The iPhone is the worst... | Hacker News Reader

The iPhone is the worst...

boygeniusreport.com

27 pointsGICodeWarrior35 comments

iOS notifications are as disruptive as notifications on a mobile device can possibly be. A box pops up in the middle of the display, interrupts whatever might be taking place at the time, and prevents the user from doing anything else with the device until one of two things happens — the user must either interact with the notification (dismiss it or open the related app) or turn the display off and back on.

I've never used an iPhone before, so I had no idea this was the case. This seems like a fatal design flaw. How can you just interrupt the user like that?

Edit: after reading about it a little online, it appears that the iPhone doesn't have an LED light that blinks when you have a SMS, email, missed call, etc. - do you really have to turn on the screen just to see if there's anything new?

The iOS notification system was originally used only for phone calls and SMS. Things you would want to interrupt the user for in most cases. It hasn't scaled well with push/local notifications. I was disappointed they didn't address this in iOS 4 but at the same time I would rather they get it right so the end user experience can be consistent until iOS9 when it has to be reworked again to scale. I generally don't mind that Apple takes their time to get things right since the payoff is usually worth the wait.

I believe that notifications is one are where Android does it better.

You have a bar at the top (where the clock and signal strength is), and any sms or emails or any other notifications appear at the top. You can then drag this bar down to see more details, and selecting (for instance) the sms notifications will then open the sms app.

Yeah, I have an Android phone and love the notification system, which is why I'm so astonished by the way iOS handles it. I frequently leave notifications to be dealt with later, so the idea that you have to either deal with or ignore a notification as soon as it's received seems absurd. Even my old Razr showed a notification for new SMSes rather than requiring me to immediately deal with it.

For some applications you can configure notifications and turn "sounds","alerts","badges" on or off. Messages does not have this config option for some reason :(

Sounds like webOS does it much better too - little icon(s) at the bottom of the screen. Tap icon see message. Multiple notifications can stack up. Swipe notification to remove it.

It is incredibly painful, and there are some egregious offenders which I find hard to believe went through any testing (I'm looking at you, New York Times iPad app).

Are there any people in the world that want headlines to be alerts? And not even very important headlines.

It's not hard to disable push notifications for any given app.

It's part of a bad trend at Apple. Used to be the best part of their operating system was how unintrusive it was: non-focused applications could never overlay a notification over a focused app. However, that behavior was changed with the Spaces feature, or at the same time.

Do you really have to turn on the screen just to see if there's anything new?

Yes, but I don't think the turning on the screen is the big problem. If I'm wondering if I have messages, updates, etc., turning on the screen is a very minor hassle (I'm already taking it out of my pocket or picking it up).

That being said, the notifications are one of the two major shortcomings (albeit very major) of iOS relative to the base Android install and other mobile OSes -- the notification system and the built in turn-by-turn directions.

There are other issues, but those are the two really big ones that don't involve the network it runs on (at least in the US).

Yes, but I don't think the turning on the screen is the big problem. If I'm wondering if I have messages, updates, etc., turning on the screen is a very minor hassle

Hmm, I would find it to be a big hassle. When I'm seated at my desk, I can just glance out of the corner of my eye at my phone to see if the LED is blinking. Having to remove my hands from my keyboard and physically pick it up would be a huge hassle.

Didn't Apple hire the guy responsible for WebOS' notifications? Hopefully we'll see some progress in this area.

I love webOS's notification system

You don't have to use the popup as a developer. Blame the app dev, not apple. You can just use the sound or number on the app.

Then, it’s ridiculous that there is no way to close an app without saving its state. The iPhone is easily the worst when it comes to clutter in the app manager, and the solution would be all too simple. How about a long-tap on the home button to close an app, fellas?

If you're worrying about "clutter in the app manager", you're using your iPhone wrong.

Snarky as it may be, "you're using your iPhone wrong" is a pretty myopic way to end that sentence.

There are several reasons a user might want to close an app without saving its state. One is to prevent the app from using background APIs. VoIP apps, GPS apps, etc can continue to access several APIs while their states are saved. In many instances, users might not want this.

Another reason is that many users make use of the app manager as an app switcher. This is one of its intended functions, of course. Switching between commonly used apps with a quick double-tap is far easier than swiping through home screens and digging through folders. It's also easier than using Spotlight.

In this scenario, when I open the app manager why should I have to swipe past the Settings app, the Phone app, the Weather app, the App Store, the Clock app, etc... just to get to the more commonly used app I'm looking for? (Why would I ever want my iPhone to save the Clock app's state in the first place?) The result, for someone who uses the app manager in this way, is a poor user experience.

