Apple’s no better than anyone else when it comes to UX | Hacker News Reader

Apple’s no better than anyone else when it comes to UX

senryu.pub

15 points_ompc34 comments

Bullshit headline.

The article is about just one UI issue.

Not any kind of comparative analysis of UX.

Oh but there is more, a lot more. I've mostly been a Android owner but some years ago I got an iPhone instead. The glaring UX issues everywhere are hard to ignore. I just started documenting everyday, so I can share it in the future. But there is definitely more than just one issue with Apples UX and UI.

Care to share even 1 or 2 of the most egregious off the top of your head?

Edit: Thanks all. I have to disagree that "Apple's no better than anyone else when it comes to UX" -- I think they are better but also make a lot of annoying mistakes. UX is hard, doubly so when you have such popular devices that try to cater towards so many different groups (children, techies, common folks, older non-tech savvy, etc). No one makes nearly as many popular devices and software under the same brand that comes close to this high of a standard. The reason all of these things stick out is because the expectations are so high.

Not the most egregious but three examples:

If you're using CarPlay, there is a phone call and you pick up, CarPlay changes the entire screen to the phone call (which is just the profile pic of the person you're talking to), even if you're using Maps or anything else.

Everything has a different way to be closed or go back to the previous screen. Sometimes you swipe up, sometimes to the left, sometimes there is a back arrow in the top left, sometimes there is a X in the top right. When to do what is often not clear, and there is no universal "go back" action that seems to work either.

Swapping application context goes by "last touched", and it's easy to get lost when swapping left/right and trying to look/copy/scroll from many apps.

>Everything has a different way to be closed or go back to the previous screen. Sometimes you swipe up, sometimes to the left, sometimes there is a back arrow in the top left, sometimes there is a X in the top right. When to do what is often not clear, and there is no universal "go back" action that seems to work either.

I can think of one extremely annoying exception that was definitely an oversight, but generally these is a HIG that is associated with each of these. Not everything makes sense to be in a left-to-right stack. The windows that pop up from the bottom are supposed to have a different purpose (usually have a "Close" button) vs the nav stack that have a back button. 3rd party apps do their own thing.

> Not everything makes sense to be in a left-to-right stack. The windows that pop up from the bottom are supposed to have a different purpose (usually have a "Close" button) vs the nav stack that have a back button

I agree. I think what I'm getting at with that is less about how you structure your app, and more about my frustration that there is no universal way of going back. If the developer forgets to implement a back button, suddenly I can get stuck on a step and having to restart the app. In a non-iOS app UI (like desktop GTK, browsers, Windows UI or anything really) it's always really obvious that I can press the OS hotkey to go back, or press backspace/escape to get back to where I was before.

Very true. I moved from Android to iPhone few months ago and even through the current iPhone I use (iPhone 11) is smaller than my Android device (Samsung S20 Plus), I can't use it with one hand.

Not who asked, but as someone who bought an iPad I can share at least some which completely threw me for a loop.

How do I search through all the apps on my iPad? I want to see a list, or have a text field where I can type, how do I get one to show up? I try swiping down from the top edge, that gives me a "lock screen". Swipe down from the top right corner, that gives me a _different_ status and widget screen than the one that I get swiping down from the top edge anywhere else. I swipe from the left to the right, I get yet ANOTHER set of widgets I don't care about. Swipe from the right to the left and I start moving through the randomly organized pages of apps.

No, to be able to search for an app, I have to know that if I put my finger in the center of the home screen, right on top of all the app icons which normally I tap to enter said apps, and then swipe down from that position, A FULL PAGE SEARCH BOX MATERIALIZES FROM NOWHERE AND PULLS FOCUS FROM EVERYTHING ELSE?! How the hell am I supposed to "just know this"?

