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

Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

martin.wojtczyk.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 408 posts

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#231

Post by jb1991 »

bqmjjx0kac wrote: post #194
jb1991 wrote: post #96

On mobile devices, Apple’s Calculator app has always been one of the most frustrating apps I’ve ever used, and I’m surprised it’s a stock app by the company itself. If you press buttons quickly, like you would a normal calculator, many of the key presses simply don’t register at all. I’m not sure if they’re prioritizing some pretty little visual animation over actual functionality, but it’s incredibly surprising from…

I switched to an iPhone a few years ago and I really miss the Android calculator app. It showed the entire expression typed so far and its current value! In desperation, I have resorted to SSHing to my desktop and using `python` as a calculator.

Well, if you really want that on your phone you can get other calculator apps that are quite advanced. Might be easier than doing what you are doing.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#232

Post by tolmasky »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #226
tolmasky wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s always been two button modes. “mouseup” is indeed the most common. However, “mousedown” is used in certain cases where the feedback is immediate, for example in the phone app where the number shows up as soon as you tap. However, notice that the lock screen uses neither of these, but rather a strange combination of both: it registers on “mousedown”, just like the phone app, showing a new dot in the field, but…

Yes, but I feel this is totally Ok here? I think it would slow me down even more if it didn't have this behavior, because of typing in extra unintended numbers? I don't have any issues with typing my passcode in quickly, and tbh hadn't noticed the tweak with the immediate feedback on "tapdown" (and the possibility of the number disappearing). Would have to try, but I still feel I prefer the current behavior to what y…

Your comment implied that this was following the traditional pattern where moving away cancels an action before it takes place. I hope we at minimum agree that the Lock Screen uses a unique behavior that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the UI. I really think you’re just confusing this third interaction mode we’re describing with the traditional mouseup mode that has existed for 3 decades everywhere else.

The simplest comparison point is the calculator app which behaves exactly as you described: if you put your finger down on the number 9, a 9 won’t show up until you lift up your finger. OTOH, if it worked like the Lock Screen, a 9 would show up, but would then be removed if you moved your finger away and lifted up. But again, nowhere else works this way.

If you think this is good interaction design, do you thus think the calculator app has bad interaction design? That it should instead be adding numbers immediately and then retroactively removing them?

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#234

Post by skydhash »

jwells89 wrote: post #224
skydhash wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a great article with explanations on the net. But the gist is that macOS renders like a giant image with no care for pixels and small details. It works fine when using native resolution (low dpi) or have enough pixels for their “retina” approved resolution. Anything else and it looks blurry. Linux and Windows use actual pixels for their rendering, and even with anti-aliasing, it looks sharp. If you’re stuck w…

Ideally, you want a screen that natively runs at a resolution that’s a perfect 2x multiplier of a mainstream 1x resolution that has the right amount of screen real estate for the screen size. So for example, a 20”-24” screen should be 4K so it can run at 1920x1080 @ 2x. Similarly for 27”, you want 5K which is 2560x1440 @ 2x. This is a really good post describing how it all works: https://bjango.com/articles/macextern…

That’s the article. I got hit with this issue after purchasing a 27” QHD monitor. Native resolution made everything too small, and everything else was blurry. I gave up after trying pretty much everything and bought a 24” 4K monitor for the mac.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#235

Post by lotsofpulp »

PaulHoule wrote: post #181
diggan wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple's greatest weakness is that many of it's fans and I'd assume people in house assume they are the epitome of UI design when actually it's not. Which led to people like me making a fool out of themselves. Always been using Android, and listened to iPhone users singing the praise of the amazing UI and UX of iOS. Well, eventually iPhone 12 Mini released so I figured, "why not give it a try, can't be worse than my…

CarPlay is a thing because carmakers just can't seem to make a decent "radio" with a touchscreen no matter how they try. It would be nice to see a business school case study that reveals why.

