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Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

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Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#91

Post by gregoriol »

thegeomaster wrote: post #72
tyfon wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The custom buttons without labels are a pet peeve of mine actually. I can never guess what the buttons do when they only have pictures and each app use their own icon set. There are some apps that use standard buttons that I recognize but far too many want to be fancy and roll their own making the app practically unusable unless you guess correct or press all buttons to see what they do. But you are correct in that i…

I have to pile on the rant - OK, maybe the screen real estate is precious and you don't have space for buttons - but allow me to somehow discover what they do! In desktop applications, you can over over a toolbar button and you get the label underneath. Why can't I long press a button in a mobile app and get a toast that says what it does? (I see the sibling says this should work, but I don't remember the last time I…

Hover is quick and natural on desktop, but why would you want to long press a tab bar button on mobile? That's long and unnatural. Just press it (quick and natural) and see what it does!

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#92

Post by simias »

tinus_hn wrote: post #45

A big part of the problem is people just not following the guidelines. If you have a toolbar with buttons that have labels, it’s not going to fit. But if you’re following the guidelines, you don’t have labels and it fits. If you have a list with a refresh button on the bottom you have to scroll to see that button on a small screen. But if you use the standard pull to refresh control, you don’t even need the button. I…

You make good points but IMO that's an Apple problem first and foremost, not an application designer problem. If an application doesn't follow the guidelines and breaks on some of the phones supported by the app store, then Apple should tell the application makers to fix it lest the app be removed.

Last week I defended the move by Apple to remove that "crab house" app because they're the custodians of their walled garden and get to enforce arbitrary standards of quality and safety on the behalf of their customers who bought into the ecosystem. With this same mindset I can only blame Apple here for failing to maintain the quality standard on some of their phone lineup.

So basically I'd frame this as "Apple failing to enforce the guidelines" instead.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#93

Post by faitswulff »

tinus_hn wrote: post #45

A big part of the problem is people just not following the guidelines. If you have a toolbar with buttons that have labels, it’s not going to fit. But if you’re following the guidelines, you don’t have labels and it fits. If you have a list with a refresh button on the bottom you have to scroll to see that button on a small screen. But if you use the standard pull to refresh control, you don’t even need the button. I…

I would find this a more compelling argument if some of the apps in question weren’t from Apple themselves (Apple Shortcuts, Apple TV). If Apple can’t get it right, then how can we expect anyone else to?

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#94

Post by asiachick »

chrismorgan wrote: post #56

The Google Maps thing isn’t entirely about screen size (though I would hope it wouldn’t be quite so bad on larger screens—but I’m only familiar with how it looks on a small-by-modern-standards Android phone, where it’s about the same as on the iPhone depicted in this article, or even a little less); it’s about the product’s overarching philosophy, which has changed over the past decade (in a direction I strongly disl…

Maps does what I want in this instance. The display shows results for what I searched for. If I want the map I tap the map. If I want to see more search results I scroll down. I'm not seeing any problem. I want those search results when I search. Where would you suggest they put them. The screen is already small, putting them just on the map would make it hard to provide any details to help you find the thing you were searching for

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#95

Post by httpsterio »

simias wrote: post #92
tinus_hn wrote: post #45

A big part of the problem is people just not following the guidelines. If you have a toolbar with buttons that have labels, it’s not going to fit. But if you’re following the guidelines, you don’t have labels and it fits. If you have a list with a refresh button on the bottom you have to scroll to see that button on a small screen. But if you use the standard pull to refresh control, you don’t even need the button. I…

You make good points but IMO that's an Apple problem first and foremost, not an application designer problem. If an application doesn't follow the guidelines and breaks on some of the phones supported by the app store, then Apple should tell the application makers to fix it lest the app be removed. Last week I defended the move by Apple to remove that "crab house" app because they're the custodians of their walled ga…

Why? What if you're developing some app where you want to divert from the guidelines, you should be able to do that. Guidelines are just that, they're not rules.

Apps should follow some basic accessibility rules and be functional, but yij can in earnest say that you think that all games for example should follow the Apple design guidelines, can you?

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#96

Post by captn3m0 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #30
endemic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been confused by the “share” window where the screen dimensions cut content off perfectly, and there is no scroll indicator, so you don’t realize there’s more to the UI.

GDPR "consent" popups are sometimes not usable on the first gen SE, because some of them position: absolute with a fixed size that's larger than the screen. Coincidentally, the "Accept all" button is always reachable, with the "Settings" or "Deny most" button conveniently located below the unreachable fold.

I just read most stuff on Firefox Reader mode. No way to click those popupas cleanly on my phone.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#97

Post by irae »

kawsper wrote: post #20

I have an original iPhone SE and I very rarely hit this, mostly by more amateurish applications, but it is still very frustrating when it happens. For an example there's an application I use to put money on my washing card, and also book washing machines in my building, and that doesn't work on my iPhone SE, even though that application is mostly a webview. It could be nice if Apple could detect these issues in the r…

I held on to my original SE for as long as I could. I have dozens of screenshots similar to the ones on the article, and I was getting tired of reporting unusable or hard to use apps on small screens.

This was one of the key factors for me to switch to the iPhone 12 Mini. And even though some apps still have issues, they just don't test bellow the regular 12 size.

The worst recurring bug across apps that still happen on the mini is not having enough UI spacing to accommodate scrolling bellow the keyboard. I very often have apps that won't show the "submit" or whatever button to confirm a form.

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#98

Post by spaetzleesser »

gregoriol wrote: post #91
thegeomaster wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to pile on the rant - OK, maybe the screen real estate is precious and you don't have space for buttons - but allow me to somehow discover what they do! In desktop applications, you can over over a toolbar button and you get the label underneath. Why can't I long press a button in a mobile app and get a toast that says what it does? (I see the sibling says this should work, but I don't remember the last time I…

Hover is quick and natural on desktop, but why would you want to long press a tab bar button on mobile? That's long and unnatural. Just press it (quick and natural) and see what it does!

“Just press it (quick and natural) and see what it does!”

And if it deletes something you wanted to keep you have learned a valuable and lasting lesson :)

Re: Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore

#99

Post by spaetzleesser »

kall wrote: post #51
formerly_proven wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple devices are full of dark patterns (to get you to enable "upload everything always to iCloud") and bad UX. Even super basic stuff like the alarm clock ("bedtime") has become a Rube Goldberg-esque nightmare, and good UX elements have been replaced with garbage in other places as well. For example, setting the time of an alarm requires you to drag in a 5x5 mm area for hour and minute, respectively. Not only is tha…

The worst thing is they have a great wakeup time picker (not a generic time picker) for the "Bedtime/Wake Up" feature. That this feature, a completely separate alarm clock logic, even exists is insane.

I use it but it’s really weird that there are two disconnected alarm clocks.
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