The rule works great and is easy to follow. But first you have to know it :)

Sadly, the company that taught me this in a previous century, now no longer follows it.

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

#280

Post by debaserab2 »

hs86 wrote: post #25

I never owned an iOS device personally and when I offered my help to an older relative who wanted to bookmark a page on their home screen, it took me like 10 minutes to find out that I have to scroll horizontally on that Safari share menu. Due to the auto-hiding scrollbar and no cut off icons to the right, I had no idea that scrolling horizontally was possible. This gets worse whenever I see new Apple keynotes about…

I think apple stopped designing for our generation a while ago. When I see my young nieces using their iPad, I’m amazed at how easily and fluidly they navigate the device using all the extra gestures that seem unintuitive to me.
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