I do like my iPad, but it is full of these kinds of "how am I supposed to know that that works that way?" moments. I got an iPad for my older, less technically focused mother, and I really got the brunt of it then. Text and buttons are indistinguishable in the flat paradigm; you can't increase the size of things like the text that is used to label the apps on the home screen just below their icons (or at least, I couldn't figure it out after much searching); the contrast of UI elements is waaaay too low and many don't respond to accessibility options, meaning things like area dividers are hard to see and thus can't guide the user; dividing up UI elements like the bottom-of-the-screen bar in Apple Podcasts ends up being confusing (is this a part of the "overall app" UI, or is what's on the screen now merely a part of this single view-pane?); apps are always playing "where's the back button" because there is no dedicated "back" button like on Android, so sometimes the back button is in the top left corner, sometimes it's in a different corner because I'm in a sub-view, sometimes it's not there because I need to swipe this menu away, but no matter what, it's never near where my hand always is: the bottom right of the device, so it's always a chore to go "back".

I could go on. What I mean to say is that I strongly agree with author when they say "Apple’s no better than anyone else when it comes to UX"; I'm sure if I got used to it I'd be fine with all of this, just as I and my older mother are "fine-ish" with Android because it's what we're used to. But make no mistake:

> Apple’s no better than anyone else when it comes to UX

My biggest frustration since I wrote this article was that by swiping up from the bottom right corner of an iPad, the keyboard would move up to the middle of the screen and split itself in two. Turns out if you were slightly inside the screen when you start swiping it triggers a long-press popup menu for the keyboard.

Thank you for disagreeing in a reasonable manner.

Where I feel Apple fall short is in trying to take away “excess information”, where honestly they often succeed, they end up with some very confusing interfaces. And while this might make it faster to learn, it doesn’t necessarily mean people are learning the “right” things, i.e. what is actually going on. Although pretty much anyone using the term “cloud” is doing the same thing.

I still stand by the headline though, for my opinion. I just think they’re better at some things and worse at others. I find most current OS about as bad as each other in terms of UX.

Every alarm clock app in Android lets you edit the time when you just tap the time in the list of alarms. But iOS does nothing on tapping the time. We have to click `Edit` from top left, then tap the time to edit it. I don't how this qualifies as great UX. I recently moved from Android to iOS and there are lot of annoyances like this all over the phone.

But the headline doesn't say it's a comparative analysis of UX? It's a comparison of an example of current Apple UX with their prior reputation, if anything.

Also, this isn't a forum for needlessly aggressive remarks.

> the headline doesn't say it's a comparative analysis of UX

It would need to be for the headline not to be bullshit.

As for the needlessly aggressive remarks. I agree.

This wasn’t one - it was simply a statement of fact.

It's usually advisable to just flag and not respond to low quality submissions, don't take the bait.

This one might get some good discussion at least, or it might not.

Taking the bait would be to discuss the title without calling bullshit on it.

That’s the point.

I’ve been burned by Apple Notes on iPhone many years ago.

Toggling on iCloud sync copied my notes there, but I then toggled it off seconds later and my local copy of hundreds of notes got deleted.

Here is another one: I'm so annoyed that the paste button doesn't appear on the keyboard after copying a text. That seems like an obvious feature to me. Something recently added to the clipboard? Show the paste button on top of the keyboard.

> iMessage combines text messages and its own messaging system in a more-or-less opaque way to the end user

I don't really know what to say about it, but I just wanted to point out how we use both "opaque" and "transparent" in the way the author uses "opaque" here. I know this isn't unique (i.e. "I'm up for X" or "I'm down for X") but this particular instance is, for me and by far, the most confusing.

>If you delete a message, it's deleted from all your devices immediately, and it's gone forever. Delete an entire conversation? Gone forever.

This is expected behavior on 2-way sync. Presumably backups made before the message was deleted will still have the message but will delete it out once network connectivity is restored.

If you're an engineer and you know the implications of a "2-way sync" then yes. But most people using iPhone are not, so what happens when something is on/off has to be extremely clear and intuitive.

I'm not an engineer, but I've used computers often enough that I understand deleting synced folders deletes files in both locations (dropbox, onedrive, etc).

> I'm resolving that for the future by swapping her to an Android phone where I can manage backups myself as I do for my own (a combination of Syncthing, ZFS, and off-site backups for me).

