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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

It's a shame they discovered iOS's UX when it's in my opinion at an all times low. I wonder how their experience would've been with the UX of iOS 6 or 7, before it all went downhill.

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As complexity increases (it does more than every now), it's a lot less intuitive than it was many versions ago. It used to be that we'd all be amazed that we could hand an iphone to a 70 year old new user and watch them be productive quickly. Now iOS has so many arcane corners in both the configuration and usability that the learning curve of use is much higher. Still love it and it's just a fact of life that, like Python, as it gains capability it becomes less simple.

Some things are arguably better[1]. If you have an iPhone without a home button you can swipe left on the bottom of the screen to switch between your apps (or back right if you passed it) without having to open the app deck (not sure what the name is, previously you would double tap the home button).

[1] Yes, this is my opinion and not everyone might agree with me.

> (not sure what the name is, previously you would double tap the home button).

The SpringBoard?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpringBoard

On the phones that have a home button and 3d touch, you can switch to the previous app or bring up the app switcher with a force touch swipe from the left edge, fyi.

I had forgotten about that! While this is true, I find it a lot more difficult than the new mechanic since it's a lot slower.

It took a sharp dip in iOS 7 when Jony Ive took over for Scott Forstall, but it's more than recovered. The gesture navigation on home-buttonless iPhones is a revelation, and makes the original, button-based system look clumsy in comparison (it's no surprise Google more or less copied it wholesale in Android 9). And it's almost physically painful to go back to a phone without the universal back gesture, despite it never having existed in early versions of iOS.

Just curious: What, specifically, do you dislike about the iOS UX? where would you make changes?

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