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Comment by devinus | Hacker News Reader

I recently switched to iOS from Android after years on Android. I'm coming from being a daily macOS user for almost a decade. I would argue that iOS should no longer be considered the more "user friendly" of the two. That might have been the case years ago, but iOS seems to expect prior experience with what I can only guess are iOS paradigms specifically.

Almost every important action I need to take in an iOS app is hidden behind a gesture. In Android apps, gestures are value adds. They make on-screen actions or actions accessable through contextual menus quicker to accomplish for the experienced user. In iOS they're essential to accomplish some tasks.

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I agree. Android seems to have more consistent UX for apps regardless of developer. Back button is such a key input that I always feel trapped in iOS, where as on Android everything feels intuitive and multitasking is a breeze.

Swiping on the screen from left to right is the iOS back button.

Too bad it doesn't work on some apps, and that it works inconsistently on other apps, and that it doesn't work on modal screens. Then there's the added concern of trying to swipe back but instead doing a swipe gesture on some item on the current screen.

The new Android gesture navigation is their first huge step towards ruining Android's UX.

It's great for power users. I personally really love it.

But there goes the discoverability. The three nav buttons were simple and effective.

Can you give some specific examples? I’m so thoroughly baked into iOS that I don’t notice these potential issues.

1. Copying/pasting text on iOS is far from obvious.

2. Quitting apps completely (not having them run in a background thread)

I think it's probably okay that quitting apps isn't that obvious; under most circumstances you don't need to quit iOS apps. Only very specific kinds of activities are allowed to run in the background; when you switch away from an app and don't switch back to it, it's going to be force quit by the system when it needs resources. Managing iOS apps like desktop apps is kind of an anti-pattern.

I agree about point #1, but I'm also not sure how to make copy/paste particularly obvious with touch. To be fair it's not really obvious with a mouse or other external pointing device -- it's something we just have to learn.

Opening the app switcher is essentially a gesture. As is opening quick settings. Opening notifications makes a little more sense as notifications appear at the top of the screen. Rearranging the home screen is also a gesture.

Thanks, fair examples. How is home screen arrangement handled in android?

A long press on the icon you want to move and you've picked it up (it comes "closer" to you and moves to be exactly under your finger). Drag it around and other icons will move around to preview/indicate where it'd be. Let go and it drops into place. There is no jiggling. You can also drag to Remove or Uninstall (Remove leaves it in the alphabetical app drawer).

Creating folders is the same as iPhone.

There is a caveat that if the icon was held very still then you'll open a menu similar to 3D touch menu. I never use this because it isn't that discoverable.

Other than the jiggling that’s the exact same method as iOS, unless I’m missing something.

Examples, please? I disagree that anything essential is hidden behind gestures.

I think the height of this is the iPhone's home button (which is gone in iPhone X, but regardless).

It has 6 functions, on a single button, based on how light or quickly you press it - single click, long press, double click, single tap (lighter then a click), double tap, triple click (if enabled)

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