And this poor user experience is easily avoidable: "How about a long-tap on the home button to close an app, fellas?"

A little pointer that might help people who are confused by the “app manager” and think it’s cluttered: think of it as merely showing you the apps you recently used because it’s just that. It’s not an app manager. Nobody would complain about a cluttered “Recently used” list on a desktop OS.

Almost correct. The main problem to me is that GPS apps still run in the background when you close them, and they KILL the battery life. So every time I want to exit my GPS, I have to close it, double tap, press and hold the icon and close it.

I tend to think of this as a “bug” in the OS and I think that it’s very much Apple’s task to come up with a solution. You shouldn’t have to do that.

Seems like perfect new rejection criteria: "Your app will be rejected if it continues to use location services in the background without making the battery life implications clear to the user and showing an option to easily turn this function off."

Actually, he's wrong on that point. there is a way to force quit an app without saving its state.

Press and hold the sleep/wake button for several seconds, until the Slide to Power Off control appears. Release the sleep/wake button and hold down the Home button for another 7-10 seconds.

The app will quit and return the user to the Home Screen.

I also can’t add words, so the only way to get iOS to remember an unknown word is to add it to the address book

That is false, and this should be a good tip if you were unaware of the technique. Just add the words in Settings : General : Keyboard : Edit User Dictionary… No need to add them to the address book.

That's only the case if you have certain international keyboards enabled, which is why many people don't know about it and why it wasn't mentioned in the article.

I disagree about YouTube; I love watching video on my iPad. I have no opinion of widgets. And he's completely wrong about multitasking; as an iOS developer and iOS user I think the iPhone's approach to multitasking is marvellous.

Other than that, it's all true (although, my mom seems to think that the iPhone auto-correct is great).

I think everyone should own an iOS device. I think the iPhone generally represents the highest-quality hardware and software that's currently available and I often recommend it to people, but it still does not come close to replacing my Blackberry as an email and messaging device, for exactly the reasons he mentioned.

My personal view is that the three most interesting phone GUIs are iOS, WebOS and Windows Thingamajiggy 7.

They take slightly different, yet opinionated approaches to the smartphone use case. I'm probably going to get flamed for it, but Android's UI to me seems to be lacking a concrete "design opinion", so to speak.

I'll always take functionality over design. I don't care how many rounded corners a notification has, but I do care about it not demanding my immediate attention, and waiting in line like everything else.

If apple designed the most beautiful volume control menu that you've ever seen, would you give it up for hardware volume buttons?

Not sure we're talking about the same thing. Don't hardware buttons require design too?

I was probably unclear, but I meant design of the user experience, not interface chrome.

Can someone explain more about "iPuke"? I'm curious about this as a prospective first-time iPhone owner.

I've used several iOS devices heavily in the past two years and I'm not even certain what he's talking about. At no point have any of my devices become unusable due to notifications. If you can create a scenario where a dozen or more notifications pop up at once, and all vie for your attention, then you have my admiration, because that would be an awful bug.

Unless you frequently schedule alarms to go off when your friends are going to be SMSing you and create twitter notifications, and you miss several calls at the same time, this is unlikely to be an issue.

I suppose there is a small chance that Apple's push notification servers could bug out and delude your device with notifications, but everything I've read and seen about their architecture (from the perspective of a 3rd party app developer) indicates that this is designed to be impossible. Notifications (because they are disruptive) should not be able to render your device inoperable.

I just can't seem to make up my mind. Android Vs iPhone Vs Palm

I'm not an authority but in my mind, Iphone == Wowness and simple magic, Android == Open hacking and Google cloud, and Palm == getting things done with a proven organizational tool.

Now all of those things you can probably do with each of the others, and I'm sure one could dispute each as well, but advice is only good to pass along, and not often of much practical use (perhaps, heh bastardized wilde quote)

Might want to update your mind, your information is outdated.

Okay, iPhone is hard to use from a IxD perspective? Android isn't really open? BB is the new Pre? Advice sucks, in general, and so does making phone choices for others! :D

I suggest you spend an hour in a store and try each of the devices. Don't buy one immediately, but try to remember the things that bothered you the most on each platform. Picking the device that has the least memorable issues works well for me.

Picking a device based on the "wow" factor, or based on which features you like the most is giving into all of the marketing and positioning these companies create to get you to buy the device. Since (to a degree) you can accomplish the same tasks with one as you can with the others, you should pick the one that causes you the least discomfort. Joy will follow.

edit: disclaimer, I like android devices a lot, but I use an iphone. I've spent approximately 10 minutes watching someone else use a palm pre.

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