I am happy CarPlay and Android Auto are a thing because I do not want to give any other entity access to my phone.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#236

Post by chowells »

runjake wrote: post #228
diggan wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always had flagship Androids before my switch to a 12 mini. And I had budget Android phones (Motorola Moto G) before my 12 mini, yet the iPhone is worse on most points besides the display and sound. > Where do you notice it? Do you play games or use compute intensive apps? Anywhere where there is an animation/sliding/transition. Everything feels like it's moving in molasses. But it's very much not a Apple-specifi…

This sounds backwards, based on my experiences. I keep thinking of switching back to Android, so I keep a recent-ish Pixel in my inventory. I do not observe this on my 12 Mini that is on iOS 16. Comparing it to my Pixel 6a with stock Android 14, I’d say the iPhone is faster/smoother and less glitchy moving around the UI. Perhaps something is up with your 12? That would still be a ding on Apple.

I think you misunderstand the complaint. What you perceive as "smooth", they perceive as "obnoxiously slow". They don't want smooth, they want the animation to be over so they can get on with life without waiting for it.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#237

Post by zackmorris »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #82

> I would contact Apple, if there was a feedback option, but there isn’t There is: https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/ That said, it isn’t very user-friendly, and I find that they don’t seem to pay much attention to it. When they do respond, it tends to be some form of “#wontfix. Please close this.” That looks like a fairly ugly little bug. I suspect they know about it now, thanks to the HN Bug Reporter. It tends to…

As a policy, I tell the world about (non-exploit) bugs from billion dollar corporations, but I report bugs directly to small businesses.

This creates an incentive for the big players to improve their process and proactively catch bugs.

I've seen bugs reported to Apple's bug reporter get fixed in subsequent OS versions, but almost never in updates to the current or previous ones. This is a fundamental flaw with their process that provides a historical track record of them deprioritizing certain bugs. Which is why we should probably pivot away from internal bug reporting services and move towards third party bug trackers.

The AAPL market cap is $3.48175 trillion as I write this.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#238

Post by xelamonster »

countmora wrote: post #108
DavidPiper wrote: post #104

Comically, I didn't even notice those wobbly numbers in the first screenshot, I was too busy noticing: - "Unicode" button label way off center - The 8/10/16 selector being off center in its own position - The indicators for bits 31 and 63 are not aligned with each other - x and + not being horizontally aligned (I believe this is an icon-font issue, seen on HN before so knew to look for it)

> "Unicode" button label way off center Its actually the center of the button, I made a video for context: https://imgur.com/a/1Y9O8dS > The 8/10/16 selector being off center in its own position Might be due to the image compression, it looks fine on my MB.

The selector issue is very visible in your video still: you can see black pixels at the top of the selected number where it shows the selector background, but none at the bottom because it's misaligned and the selection bubble is slightly outside its box.

Edit: zooming in closer it's maybe not outside the box at all, but there's some odd aliasing artifacts or something making the space above the highlight look bigger than the space below.

Honestly I don't think it makes it any better if the Unicode text is theoretically centered; the fact that there's zero separation between the options, and such poor spacing that it's difficult to tell and feels awkward either way is still terrible design.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#239

Post by xelamonster »

DavidPiper wrote: post #104

Comically, I didn't even notice those wobbly numbers in the first screenshot, I was too busy noticing: - "Unicode" button label way off center - The 8/10/16 selector being off center in its own position - The indicators for bits 31 and 63 are not aligned with each other - x and + not being horizontally aligned (I believe this is an icon-font issue, seen on HN before so knew to look for it)

The 63/31 misalignment looks to me like it's because they don't use a monospace font.

Re: Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

#240

Post by w4rh4wk5 »

xattt wrote: post #148
agent86 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind is that CR-39 is not impact resistant. They will shatter and can do horrible things to your eyes when they do. Kids should always be put in impact resistant lenses. If you’re a desk jockey, or impact resistance is not a concern, CR-39 will give the least aberration with the exception of crown glass. The hidden hack here if you need/want impact resistance is to ask for Trivex lenses. Same imp…

> It’s often overlooked because it costs a little more than polycarbonate and most people don’t complain about the distortion. I just started wearing glasses. I asked about fringing and they had brushed my concerns off as me being new to glasses.

Deal with it for a few weeks, your brain will likely adapt.
Post reply on HN