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Apps Getting Worse

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Re: Apps Getting Worse

#441

Post by Johnny555 »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

Another example is Netflix. You used to click on a movie to bring up the info page so you could see what its about and see its reviews. If you wanted to play it, you'd click on it from there.

But now, if you click on a movie, it starts playing immediately. If you want to see what it's about, you hover over the movie, wait for it to expand, then click a small caret symbol to expand the movie page further to see details.

And if you want to see reviews or customer ratings, too bad because Netflix decided those aren't useful so you have to go to IMDB or some other site to see what other people thought about it.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#442

Post by eloisius »

lucb1e wrote: post #321
TeMPOraL wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally why I'm still not buying the "searching is better than organizing" line that so many companies, including Google, try to push down our throats. Searching is only better than organizing if searches are exhaustive, and I can trust that they are exhaustive . My experience with variety of products, including Evernote, Google Drive and GMail, tells me I can't trust that. I had plenty of instances when I…

> I'm still not buying the "searching is better than organizing" line From what I see around me, though, most people just do not have any digital organizing skills whatsoever. It's honestly exceptional that I meet someone who has files going back more than five years and those files are not on their desktop in a "previous computer" directory; and even that category of people includes only those with tech friends that…

I agree with GP, and I'll pat myself on the back for having pretty damn well organize data going back over ten years, which has come with me over four computers. I still want powerful search on top of that, but I'm usually much more efficient at locating my own data than Spotlight is. Back when I had an MP3 collection, it was the same. I had a well-organized folder structure and it felt easier manage than Spotify.

I recognize that us power users are a minority, but I really wish there was a shop out there that would build software for us instead of everyone converging towards "user-friendly."

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#443

Post by eloisius »

egypturnash wrote: post #47

Evernote. Evernote used to be a crucial component of my life. Quietly synced my notes between my computer and my phone. Let me collaborate with my husband on a few things. Then they rewrote it from the ground up as a sluggish piece of Electron crap. Added a bunch of new stuff that sure looks pretty but gets in the way of the core function of “taking out your phone and scribbling down an idea before it vanishes”. I co…

I've been giving Ulysses a try lately and so far I'm pretty impressed. I've written about 4000 words with it so far and I'm reasonably happy. The only complaint I have so far is that the Revision and Dashboard buttons on the top right corner are supremely confusing with how they toggle the right sidebar. Oh, and it's a subscription app. I feel really weird about paying monthly to use a text editor that can very well work without any server-side component. I may not continue after the trial because of that.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#444

Post by stingraycharles »

danjac wrote: post #425
godelski wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these sound pretty insane tbh (though some completely sane). > Another is they just changing their ui/ux lead and they have different views. This one specifically irritates me. Even under the assumption that that new lead is correct and the new interface is cleaner and more usable, it still needs to be weighed against the time it takes to retrain users to the new format. You have to deal with what you were gi…

It's not something that's confined to design/UX though. Bring in a new CTO/tech lead and they'll tell you the current architecture is outdated or the code is spaghetti and needs a rewrite in [insert architecture/language doing the rounds on HN]. Bring in a new project manager and they'll want to introduce [insert Agile framework du jour]. Someone has been hired for presumably a lot of money, and if they just go "meh,…

Of course, but the difference is that there’s a much higher impact for the users if the design keeps changing. Technical infrastructure is pretty much entirely hidden from the users.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#445

Post by zestyping »

eloisius wrote: post #422
uniqueid wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't say this view has it entirely backwards because part of the phenomenon is due to the strengths of the web today and of Electron. But the 'backward' part of the argument is that native Apple software could , but no longer does, provide its own strengths to counter the web and Electron. I love (old) Mac software and I hate Electron software yet if I sat down to create a commercial app today, I'd use Electron. H…

Agree. I hate every electron app I use, but even my longtime macOS favorites are beginning to feel only marginally better. They keep spicing up the UI, removing things that used to be reliable constants across applications and hiding more and more things behind ... menus like I'm on a mobile device, revealing or moving UI elements on mouse hover. Little details like the title bar of of every window behaving the same…

> Now you have to hover over the filename of the document and wait almost a second before the title slides to the right and reveals the little icon. How is that possibly an improvement over just leaving it alone? Did they think saving 16px to show a longer filename without ellipses was more valuable?

This appears to be the standard behaviour of document windows now. It also occurs in the title bar of Finder windows, for example. It is excruciating.

Worse: if you try to rename a file by clicking the drop-down chevron, typing into the Name box, and pressing Return, there will be no effect and the name you entered will be lost. Yes: they broke rename in every standard application! The only method I've found that works is to resist my natural urge to hit Return and press Tab instead.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#446

Post by oakfr »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #29

The worst offender recently in my opinion is Spotify on desktop. It used to be that when you clicked on an artists page you would see all the music tracks listed. Now it's all buried deep in and you have to search through the individual albums. Even the list of albums itself is not shown on the main artist page, you have to click "See Discography" first. The "Home" page is even worse. Where is my discover weekly play…

I agree. And sadly we, as end users, are subject to the frog-in-the-hot-water effect. We don’t even realize how good the app used to be.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#448

Post by exlurker »

mark-r wrote: post #383
hanniabu wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope people will use Spotify as a case study in how to fuck up a UI over time. Similarly with the Google Play to Youtube Music transition. Play was so clean, snappy, and intuitive. Youtube Music is similar to what you describe of Spotify where everything is buried, busy layout, and nothing is intuitive.

Google Play was perfect for playing the .mp3 files on my Android phone. No need for an internet connection. Then suddenly it was ripped away, and YouTube is not remotely a replacement. I still haven't found an adequate replacement because I don't know how to search for the features that are important to me.

Foobar 2000 has served me really well for any local audio file.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#449

Post by Razengan »

On other side, some apps remain crippled from birth and adamantly ignore millions of requests for the most basic features for decades.

Looking at you Google and YouTube and your lack of a fucking auto-repeat button even though you have an annoying ass auto-next button which I have to remember to disable way too often >__Or the inability of Instagram, an app dedicated to sharing photos, to let you view photos in full screen, full quality, without cropping, and save them.

Re: Apps Getting Worse

#450

Post by rteuionwiv »

I love airplane avionics, it never changes look at for example, once you learn how to use Garmin 430/430W you can easily figure out Garmin G1000, everything is standarized, colors are standarized, there are shit tons of abbreviations like DTK, ETA, HDG, CRS, but once you learn them once you will forever understand what they mean and why they are there. You can also understand why companies like Boeing with their 737MAX were so persistent to not change airframe and avionics too much to convince FAA that 737MAX is the same type as 737NG, because retraining pilot for new aircraft type is expensive for airlines. In consumer world i would love apps that work on the same principle, thats why i love Vim. Learn it once, use it forever.
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