Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

ashlan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 59 posts

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#11

Post by _aavaa_ »

lapcat wrote: post #4
_aavaa_ wrote: post #3

The article makes it sound like the scrollbar has been removed and is only accessible if the setting is turned on. Seems silly. All you have to do is start scrolling and you immediately see the scrollbar.

"until you start moving down a webpage" is literally in the second sentence of the article.

Yes, but the talk about all of the benefits makes it sound like you don't get those benefits unless you enable it all the time.

E.g. "The first and basic thing is it allows you to grab the scroll bar and move down the page quickly. You don't have to double finger scroll over and over to get to the bottom of a very long page. You can simply drag and pull it to your desired location."

You know what? if you move your mouse all the way to the right to scroll with the bar you can also scroll for a fraction of a second to reveal it so you can grab it.

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#13

Post by _aavaa_ »

samemail88 wrote: post #7
wizofaus wrote: post #6

The same is true on Android though, at least in your web browser? And when you do start scrolling what does appear is so subtle as to be effectively not there, and can't be used for scrolling anyway (it's just a visual indicator of scroll position). Agreed for full size desktop/ non-touchscreen devices there's no good reason to hide it, and worse I've had occasions where I literally couldn't find functionality becaus…

I agree, at least with the phone, there's limited screen. There's NO reason why the scrollbar should be invisible for the desktop though.

You can hide it for the same reason people choose to hide their bookmark bar, or reading list, or dock. They simply don't want it to take up room on the screen so they can focus on the website

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#16

Post by mrkstu »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #10
samemail88 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most non tech users never change the defaults on their phones/laptops. This means for those users, the scrollbar is effectively removed (other than scrolling).

I don't buy it. As soon as they start scrolling it "magically" appears again and thus it's not removed.

Not that simple. Just ran into it today where I was trying to scroll down a page and couldn't. Why? Because there wasn't anything more further down. In the past the scroll bar would of told me there wasn't anything more, but now I actively have to try (and fail) scrolling to 'discover' the fact that there isn't anything there.

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#17

Post by wtallis »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #10
samemail88 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most non tech users never change the defaults on their phones/laptops. This means for those users, the scrollbar is effectively removed (other than scrolling).

I don't buy it. As soon as they start scrolling it "magically" appears again and thus it's not removed.

Not having a persistently visible scrollbar means there's often no visual signal that something can be scrolled, or what the boundaries of the scrollable view are.

It's especially bad with flat UI design, to the point of being a dark pattern: in the Windows 10 and 11 setup process, there's a screen for opting out of various privacy invasions and other anti-features. Several of the options are completely invisible and undiscoverable until you start turning off the ones that are on screen, changing how tall those options are and revealing that the list is scrollable. Abuse like that is reason enough to always mistrust and hate auto-hiding scrollbars.

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#18

Post by _aavaa_ »

wtallis wrote: post #17
_aavaa_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it. As soon as they start scrolling it "magically" appears again and thus it's not removed.

Not having a persistently visible scrollbar means there's often no visual signal that something can be scrolled, or what the boundaries of the scrollable view are. It's especially bad with flat UI design, to the point of being a dark pattern: in the Windows 10 and 11 setup process, there's a screen for opting out of various privacy invasions and other anti-features. Several of the options are completely invisible and…

Again, disagree. This has it backwards. Microsoft isn't making it hard for you to opt-out because of the auto-hiding scrollbar. They're just taking advantage of it to make it harder in a new way. Before the scroll bar it was nesting it deep within menus.

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#19

Post by _aavaa_ »

mrkstu wrote: post #16
_aavaa_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it. As soon as they start scrolling it "magically" appears again and thus it's not removed.

Not that simple. Just ran into it today where I was trying to scroll down a page and couldn't. Why? Because there wasn't anything more further down. In the past the scroll bar would of told me there wasn't anything more, but now I actively have to try (and fail) scrolling to 'discover' the fact that there isn't anything there.

Then if the second you lost by trying and failing to scroll is important leave it on.

But if isn't clear that you have reached the bottom of a website, then that's a problem with the page.

Re: Why does Apple hate the scrollbar?

#20

Post by wtallis »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #18
wtallis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having a persistently visible scrollbar means there's often no visual signal that something can be scrolled, or what the boundaries of the scrollable view are. It's especially bad with flat UI design, to the point of being a dark pattern: in the Windows 10 and 11 setup process, there's a screen for opting out of various privacy invasions and other anti-features. Several of the options are completely invisible and…

Again, disagree. This has it backwards. Microsoft isn't making it hard for you to opt-out because of the auto-hiding scrollbar. They're just taking advantage of it to make it harder in a new way. Before the scroll bar it was nesting it deep within menus.

> Before the scroll bar it was nesting it deep within menus.

I'm not sure which version of Windows you think predated scroll bars, but I'm pretty sure it didn't have any telemetry reporting back to Microsoft over the internet.

Post reply on HN