So, rather than learn the implications of the setting and take the L in a way that his gf could manage after she dumps him, our very smart author is going to double-down and manage her backups.

Oh good lord the assumptions here are ridiculous.

First off, I am an engineer, and I've built my own two way sync services. I know what it is. What I'm complaining about, and you would understand if you read the words, is that the setting doesn't say "this way for backups, this way for two-way sync and oh btw we remove all message backups when you toggle this on".

Secondly your insinuation towards both myself and my girlfriend that this is a solution I forced upon her that she doesn't understand is insulting. She was extremely upset by the lost messages and perfectly happy to explore a different system where I could help her back them up in a way she trusts. And it's just plain sexist to assume she won't be able to manage them in this way.

>First off, I am an engineer, and I've built my own two way sync services.

Then you should at least know that this is HN and you're supposed to make this an incredible journey and post a link to your clever sync product.

> Secondly

lol! Please see my earlier advice regarding low quality submissions, it applies to comments too. But since I baited you out and have your full attention, the reason I said that is because text messages and photos are highly personal information that people generally don't like to lose control over.

> where I can manage

Your words, not mine. If you said you'd build a system she could manage, I wouldn't have said it.

It's hardly baiting when I submitted the article myself and actually respond to comments.

My girlfriend isn't technical, and she trusts me more than she trusts big businesses, shockingly. Her messages are Signal backups so I couldn't read them even if I wanted to, and she happily shares her millions of photos of animals with me anyway. She's the emergency contact for my offsite backup service if anything should happen to me, and they'll ship her a drive with our data on it.

This is hardly a low quality submission but it's even more ridiculous to assume me a low quality person.

I'll repeat (for the third time) my earlier advice. Don't feed trolls, just flag my comments and move on.

As for the rest you posted, I've only made the claim that you were very smart, that's it. If you want to project all this stuff about sexism and people quality, I don't know anything about that.

Thanks for the enjoyable conversation though, gave me a good chuckle. Cheers!

> I'll repeat (for the third time) my earlier advice. Don't feed trolls, just flag my comments and move on.

lmao, imagine being an idiot on the internet and still trying to pretend you somehow have the moral high ground

I'm not sure if the author is correct. I have this setting enabled. My iPhone died, it's my only apple device. Apple replaced it, I logged into iCloud on the new phone and all my Messages restored (along with everything else, it was like my old phone). How is that not a backup?

That's part of the sync step. Basically it stores the "current" state and will mirror that to all devices.

I would class a backup differently. Say someone grabs your phone and deletes your conversations (or you accidentally swipe the wrong way). How do you get those back? Because the sync service immediately removes them from all devices with no way to roll that back.

The author is ranting that he doesn’t know how 2-way syncing works, I for once would be pissed if I deleted a message on my iPhone and its still on my iPad/macbook. You’ve made a conscious decision to delete your messages and know you blame the manufacturer because you changed your mind? Its a ridiculous premise

I think the authors point is that iCloud is many things. It's for backups AND for 2-way sync, and when you have what activated, and their connection, is not absolutely clear for the average user.

Yeah this is the issue. Is it a backup or is it sync? It's not like "left for backups, right for sync", it's just on or off for "iCloud". Which isn't even consistent across apps.

You delete an entire conversation in iMessage by swiping to the left and then tapping a button on the left, FYI. Which is easily fumbleable, or possible to trigger with a wet screen, and is what happened to my girlfriend.

Legitimate article, exaggerated premise. Across the board, UX at the OS GUI level is usable only by necessity and repetition. The bar couldn't be lower, and iDevices aren't anywhere near the bottom.

I tend to agree. I do still use an iPad, despite its faults, as I prefer it in a tablet form. I’m a Linux user and I forget how many awkward things I do naturally now that are utterly bewildering to new users.

I think Apple’s biggest problem is discoverability. Too many gestures, not enough words to explain what something does. Android, by comparison to iOS, is a horror show in many other ways, and suffers from “too much going on”-ness. There must be a midpoint between those states.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com