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Comment by veidr | Hacker News Reader

    "Jony wants you to take time
     and appreciate the simplicity 
     of the slowly dimming animations.

     Or we’re just using it wrong."

Apple has lots of issues like this, in iOS and macOS, where they choose visual appeal over functionality, or where animation impedes usability.

This is a pretty sad bug, though.

My (very expensive, "high-end") Japanese induction stove has a similar issue. Its capacitive touch controls take just an extra beat to register, so you have to turn on the stove, pause 700ms, turn on the burner, pause another 500ms or so, then turn the burner up to max to boil your kettle.

I'm totally used to it by now, and never get it wrong any more, but it still bugs me every single fucking morning.

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Another example, which has existed for as long as I have known, is the spinning number selectors on iOS, used in apps such as Clock for setting alarms or selecting times/dates. The new value doesn't register until the animation completes, so if I set my alarm too fast, it doesn't save: Let's say the alarm is set to 09:00 and I change it to 09:30. So I spin the minute field up to 30 and hit Save. If I do it too quickly, the spin animation isn't completely done (even though we're talking just a few pixels), and the alarm reverts back to 09:00. Interestingly enough, the bug doesn't cause the saved value to be 09:29, which is what one might expect it to be, given that that's the last value passed before Save was clicked.

I find the spinner interface is a bit clunky in the first place as well. I haven't found anything as fast to use as the N9-style circle[1].

[1] http://www.nition.co/2014/08/the-nokia-n9-alarm-clock

That seems quite similar to Android's/material design's current time picker, https://material.io/guidelines/components/pickers.html#picke..., which is such an improvement over scrolly scrolly scroll scroll style mobile time pickers

Android 6+ has something like that: no need to spin there tough, all the numbers are already available for tapping.

A screenshot at the beginning of https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37809848/can-we-use-some...

However IMHO it's a big usability regression from the old time picker widget, which was a number pad to enter the four digits a time is made of. I know the time I want to set and instead of typing it straight away I have to look for numbers on a dial. It takes longer.

Design teams are losing their way. Too much eye candy is making them blind to efficiency, pun intended.

I still find a number pad to be the fastest. Why am I spinning something around and trying to position it right when I just just press three buttons 9-3-0?

For alarms and clock times, my guess is data validation. The app could correct or block invalid time entries (e.g., accidentally hitting 2500), or it could restrict the entry set.

It also means the number will be in the correct format. your example, 930, could mean many things (930 seconds? 9:30am or 9:30 pm?)

If all inputs are in hh:mm format, then there is no ambiguity of 930 as 9:30 am/pm. There could be a toggle for AM/PM.

Who puts seconds as an input for setting their morning alarm? MAD!

What's the unambiguous setting of 73:45 in hh:mm format?

3 days, 1 hour, 45 minutes. Simple.

The Android clock app silently corrects 73 minutes to 1 hour 13 minutes.

So for 1:13:45 (hh:mm:ss) you can input "7345" on the keypad and It. Just. Works.

But an alarm clock sets a relative point in time that happens every day. Putting "3 days" into a calendar is fine, but for an alarm clock it makes no sense.

So you add basic input validation.

Yes, but the person who originally proposed this argued that there was no ambiguity.

Invalid input, just as the empty string or a single digit would be.

This is where the alarm would be a grey colour instead of green? I missed alarms this way too in iOS 10. It’s worked so far in iOS 11. A shocking bug. I reported it to apple on twitter. Instead of saying yes we’re incompetent, they wanted to set me up a call with a ‘Senior Advisor’. I just gave up. I don’t want to waste time talking to someone who will tell me I have to set my alarm slower and double check it’s set correctly. It’s not like I paid nearly 1000 USD for the phone or anything...

I missed an alarm yesterday because of this. I can't be believe they still haven't fixed it! If the spinner is still moving AT ALL, nope, it silently fails.

I hate to be this guy but Steve Jobs would have fucking eviscerated the team that produced this. The first time he used the calculator and got 24 instead of 6, he would’ve walked straight to whoever wrote the software and gotten it fixed. There’s no one at Apple who can do that anymore.

> I hate to be this guy but Steve Jobs would have fucking eviscerated the team that produced this.

I'm pretty sure the very similar numeric spinner issue on iOS has been around since Jobs was alive and running the show, so the idea that he would have reacted swiftly and decisively to an issue like this is not merely unverifiable speculation, but contrary to what (inconclusive, to be sure) evidence is available.

