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My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

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Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#281

Post by idiotsecant »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #258
xt00 wrote: post #209

Maybe I’m in the minority here but I really did not like the feature and many people I tried to explain the feature to were confused that it existed.. “no no don’t tap the screen, you need to PUSH on the screen to make it do the action”.. and I would get a look like “huh?? Push on the screen? Why what’s that gonna do..” people saying pushing hard on the screen is intuitive seemed to live in a different bubble of peop…

I kinda agree, but also... NOTHING about modern phones is "intuitive". Every time I have to introduce a modern phone to a 70yo+ family member, I come to that realization promptly. Swipe from bottom to switch programs? Swipe from top left and top right to get different (IMPORTANT!) panels? Why are three lines a "Menu"? But sometimes it's dots, or a gear icon, and they're never in the same place. On iPhone, there's no…

I'm not sure there is such a thing as an 'intuitive' interface beyond those where the physical action of the control is visible and obvious (turning the wheel rotates the gear that raises the gate type interface)

I think just about everything else requires context, which is just a fancy way of saying that someone taught them how it worked at some point or they played with it long enough to guess their way to enough breadcrumbs that they built up that context themselves.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#282

Post by mokus »

wowokay wrote: post #243
failTide wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so I'm relatively anti-phone and have been for a while. There was a period of time where I didn't have a smartphone for a few years. When I started using an iPhone again, I realized I couldn't figure out how the heck to delete apps. It was kind of infuriating. I eventually had to look it up online, but the answer wasn't the top one. After reading enough answers I realized the 3d touch was the reason, and that I was t…

This is interesting, it was always intuitive for me, like most VR controls. It's interesting to hear that it wasn't intuitive for others.

I’ve been using iPhone 6S since it was the flagship and I still don’t know any 3D Touch operations or shortcuts. I actually had to look up just now to double-check that this phone even has it and it isn’t disabled. I’m sure I could find a cheat sheet if I cared but generally I think of “intuitive” as being something you’d discover naturally at least once in nearly 7 years of daily use.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#283

Post by vl »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #241
avnigo wrote: post #36

I had a feeling this was gonna be about 3D Touch just from seeing the title. It was definitely one of my favorite features, and Force Touch isn't a drop-in replacement. With 3D Touch anywhere on the keyboard, you could apply pressure to start moving the caret (text cursor) around, but what was even more useful was being able to apply a little bit more pressure to start selecting text with incredible precision . With…

As long as you want to select entire words, just double tap and drag -- same as desktop to do word-based selection. And even if you don't want to do word-based selection, double tap is a good way to start selection and have the selection carets close to where you want them that you can easily manually adjust.

OMG, this is a game-changer. It makes selection so much easier then trying to position long-touch.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#284

Post by aquanext »

I agree both about the keyboard feature and 3D Touch in general. Just because some people can't figure out how to use right-click or force touch, doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for the people who can figure it out. I feel like it shouldn't have been removed and that the experience of editing text is objectively worse now than it used be. I used that keyboard feature the exact same way all the time.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#285

Post by robertoandred »

everyone wrote: post #178
empyrrhicist wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if they put any effort whatsoever into teaching or UI discoverability these days. If there was a tutorial app I would have used it, but I have repeatedly had to use Google to find unrelated blog sites describing how to accomplish things in the iOS interface. Cynically, it feels like they think everyone should already "just know" how the various gestures work, which is obnoxious and user hostile.

As someone who only occasionally has to use macOS and iOS for work. The gestures and key combos required to do even the most basic things are insane.. and there is (almost) zero discoverability or affordances for them. On iOS gestures with multiple fingers, on macOS keyboard shortcuts with 3 or 4 keys. I also dont often use Linux, but I could try some new distro with a completely different windows manager I have neve…

How do you discover key combos in Linux?

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#286

Post by nfriedly »

trebbble wrote: post #269
NikolaNovak wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda agree, but also... NOTHING about modern phones is "intuitive". Every time I have to introduce a modern phone to a 70yo+ family member, I come to that realization promptly. Swipe from bottom to switch programs? Swipe from top left and top right to get different (IMPORTANT!) panels? Why are three lines a "Menu"? But sometimes it's dots, or a gear icon, and they're never in the same place. On iPhone, there's no…

> Swipe from bottom to switch programs? Swipe from top left and top right to get different (IMPORTANT!) panels? Why are three lines a "Menu"? But sometimes it's dots, or a gear icon, and they're never in the same place. On iPhone, there's no real unified "Back" button - chase it down from application to application with different context and result every time. On Android, unified buttons (including reliable and predi…

FWIW, the iPhone SE still has the home button - https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/

Although, they've overloaded it's use - single press for home, double press for app switcher, fingerprint sensor, etc. (Or maybe that's what you were referring to with iOS 6/7?)

Agree with you in general, though: the single, physical home button that always did what you expected was great.

Android's back button usually takes you back to wherever you were before, although apps can break this (instagram, for example: if you open a message from a notification, you have to press back 3-4 times to get out of the damn app.)

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#287

Post by mrehler »

aquanext wrote: post #284

I agree both about the keyboard feature and 3D Touch in general. Just because some people can't figure out how to use right-click or force touch, doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for the people who can figure it out. I feel like it shouldn't have been removed and that the experience of editing text is objectively worse now than it used be. I used that keyboard feature the exact same way all the time.

I agree that removing 3D Touch makes text editing worse (presumably — my XS Max still has it and I’ll discover this fall), but if you step back, hopefully you can understand its removal. Adding an entire extra layer to the display was far from ‘free’ from a design perspective. That extra layer really limited design options and its removal saw immediate jumps in battery life attributable to the space its removal saved.

There are all sorts of things out there a lot of people don’t figure out, or old features that new users never discover, but they require maintenance of code — this required a component, and saw poor adoption amongst many, many devs. Apple surely deserves some blame for it never taking off, primarily for a lack of discoverability. They added this new interaction after 7 years of a well-established and simple model, and didn’t give any visual indications for where you should be trying to use it. Plus, it was never on iPads, and only made it to iPhone models for four generations (6S, 7, 8/X, and XS — and it wasn’t on the XR).

It was a great idea, and I still wish they doubled down on it, but it makes perfect sense for them to have let it go for other advantages that ultimately will be used by more people and sell more phones.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#289

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

SllX wrote: post #205
hobs wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at Apple training people about the first iPhone generations they always said stuff like "it SHOULD be intuitive, we dont WANT a tutorial" I chuckled then, but add 15 years of changes on something and I don't know how that was ever going to be possible.

Tips is underrated. I think back then people just didn’t want a thick manual (also available in the Apple Books store) just to get value out of their phones, but Tips fills the need of providing some guidance as changes occur.

What is Tips?

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#290

Post by gnicholas »

xt00 wrote: post #209

Maybe I’m in the minority here but I really did not like the feature and many people I tried to explain the feature to were confused that it existed.. “no no don’t tap the screen, you need to PUSH on the screen to make it do the action”.. and I would get a look like “huh?? Push on the screen? Why what’s that gonna do..” people saying pushing hard on the screen is intuitive seemed to live in a different bubble of peop…

Yep, I also never loved it. I didn't find it to be very precise, and it took so long to kick in that the replacement system (long touch) is just about as fast for me.
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