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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)

#501

Post by bitwize »

b3kart wrote: post #447
bitwize wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of the "novelty itch" is something put there by software-company marketing to drive sales?

Sure, some of it might be. But so are many other habits that we have. Marketing is a part of our culture know, and is inevitably influencing us, for better or worse. Charles Duhigg talks a bit about this in his "The Power of Habit".

If you're a professional and you have a tool that works and is central to your job, the manufacturer changing it feels more like a betrayal than it does catering to your need for novelty.

Office is a tool that works. People still complain about the Ribbon UI change, despite (possibly jusifiable) assurances that it really is a better UI.

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

#502

Post by amiga_500 »

siquick wrote: post #194
amiga_500 wrote: post #192

I just do not understand apple. I have an iphone through work. I have no choice. In a text box if I misspell a word, such as impaitant, I cannot go to the middle of that word and delete 'ti' and replace with 'it'. On their file browser if the file name is long the middle is truncated with '...' and if i hold down my finger on the file to see 'info', that too has the truncated name, despite it being the only file name…

>> In a text box if I misspell a word, such as impaitant, I cannot go to the middle of that word and delete 'ti' and replace with 'it'. If you hold your finger on the textbox it should turn into a cursor which you can drag to the required position to make the edits.

I tried this. It's dreadful.

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

#503

Post by dahfizz »

Razengan wrote: post #433
dahfizz wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've missed the point. For Macs, the mouse is the pedals of the car because you absolutely need the mouse yo do basic things. On my Linux setup, I could do just fine without a mouse because I have multiple ways of doing the things I need to do

> On my Linux setup, I could do just fine without a mouse because I have multiple ways of doing the things I need to do On your Linux setup, could you do just fine without a mouse AND without a keyboard? Why is it OK for the keyboard to be an essential required device but a mouse should be optional?

A keyboard is not strictly required either. You can use an on screen keyboard with a mouse, text to speech, etc. And on anything that doesn't require text input, it's easy to avoid the keyboard.

The key is flexiblity. On Linux, I could avoid my mouse or my keyboard or my entire graphical desktop if I wanted to and still be productive. Macs don't have that flexibility.

I single out a mouse because it is a very low information density device. It doesn't really do much, so it is the low hanging fruit. Whether a mouse is required by an OS is like a litmus test of "can the user configure the OS the way they want, or does the OS dictate how the user will use it"

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

#504

Post by stretchwithme »

matthuggins wrote: post #352
stretchwithme wrote: post #56

One of the biggest time wasting annoyances Apple has created is the touch bar virtual escape key. I'm triggering it constantly. How did they not know this was a problem before they brought it to market? Thankfully, they're going back to a real escape key in the latest MacBook Pro. And what happened to the backlit Apple on the lid? Another sacrifice to the god of thinness? Like getting rid of the Kensington security s…

As a developer, the Touch Bar as a whole is trash. I want to type without looking at the keyboard, and now I suddenly always have to look at the keyboard. Accidentally pressing the escape key is just one of many issues I have with that "feature".

I really doubt Steve Jobs would have given the touch bar a green light.

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

#505

Post by Fnoord »

JadeNB wrote: post #235
gryfft wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one of the few Android phones with a physical keyboard and I have the dollar sign key mapped to ctrl. I was pleased to discover ctrl-z works the way it should. This doesn't help the vast majority of users, I know, but it's one more thing I love about having a physical keyboard on my phone.

> I have one of the few Android phones with a physical keyboard What phone? Do you recommend it?

> What phone? Do you recommend it?

I have a Cosmo Communicator. No comment yet on recommendation (or not). F(x)tec is another one.

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

#506

Post by Razengan »

dahfizz wrote: post #503
Razengan wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On my Linux setup, I could do just fine without a mouse because I have multiple ways of doing the things I need to do On your Linux setup, could you do just fine without a mouse AND without a keyboard? Why is it OK for the keyboard to be an essential required device but a mouse should be optional?

A keyboard is not strictly required either. You can use an on screen keyboard with a mouse, text to speech, etc. And on anything that doesn't require text input, it's easy to avoid the keyboard. The key is flexiblity. On Linux, I could avoid my mouse or my keyboard or my entire graphical desktop if I wanted to and still be productive. Macs don't have that flexibility. I single out a mouse because it is a very low inf…

Computers didn't always have visual displays either; shouldn't they always be able to work with paper printouts?

Requiring a mouse and assuming it to always be present is not a bad thing; it's progress.

macOS has good accessibility features, so you can set it up to use it without a mouse if you really need to.

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

#507

Post by nineparts »

cycloptic wrote: post #431
nineparts wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the case with most of open source software. Three notable cases: 1. GIMP, which is unusable to such a degree that somebody actually decided to make a version with a decent interface, called GIMPshop... what happened to GIMPshop you can only guess [1]. 2. LibreOffice which is much much worse interface-wise than Apache OpenOffice, although hyper-aggressively promoted. That being said, neither of them are even r…

I actually think the real problem with those is the exact opposite. Those projects were initially hacked together for their own specific workflow, and are now going through the "growing pains" of becoming popular and somewhat ubiquitous. On GIMP: There have been various forks throughout the years led by various groups of artists, but they have typically been very hacky. Currently the Glimpse fork is planning to do a…

First of all, they won't get more popular than they are now. Second, I doubt any person who uses said software for professional or amateur reasons has the skills or time to cobble it together. Because they either do one thing or the other.

GIMP: "Groups of artists." See, there's your problem. As much as I despise Steve Jobs, I finally came to understand why he was so appreciated.

Libreoffice: What you said doesn't explain why Apache OpenOffice is still better. I do not expect an MS Office clone (although an MS Word clone would be welcome) but I do expect those writing the software to check out MS Word and point out why it is better... and then slowly but surely move in that direction, not away from it.

systemd: You can't compare an init system, which has the role of starting daemons and whatnot, to a kernel which is basically hardware drivers.

As for your perspective... if you are working for 0$ do not complain about lack of resources. You said it yourself, didn't you?

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

#508

Post by nineparts »

JdeBP wrote: post #495
nineparts wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the case with most of open source software. Three notable cases: 1. GIMP, which is unusable to such a degree that somebody actually decided to make a version with a decent interface, called GIMPshop... what happened to GIMPshop you can only guess [1]. 2. LibreOffice which is much much worse interface-wise than Apache OpenOffice, although hyper-aggressively promoted. That being said, neither of them are even r…

You have asserted that systemd is "written and designed by people completely disconnected from the user". This is not true at all. The systemd people most definitely use systemd. In fact, I am hard pressed to think of any system or service management toolset where its authors were not also some of its users. Moreover, the headlined article is talking about graphical user interface design, something which is largely i…

Nice straw-men.

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

#509

Post by captainredbeard »

saagarjha wrote: post #183
captainredbeard wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, Eddy Cue's org consistently puts out the crappiest software while operating with the biggest ego (internally).

> while operating with the biggest ego (internally) Source? I know the apps are horrible but I haven’t seen much to make it seem like he’s specifically more full of ego.

My personal opinion as an engineering manager who worked closely with that org for years.
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