The numeric spinner issue is much less severe. Calculators are often used in higher speed for a lot of calculations. That bug makes the calculator unusable for many people. The spinner is not used that often and waiting for an extra second there doesn't add up as much time.

That's assuming you know about it and all you have to lose is time.

Since it's an alarm, as another comment has exemplified, you may actually miss an important event in your life because you didn't know to wait for an animation to complete before saving your alarm.

I would say that this is severe given the potential outcome.

Similarly, the calculator bug is more of an annoyance for people who know about it, which is already bad, but the problem really manifests to those who do not know about it and may end up, say, wiring the wrong amount in a money transfer because their phone calculator didn't finish the animation in time to register actual key presses.

This is UI making the outcome of user operations actually wrong, not just laggy.

And I get to be that guy in response. I don’t like the sanctification of Steve Jobs. He oversaw plenty of bugs - “antennagate” being the most famous, but there were plenty of others as well.

Antennagate surfaced in 2010. Jobs had been ill with cancer for many years by then. In April 2009 he had a liver transplant. He resigned in early 2011. I think we should probably give him a break on Antennagate.

And Antennagate resulted in Jobs demanding the head of SVP Mark Papermaster - which actually proves your point: he took swift and decisive action (no, I'm not talking about the public-facing discussion trying to minimize the issue - obviously, internally, there was agreement that this was a very real issue, hence the free bumpers and the redesign in the following model, but most importantly the canning of the SVP who oversaw a fuckup this egregious - it's not like it was a subtle or super unlikely corner case).

Agreed. No one sits at the top adamant about quality control and everything “just working.” I don’t really see that anywhere in hardware anymore.

It’s a damn shame. I loved the Apple of old.

I happened to find an iPod nano (3d gen) lost by someone in a street, and always hated it. It looks so cute, but the wheel interface is scarcely usable, event the physical lock button is hard to reach without taking the damn thing out of your pocket, and what's this story about needing a special application to load songs into it? And it replaces the file names with GUIDs, even! If Microsoft did anything like that...

Capacitive buttons are a plague, man. Even the cheap new stoves have them now. Monitors and TVs have had them for a while. Cars are going for touch displays. There's a delay, they don't work every time, and you can't feel them out.

Are they cheaper? I don't understand the point of them in the cases where they're literally just replacing a real button. The worst is when they don't even indicate clearly where the buttons actually are.

> Are they cheaper?

Not generally, by neither are they more expensive generally.

However, there's a large section of consumers that see that sort of thing and somehow assume it means the product is of higher quality, or that's what comes up in the marketing meetings I've had to sit through whilst advocating for mechanical switches.

They are definitely cheaper most of the time. They are often just a trace on a PCB.

Product designers hate mechanical switches because they are almost always the first thing to wear out. Including a switch robust enough to last as long as the rest of the product is generally too expensive for consumer electronics.

Capacitive buttons can be made much better with some kind of instant feedback to replace the tactile feedback of physical buttons.

The problem is that adding that kind of feedback costs money. Even if it's just a few pennies per device, most manufacturers won't do it for consumer devices. That kind of penny pinching is the reason I avoid consumer grade products if at all feasible.

Yeah, a lot of microcontrollers have integrated capacitive sensing (Atmel calls it QTouch, other manufacturers have similar). In that case a capacitive button is very near free, as you only need an extra trace that is reliable to fabricate and requires minimal extra soldering.

Capacitive buttons have some distinct advantages too, primarily being waterproof and nearly infinite durability. A lot of UI issues like OPs stove are likely poor software, there is no real reason why a capacitive button would need a 700 ms pause between actions. Now, the lack of tactile feedback is a more fundamental problem sometimes, but capacitive buttons can be great when implemented well.

Capacitive also has some drawbacks. Like with this oven... They tend to be temperature sensitive, depending on shielding. Delays with QTouch aren't unusual above 120F.

I'm pretty confident the problems with the oven are software related and nothing to do with the inherent limitations of capacitive inputs.

The problem described occurs before the oven even has time to heat up at all much less heat the input panel to 120F.

Our supplier delivers capacitive switches at about $80 per thousand, resistive at $75 per thousand, and tactile at $95 per thousand.

However resistive needs fine-tuning, and really shouldn't be used in dusty or hot environments. Which adds design time and shielding costs.

In our internal research, they end up costing about equal. But we are small, so it might change at a larger scale, though I'd expect those differences to shrink.

