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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)

#411

Post by washadjeffmad »

DonHopkins wrote: post #316
robomartin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of decades ago I worked at a company that had about 200 Mac's and a similar number of PC's. One of our favorite practical jokes was to disable the mouse on Mac's. The victim quite literally could not do a thing with the computer until the mouse was re-enabled. In sharp contrast to this most Windows users could function reasonably well without the mouse. This, of course, was a long time ago. My guess is that…

There's a much more evil prank than that: A user was having a really bizarre problem: They could log in when they were sitting down in a seat in front of the keyboard, but when they were standing in front of the keyboard, their password didn't work! The problem happened every time, so they called for support, who finally figured it out after watching them demonstrate the problem many times: It turned out that some jo…

Our variation swapped the m and n keys to the same effect.

My go-to pranks on Magic Mouse users are to turn the mouse around or cover the laser. Righting the mouse is usually only the second or third thing they try.

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

#412

Post by xtracto »

Razengan wrote: post #287

The iPad was my gateway into the Apple orchard. I had never purchased an Apple product until about a decade ago, when I got the first Retina iPad as a gift for someone who didn’t use computers. I was so impressed by how intuitive the device and OS was for them, that I installed macOS in a VM on Windows to try iOS development. I fell in love with macOS (back during Lion) shortly before getting my first MacBook and lea…

For all the mocking apple did to Microsoft a decade ago for the cancel or allow? Fiasco... this las MacOS operating system feels exactly the same: every time some app is trying to do something useful with the computer I get 2 accept? prompts for the same thing opening a file? Access prompt. Turning on camera ? access prompt. Saving file? Access prompt.

It is super annoying.

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

#413

Post by criddell »

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 low power mode feels like resource consumption improvements and a restricted data mode feels like a security improvement.

Workflows doesn't need OS support beyond the current regular API, does it? On iOS at least, it was entirely a userspace program.

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

#414

Post by smartbit »

There was a good reason for Apple to fire John Ive

  * butterfly-switch keyboards are uncomfortable for many and unreliable
  * touch-bar was missing esc-key driving many pros away form Macbooks
  * Apple TV remote is beautiful, but entirely impractical
  * MacBook Pro 2018 and Mac Pro 2013 had cpu overheating issues
  * until releases 2019, iPhone and MacBook Pro had less that day battery life for many users

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

#415

Post by smcl »

Razengan wrote: post #408
smcl wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I had to enter the Apple/iCloud account credentials multiple times at different points before it stopped asking me to sign in again" Yes! What on earth is this for? My girlfriend picked up an iPhone after a series of awful Android phones and it's still sitting on her desk in a half-setup state a few days later because she got frustrated inputting her iCloud credentials constantly for god-knows-what and dismissing un…

> Yes! What on earth is this for? I would presume that it's an overreaction to cover their asses if users get "hacked", and also a more aggressive DRM authentication to keep making sure you paid for all those apps/books/songs/shows.

So there are additional layers of security which I appreciate. But this is different - the iCloud login prompt repeatedly pops up every now and again. Sometimes after an action, sometimes on its own. I had it before on my iPhone 6S when I upgraded iOS at some point ... then it randomly stopped.

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

#416

Post by ajmurmann »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #193
ajmurmann wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once shook my phone because I was annoyed by autocorrect repeatedly messing up. The shaking undid more than half the text I had written. I couldn't find a way to redo.

Huh? It usually pops up a message asking if you want to undo, which you need to tap. I'm pretty darn sure this is how the feature has worked since it was introduced.

You are right. I hadn't used this in a long time. Did it always pop up the dialog? I could have sworn it didn't.

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

#417

Post by riffraff »

Razengan wrote: post #399
zentiggr wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's seriously dysfunctional. I get that Apple doesn't do UX testing but maybe they could do some UX testing? Getting at least one user's opinion about a redesign might have nipped some of this in the bud

THIS right there is what seems to be the core issue at Apple these days: It doesn't feel like they have anyone who uses their own products anymore (dogfooding.) The one thing about Steve Jobs was that he was a user like us, sharing most of the same annoyances and frustrations and in a position to make the engineers do something about them.

on the contrary, to me it feels like they have people who only use the latest product, and know it 100%. So when something new comes along, nobody is confused.

Just all of us who don't live at apple 24/7.

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

#418

Post by ceejayoz »

Dim0N wrote: post #359
neor wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, there is a steady decline in usability and its a bloody shame because for years the usability is what set Apple apart from the others. A few things which hugely annoy me; - Saving a photo from iMessage.... the option has disappeared. I get a popup to airdrop the file, interact with some apps and a huge copy button. In fact, I can scroll down in this menu but there is not a single visual indicator that…

Idk about everything else but I just tried to save a photo from iMessage and it is literally the second option (Save). Tried on my Mac and phone, no problems at all. Edit: nvm I think this is an issue on ios13. Definitely weird design choice, wonder what is the story behind this decision.

Yeah, it's an iOS 13 issue. Illustrated here: https://imgur.com/a/giqdiAR

First screenshot: "Wait, why is 'copy' the only option?"

Second screenshot: What shows if you scroll past "copy", for which there's no visual indication showing that's even possible.

There's no rational reason for "copy" and all the other options to be visually separated, either. They could've been obviously part of one continuous set of options and it'd be a lot clearer to people.

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

#419

Post by stetrain »

artimaeis wrote: post #394
neor wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree, there is a steady decline in usability and its a bloody shame because for years the usability is what set Apple apart from the others. A few things which hugely annoy me; - Saving a photo from iMessage.... the option has disappeared. I get a popup to airdrop the file, interact with some apps and a huge copy button. In fact, I can scroll down in this menu but there is not a single visual indicator that…

> "Saving a photo from iMessage" I feel like I see the root of this problem everywhere in "card"-based UIs. The share button opens a "card" on top and you can move the card up in the view. There should definitely be some consideration for how to represent that there's more "card" outside of your screen.

I believe we came up with something for this in the 70s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrollbar

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

#420

Post by domador »

I'm not an Apple enthusiast and the main reason is their products' underpowered, oversimplified user interfaces, from the standpoint of a power user like me. One manifestation of this is a chronic lack of buttons on their hardware. I've long preferred the extra functionality afforded by a right-click button on mice and a middle button or scroll wheel. I've preferred the extra buttons on Android phones over iPhones. Not a lot of buttons, mind you, but enough to perform certain common tasks through tactile memory, without having to look at the screen. My latest gripe is with the Apple TV remote. (My family was recently lent an older Apple TV model.) This remote could definitely use a home button, since as it stands, I frequently need to press the Menu button around 5 to 8 times to get back to the main screen (to get from watching a Netflix video to watching a YouTube video.)
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