The iPhone Tab Bar | Hacker News Reader

The iPhone Tab Bar

significantpixels.com

97 pointsgulbrandr20 comments

When working on news:yc, I first used a standard, Apple-style, navigation inside tab bar structure. The logic, I guess, is that it allowed access to the tabs anywhere in the app, not only at the top level.

However, when testing the app, I found this was rarely useful in practice, and completely not worth stealing the bottom pixels of the screen where a real toolbar could go. So I switched to Twitter for iPhone style, with the navigation bar as the "top level" element and the tab bar shown only at the root level.

Might not work for all apps, but I think Apple should try to suggest that structure as well, since it does make more sense than their "tab bar always visible" design for at least some apps.

Just be careful when you do this. It's really easy to get lost and frustrated in an app that doesn't have a consistent tab bar at the bottom. The problem is that you can click a few things, forget the context of what you were doing, and not have an easy way give you some context (the selected tab) or start over.

That being said, Apple does use that structure in the iTunes app when you're playing a song. However, from that view you cannot push anymore view controllers: the back button will always take you back to a screen showing the tab bar.

I doubt Apple would suggest that structure as it easily breaks the back button as the article demonstrates. It's very frustrating, especially in Twitter where you can get rather deep to suddenly not be able to retrace your steps.

Yes, this is the thing I like least about Twitter. I feel like I'm navigating two very different hierarchies at once. Even after years of using it I'm still uncomfortable.

I'd actually recommend to go through Apple's HIG before trying do things differently. I've tried news:yc but was not happy with it's UI :(

Agreed. I tried news:yc out for the first time yesterday and wound up deleting the app pretty quickly. The toolbar at the bottom was probably the biggest thing other I didn't like. It just felt wrong.

I can't fix it without any help: I want to make something that's a pleasure to use. If you have improvements or even just issues with the choices I've made, could you submit an issue so I can fix them?

I'll reinstall on the simulator and make a few notes for you later today.

Could you elaborate? I've read the entire HIG multiple times. Feel free to post an issue on GitHub if you have any changes that would make it better...

I will likely lose a few points for this, but I accept it because it needs to be said. If you are going to write a big article, please have someone with a good grasp of grammar proof read it before you publish.

This article has a lot of good points, but it's much harder to take seriously when it sounds like it was written by someone who didn't pay enough attention in English class. Yes, I realize there's a good chance that this person is a non-native English speaker, but if you want to be taken seriously, that's not really an excuse.

I will leave you with this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/02/how-to-write-withou...

I actually noticed only two grammar errors while reading the article, even though I read the article after reading your comment. Now when I go back and look at the article again I see more errors, but since I (a native English speaker) didn't notice them when I read the article for real, they weren't a problem in this case. I've read articles that I started hating because of all the English errors, but this article doesn't even come close to that level for me. I don't think this article deserves such a long rebuke for bad grammar when I had so few problems reading it.

I see this kind of comment frequently, and I must admit sometimes I feel that way too. But if you notice the status bar on the iPhone screen shots, you will see "TELIA" which seems to be a Swedish cell provider. This means that English is probably not the author's native language, and should a) give him a break and b) commend him on a technically awesome article in a language other than his own (as a bi-lingual speaker myself, I can tell you I'm really impressed).

Are you fucking serious? First of all, the guy is Swedish. Second of all, he made like two mistakes.

If he made so many mistakes the meaning of the post was lost, maybe your pedantry would be relevant. However, in this case, all you've done is wasted everyone's time and now we're discussing minute grammatical points in a writing-unrelated post.

And I thought I was a grammar Nazi.

So, where do you get the impression that the author wants to be taken seriously by people who are easily offended?

This looks to me like a typical personal blog where a non-native speaker jotted down his notes about a certain topic. The text is perfectly understandable and the grammar mistakes are harmless. Take it or leave it.

I don't see anything in the GP about being offended. And I totally agree; I automatically and almost unconsciously take an article less seriously if it's got glaring and common errors.

I also disagree with your characterization of the amount of work that went into the blog post. From the number of screenshot examples and the overall structure of the piece, it looks to me like the result of a significant amount of work.

That said, direct feedback (like through the links provided at the bottom of the article) is probably a better way to let the author know about (and correct) the mistakes than a comment on HN.

I like Stephen Fry's take on grammar and 'correctness':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

I think it's particularly rude to criticize a non-native speaker for their lack of proficiency in the non-native tongue, outside of fora where proficiency is to be expected (e.g. translation, creative writing, literary criticism).

To my mind, it also shows an insular anglosphere-centric perspective, one to be avoided.

Was the linked codinghorror article intended to be an example of a well-written, proofread article? It took a glance for me to see "that that" in the third paragraph.

I'm surprised he doesn't mention anything about text inputs barely above the tab bar. The Google Voice app does this, and it's painful to consistently accidentally switch to one of the other tabs when trying to respond to a text message.

This Article point out exactly the problems I experience with Android software. I am glad developers are point on thought in to details like this. UI continuity is really important. It's not 'fascism', it continues the illusion of intuitive-ness. (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2272575,00.asp)

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