You can include capacitive inputs on a PCB in many cases for essentially zero cost.

You also don't need to engineer attachment points into the product chassis, and assembly is easier.

In addition, they can improve the lifespan of the product because they don't wear out nearly as fast, and they don't provide ingress for dust and water.

Capacitive inputs have many downsides, but at scale they are certainly cheaper on average.

In your particular case they may not be cheaper due to other design considerations.

It definitely looks more sort of futuristic, I have to concede that. Too bad we have to actually use these devices instead of just admiring them in the shop. Thank you for advocating mechanical buttons.

In the 70s my family bought a microwave oven. It had one knob with a dial, which you would turn clockwise to the number of minutes. The microwave would immediately start (if closed, of course) and count down. The gradations had a logarithmic scale. If you wanted to stop early, you turned the knob counterclockwise to zero.

That interface was genius. These days I sob and cry every time I have to figure out how to use an unfamiliar microwave.

Those are still easy to come by. I was buying one for an 83-year-old relative last christmas, and there was plenty of choice even. We ended up with a Whirlpool model that even dings a physical bell once when it finishes.

As for regular oven tops, we spent some time finding an induction model with physical buttons. It's wonderful and I enjoy using it every day. It's very tactile. Throw a kettle on and slam it to "P" in 30 milliseconds, aah I love it.

Those are still readily available. I dislike the knob only design (with no time display) since it makes having something in for 15 seconds or w/e harder, but that might just be me.

They still make dial microwaves, I got one, I think it's a Pana --but unlike the previous one I had (don't recall the make) once set, you can't readjust time. Either terrible design, or maybe a patent preventing the adding of time while the microwaving continues. For example, if It think that instead of 30 secs, I want to readjust it to 40 when it's down to 20 to make a total of 50, I have to wait till it winds all the way down (or stop and set a new clock) -bummer

I don't think is a patent ( maybe it was ). I have a relatively new one, german made, that works exactly like that: two knobs, one for setting the power and one for setting the time.

Both are on the fly adjustable, both power and time. I find it really good design.

That's good to hear. I miss my on-the-fly adjustable one. When it broke down, I looked but could not find a small one (<=.9fcu), so I went with a Pana that had a dial since I rather dislike the touchpad ones.

If you're ever looking for a toaster, check out Dualit (the classic, not whatever cheap plastic one they peddle to price-segment). I use mine every day and interface-wise, it's pretty much the most satisfying moment of every day.

my whole Bosch line of washing machines and dryer have these buttons where i have to press my fingers awkwardly, sometimes slide it side to side for it to register a simple thing as "Start". Cool looking? i dont know but hey, put some LEDs on normal plastic buttons man.

My Bosch dishwasher's buttons drive me nuts. They need a firm press for a second or more and then beep half a second after I lift my finger. I won't know whether the touch registered until after I let go. Don't even think about the next button you need to press until you're sure the last one took or you'll be holding the reset buttons for an eternity and starting over.

They don't work any better or worse with wet hands, so I have to figure they kind of sacrificed overall usability in exchange for capacitive touch working with wet fingers.

My Bosch dishwasher has pretty cool mechanical buttons. My wife says it looks like a cassette deck from the '80s. I love the buttons. Too bad the dishwasher is unreliable.

They certainly must be cheaper - no mechanical components, just a single wire (instead of two) connecting the pad to the micro-controller. And they are "fancy"/"futuristic".

My lab placed fancy touch-screens in the place of the light switches. Now turning the lights on or off takes at least 15 seconds but we get to pretend to be luxurious :(

Switches are usually connected to digital inputs with one wire as well. The other wire is connected to either power or ground. The wire to the microcontroller is either pulled up or down with a resistor to power or ground, respecively.

Yes, but capsense does not require that power/ground wire.

Do they work with gloves? Why not just a motion sensor with a manual override?

I find them extremely practical on my induction stove: it's a single perfectly smooth glass surface, which makes it a joy to clean. Physical buttons (or any 3-D feature really) and food preparation make cleaning a hassle.

I prefer physical buttons, or better yet knobs I can remove and soak to clean. My range has capacitive buttons for its oven controls, and every time I wipe it down with a damp sponge every button is triggered along with a cacophony of beeps. It could disregard inputs when multiple are registered in quick succession, but then each button would have to have a delay before action to see if it was pressed individually, and of course rapid legitimate use would pose a problem (as in the iOS calculator issue).

