Whenever I touch one now, I feel like a idiot and dinosaur. It can take me minutes to figure out the most basic things, and often I end up searching on the web.
In the pursuit of a "clean" UI, iOS has become completely unintuitive and confusing.
But
> Whenever I touch one now, I feel like a idiot and dinosaur. It can take me minutes to figure out the most basic things, and often I end up searching on the web.
This is exactly how I feel when I pick an Android phone (even with stock Android). Finding apps and launching them quickly seems like an art to learn. And don’t even get me started on how settings are organized. So I conclude that both platforms are a matter of getting used to and learning how to use them, since both makers have crammed a lot more on to smaller screens than can be intuitively deduced.
Funnily enough, among all the Android users I’ve seen, everyone has a habit of force killing their apps every time they close it! I wonder how they learned that and why they even do it (I can understand killing rogue apps or buggy apps).
You can also Settings > Sound > Do not Disturb where you can change automatic settings, allow priority notifications which break through, etc.
Swipe up from home screen, the launcher + search bar appears.
It is somewhat annoying that none of the primary buttons now brings up the launcher, but that change happened long ago. :/ IIRC pressing the home button while on the home screen would make the launcher appear. Since it is Android there is probably a utility to add that back.
Of course users can also arrange apps on their home screen however they want and ignore the launcher altogether.
> Funnily enough, among all the Android users I’ve seen, everyone has a habit of force killing their apps every time they close it!
I haven't witnessed this, but anecdotes are useless! I've had to show iOS users how to force kill misbehaving apps. Back in the days of 1 button knowing the right sequence of taps / holds to activate any of the button's many features was, well, the exact opposite of intuitive. Not that the modern practice of various arbitrary swipes around the screen to do stuff is much better.
On stock Android, one button is switch task, one button is go home, one button is go back. Three of the most common things users want to do, all right there.
A quick access menu + notifications can be pulled down from the top. Pull down once to get notifications and common shortcuts (Wi-Fi, flashlight, rotate, Do Not disturb, shortcut to settings), pull down again to get less commonly used options (Airplane Mode, BT Toggle, manual brightness adjustment)
Media playback stuff is done in the same UI as notifications, media playback apps pin a card to the top of the notifications list. No separate UI to learn, everything is in one place.
Don't get me wrong, Android used to be terrible. It was slow, buggy, and background apps had free rein to thrash the system to the point of it being unusable. But now days it is pretty good.
Also I can set my own animated wallpapers, so that is pretty nifty.
(But seriously, Windows Phone 7, most discoverable UI ever!)
Was that the one with all the floating "tiles" on the screen? IIRC it was influenced by the Zune UX. I remember when my father purchased a Windows phone as his first smartphone. It had already been announced they'd stop supporting them, but the Verizon guy didn't tell him that. I actually rather liked the UX and OS; the thing about Android's "desktop" that I dislike is its "pagination" - i.e. you can fit 12 icons on one page, and have to flip through them. So I have my calendar on one page, 8 icons or so there, my work email on one, my personal email on the next. I can navigate it quite quickly, but compared to the Windows tiles it seems antiquated for some reason.
Everything was laid out so that further content was partially clipped. It was awesome. The OS was butter smooth and great on battery life.
But my girlfriend recently got the latest one (11?) and I was shocked at how bad it is. It feels absolutely massive for a start. Has weird software. But it has a huge design flaw that I really struggle to believe actually exists. I've pinched myself several times and I'm now convinced that it's true. Somehow it's considered OK that the phone doesn't even sit flat on a surface. The cameras bulge out of the back such the whole thing rocks like a table with a short leg when you use it. If anyone can explain how that is considered OK I'd love to know.
The iPad is worse. Camera bump sticks out so that it doesn’t sit flat, and no one should be using a 13” tablet as a camera so I’m not sure why they thought adding a good camera was important enough to make it not sit flat on a table.
On pictures, iPhone looks sleek, easy to brag about.
In spec sheets, iPhone is impressively thin.
In real life, iPhone is expectedly fragile, so people put protective covers on it. It also solves the problem of uneven shape.
