One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross” • Hacker News Board

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#51

Post by malshe » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #32

yalogin wrote: post #18

The author is just overthinking things here. If anything, green is the color used to indicate “go”, a positive sign that has been etched into our minds. The reason is very clear as already mentioned “it doesn’t support messages”. Why isn’t that explanation enough? EDIT: to clarify here, the author does explain his point about the color and the contrast of the text. He may have a point there but IMO, the main issue wa…

I don't mean to sound like an asshole here but did you read the article? The author outlines that the contrast applied to the green is less readable than the blue, to the point where it falls below accessibility guidelines. I personally am not convinced by the theory that Apple is doing this deliberately (though it doesn't sound impossible to me either!) but either way it's something they should change.

The author's example of the green text looks pale compared to what it really is.

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#52

Post by IYasha » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:19 PM UTC

The bubble chat interface itself is gross. Terrible. Disgusting. Unusable. Distracting. Eye-hurting. Illogical. Counterproductive. Log-unfriendly. Code-offensive. Intolerable. Since day one.

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#53

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

What are the chances that the EU will come in a year and mandate that “all messages must have the same color” and use it as an excuse that having some blue bubbles and some green colors is harming the mental health of children?

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#54

Post by leobg » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

Also, I suspect the association of blue as modern and green as outdated might also stem from LEDs. Early LEDs were green or red. It took many years until blue LEDs became available, and those, at first, were much more expensive.

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#55

Post by nerdponx » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #24

No one here read the article, it has nothing to do with it being green but with it being low contrast.

Or it's interesting to discuss the fact that Apple deliberately makes SMS message UX and UI worse than iMessage.

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#56

Post by jeremy0x4a » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:22 PM UTC

Whenever I see this iMessage/SMS, blue/green topic come up I descend into an internal debate that, as I get older, I am becoming increasingly familiar with.

The debate is that one where I am forced to reconcile whether I am too far removed from popular culture to see how this is a real issue versus accepting that the issue is entirely contrived.

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#57

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #32

yalogin wrote: post #18

The author is just overthinking things here. If anything, green is the color used to indicate “go”, a positive sign that has been etched into our minds. The reason is very clear as already mentioned “it doesn’t support messages”. Why isn’t that explanation enough? EDIT: to clarify here, the author does explain his point about the color and the contrast of the text. He may have a point there but IMO, the main issue wa…

I don't mean to sound like an asshole here but did you read the article? The author outlines that the contrast applied to the green is less readable than the blue, to the point where it falls below accessibility guidelines. I personally am not convinced by the theory that Apple is doing this deliberately (though it doesn't sound impossible to me either!) but either way it's something they should change.

Well seeing that every one of the authors images don’t jibe with reality - ie his images aren’t what are actually on iPhones in terms of saturation - it kind of makes his entire thesis moot

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#58

Post by onychomys » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

pipeline_peak wrote: post #50

lifeformed wrote: post #24

No one here read the article, it has nothing to do with it being green but with it being low contrast.

To be fair, he could’ve cut to the chase sooner. Since it was a UI UX article, HN readers probably aren’t aware that it’s a contrast between fonts and background, not blue vs green or green vs dark green.

He could have cut to the chase sooner than the header to paragraph 2?

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#59

Post by tpmx » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

malshe wrote: post #43

This is a clickbait. On my iPhone the green color is much darker than what the author shows in the article. Here are some images with the hex color codes for example: https://imgur.com/a/7k5dMtm

A comparison between blue and green bubbles on your phone would be more relevant. Color space handling makes direct comparisons between screen grabs (from different devices) tricky.

Re: One trick Apple uses to make you think green bubbles are “gross”

#60

Post by freeplay » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

It's not the color or contrast of the bubbles that make me think negatively, it's the fact that once I see a green bubble in a group text, I know it's going to be a bad experience.

Any photo, video, or reaction gif that people send will be compressed down a couple of pixels and replies will often be out of chronological order.