They are smooth. Seductive. Subtle. Slow and intimate, you like to touch them and they like it back. A soft sexy red glow that fades in and fades out as you massage your commands into it's willing display.

You don't make sales based on how much people like using it, you make sales based on how attractive it appears while on display.

Well, I'm hoping that effect dwindles after one generation of products once everyone's learnt their lesson.

They seems to break less than (low quality) mechanical buttons.

Twitter's search is similarly annoying. I most often use it to search for a person. I type in my search, the person shows up and in the time it takes me to move my cursor/thumb to the person and click, Twitter inserts some useless hashtags above the people it found. Now I have to search, wait for the replacing to happen, then click on the person I'd already found but was moved out of the way.

> Apple has lots of issues like this, in iOS and macOS, where they choose visual appeal over functionality, or where animation impedes usability.

My favorite example comes from the aptly named "Asshole Design" subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/78b0di/apple...

Sounds like the well-known local forum that I used to visit, somehow they implemented anti-DDOS function that prevents you click a link too fast. Like if you open a page then immediately open other page you'll be redirect to warning page that tells you no human can click that fast. So one has to wait about 1 sec. to continue open other link. Fuck their design.

I'm totally with you there. The HEPA air purifier that I just bought registers input on keyup instead of keydown. This makes you push harder on the buttons, which are just icons, not real buttons, and hence have no tactile feedback. On one hand this is too trivial a thing to be annoyed by, but they could've so easily made it work on keydown and it would've been better! It makes me go "why man, why!"

Does your air filter at least retain its state when unplugged? I take it for granted that if the hard dial on mine is set to an on position, it will be on in that position when I plug it in (or today, when the power comes back on from an outage).

Now that I've taken steps to automate the vast majority of my house I put an extremely high value on state restoration. 9 out of 10 times a decent mid range device with state restoration and a smart plug is a much better solution then the high end connected equivalent, and at a lower price point as a bonus.

Same! I have a Honeywell airpurifier that has a physical switch, wouldn’t risk “upgrading” it as it’s perfect with a smart outlet (turns on only when no one is home!)

Good question; it didn't occur to me. I checked now and looks like they thought of that. I'm a little happier about the purchase, thanks! :-)

Every microwave I’ve used since about 2000 (an admittedly small sample) has this really annoying thing where you have to wait before hitting start after you enter the time. Not sure if it’s some safety feature or just bad design decisions but it’s really annoying compared to the time lost.

One of the biggest reasons I stopped paying for cable is the major lag in digital tv set top boxes.

Huh, but earlier today I was told in a HN thread that Android was a "trash OS" and "okay for developing countries and lower cost phones" and "iOS was the only choice for any sort of functional device".

What should I believe? /s

You want mayonaise or mustard on your shit sandwich?

Isn't that just a safety feature, so a child's quick fingers won't do anything?

I don't feel like Apple is overdoing animations. They are mostly only used where they make sense, such as showing you where something disappears to, allowing you to find it it later.

There are also options to reduce animations in both macOS and iOS, although I'm not sure if the calculator responds to that.

But you're absolutely right about these non-responsive 2D stove controls. I have o multiple occasions given up on trying to use stoves at friends' places because I was actually unable to turn them on. The worst sin is obviously that there's no affordability indicating a touch has been registered. But on top of that, they somehow tried to sixth-normal-form these buttons. So you have one button rotating through functions (up, down, off, fire fire fire!), and one other button to choose the burner. Or something like that.

I really wouldn't know anything to make them worse. Maybe Clippy.

At first I found smartphone screens really intuitive. You tap the thing you want, swipe the direction you want to go and such.

But with the added layer of animations post interaction it can feel really cumbersome and disconnected. Imagine if each key on the keyboard had an associated delay and animation and you can see how it might impede a user's progress in other scenarios as well.

I think it is a case of the rule of cool winning during design and development, and then because the devices and sites we use become daily use items we end up growing tired of the mounting small inconveniences.

Imagine if every time you opened your wallet you had to wait a few seconds for it to slide open from a button press, rather than it just opening as you manipulate it.

You lose a slight bit of control over the situation and it's timliness and that adds up over the course of long time use until eventually you throw out the wallet and buy a more rudimentary one that "just opens for crying out loud".

The applications make the interface feel slower, and it seems like they must make the interface slower, as it is extra work for the processors. I wish the could be shut off entirely!

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