In real life, people want a wider choice of colors, textures, and a larger battery. Custom covers solve this at no expense to Apple, which can continue to pretend they don't exist.
Absolutely. I'd go one further and say many owners don't want Apple to "solve" it. The cover can be more than utility, for some it's an expression of themselves. Plain covers. Sports team covers. Franchise covers. Utility covers with e.g. battery packs also say something about you. Covers are a feature, and I'm glad there's a healthy 3rd party market Apple doesn't control.
For iPads though, the only reason mine has a hard case on the back (instead of just a folding screen cover) is the stupid camera bump. I've literally never dropped it once, it doesn't need a case except for the fact that it's not flat. And I don't think people treat tablets as quite as much of a personal expression as their phones, there's really no good reason for most people to need an iPad case.
I'm not saying the phone shouldn't sit flat (though I personally don't care). But just in looking around most people seem to want to customize their phone by adding a case so at least in Japan it's a non-issue.
I always get thick, rubberized cases. The high friction makes phones easy to hold, and they've never been damaged from drops (like I'm sure OEMs, especially Apple, would like for repair/replacement $$$). :3
And I've realized: regardless of how thick the phone is, people are likely to drop them, and give the materials nature of these things, a case is going to be required. So I'd rather start with something as thin as possible, given that I'm going to add a case either way. The end result is therefore as thin as possible.
Case gives you options to personalize your phone too. If you want your phone to be as small as possible, don't use a case. Some people actually love large heavily stylized cases. To each their own.
That's a feature, not a bug.
When placed on a surface, the phone becomes a tripod, so that any hard dirt or crumbs can't scratch the majority of the surface. It reduces the potential surface area and the parts of the phone that will most likely be scratched by being placed on a dirty surface are confined to the bottom edge and the edge of the lens protrusion.
But I feel like I look stupid. And it does not always work.
There has to be a better way.
Just keep shaking until you see the popup appear. The phone also "thumps" (with the vibration motor) to let you know it felt what you were trying to do.
Disclaimer: I am not trying to posit that this is a better way.
See: https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2017/04/gboard-te...
They need to rebuild their software development team.
From the main Messages window, swipe down and previously hidden search bar appears. There's no indication this is an option or it exists.
As far as I know it's been there since at least iOS 9.0 (probably longer) and 6 people hadn't found it yet.
The #1 thing that drives me crazy with phone UI is the huge amount of hidden functionality that you'll only ever discover if you find an article online or just randomly tap and swipe everything in the app until things happen. And then you have to remember that all in your head because there are no reminders anywhere about the functionality.
And what do they do with all of the space they save by not having indicators? Absolutely nothing at all. Tons of whitespace is added to the app so you are always scrolling around anyway.
With all the things mentioned in this thread so far, how are you supposed to discover them if you are a new user?
We're in an office park, so I could still get into the building, just not into our office.
Wandered around a while hoping to find someone that would let me use their computer. Eventually found someone I'd seen a couple times before. Told them I was locked out and asked if I could use their computer to contact someone who could come let me in.
Instead of their computer, they handed me their iPhone and said they'd be back in a few minutes. I had absolutely zero idea what the heck was going on. Eventually did manage to find a browser. Took probably a minute to figure out how to open a new tab.
Finally managed to navigate to the Slack page and sign in, only to be greeted by a notice that I couldn't actually use Slack from the website, I had to download the app for "optimal experience". I wasn't about to install an app on some random person's phone, so instead I just accepted defeat.
Handed the phone back when they came to check. Told them no luck but I'd figure something out. Ended up just walking two miles to the coffee shop I was planning to meet my wife at for lunch and waiting.
End slightly related rant.
All told I lost maybe an hour of my day. Not really a big deal.
Seriously though, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and the control center will appear, a button to turn the flashlight on or off should be there.
Or when podcasts are buffering, instead of giving an indication, the play button stays on pause. Confused me until someone on the internet told me.
The UI is unintuitive, but for work purposes it was fine.
Found the near daily updates I had to "sign in" AND enter passcode for annoying. Especially when I was in work crisis mode.
Not sure why Android doesn't have these problems, but I don't understand why anyone would get an iPhone, they feel years outdated.