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Comment by doggodaddo78 | Hacker News Reader

What's terrible about it?

Is it an old phone that hasn't been updated in years or a recent one?

It's fairly recent. He bought it because an audiologist thought (mistakenly) that it was required for a new hearing aid. I know that I can't expect all the useful standardized gestures of Android to work, but this iPhone seems to have no gestures at all. The only way we've figured out to reach the settings (hearing aids seem to constantly require fiddling with settings, but that's because hearing aid manufacturers don't value software and it's not the fault of IOS) is finding the one settings icon on the several pages stuffed full of icons. Then one is faced with a list of about 75 items, and you have to remember which item has the subitem you're looking for. Everything I need to change on Android settings is a pull-down from the top, and one or two more clicks. If one needs to go back to an earlier menu, there is a "< back to" link somewhere on the page, but it's tiny, always in a slightly different spot, and on Android there is always a large button for that purpose at the very bottom of the screen.

I'm braving the onslaught of HN downvotes because I really hope that someone will suggest a solution to my problem. I really want to help my father use his iPhone.

There are a few things you can try -- hopefully one of these helps. It's definitely less intuitive than is ideal.

If you're on any of the Home Screens (icons), you can swipe down in the middle of the screen to pull up Search, which you can use to more quickly get to settings rather than trying to scroll though apps to find it. Alternatively, you can put the Settings icon in the "app tray" that's on every Home Screen, rather than whatever the defaults are.

Settings also has a semi-hidden search mode, which you can get to if you swipe down in Settings (scroll all the way to the top).

Finally, "Control Center" has a Hearing control you can add -- I'm not sure if this integrates with the hearing aids, but it might let you have a much faster way to get to the specific settings if that's compatible.

Yes, there are many accessibility features. Turning off slow, excessive animations is a big first step.

iOS has gotten less intuitive over the years. It can do everything you're having trouble with, though. There's a quick settings menu that's pretty similar to the one in Android. You can get to it by pulling down from the top right corner of the screen. It's customizable with whatever settings you want [0]. There are a few other gestures; you might find this page helpful [1].

The back buttons should always be in the top left when they're available. There is also a gesture; you can swipe in from the left side of the screen to go back. There's an accessibility setting to make the buttons underlined, too [2].

[0] https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-and-customize-con...

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208204

[2] https://9to5mac.com/2018/05/25/how-to-go-back-on-iphone/

I would say it's the lack of SJ with a bean counter in-charge are leading to slacking .

Product coolness, usability, reliability, value, and customer service have all fallen off a cliff in the search for more money.

If you know exactly what settings you need to access, pull down from the top on your home screen and search for that setting. No need to remember a series of steps.

I'm guessing since it's a hearing device, it should be a simple pull down and search for "MFi hearing device" or "Hearing Devices" which will instantly take you to that settings.

That said, learning how to find the exact settings the first time around is going to require a learning curve.

My bosses at work are all old folks who use iPhones and they always come to me for help with this and that.

Their problems always boil down to the fact that all app settings can only be accessed by going into the system settings, scrolling through all of them to find the app you want and taking it from there. To make it worse, sometimes an app setting will be hidden away under another nested system setting and there's no way to know this without googling.

So frustrating. I see the "user friendliness" of IOS touted all the time but IMO, functionality is so well hidden from the user that they end up accepting and settling for Apple defaults.

The only advise I can give you is to teach your father how to use google to find out how to do stuff on his phone when he gets stuck.

> My bosses at work are all old folks

Ageism isn't cool, bud.

I've never used this (little need), but a search for "ios shortcut to settings" turns up a howtogeek article on how to use MacStories' list of preference URLs to create an ios shortcut directly to many areas of settings. May make for a simple quality of life improvement.

Edit: this does not appear to be as simple as I'd hope on ios 14.

Edit2: it is that simple if you follow the directions (set URL) Then second step (open URL) instead of winging it like a 1337 programmy dude.

There are two types of iPhone users. Fanboys and those thinking of moving to Android.

I disagree. I've had extensive experience with both and ended up settling with IOS because of the "privacy", and longevity. Might have gotten better since my last experiences with android, but I'm still rocking an iPhone 8 which does more than enough for my needs, and my wife is still using an iPhone 6s which they announced will be getting the latest upgrade this year (7 years old now).

I know you can mess around with custom ROMs and all that to get more life out of Android phones, but now that I work full time I just don't really have the patience to be constantly tweaking things to have my phone work pretty well. It's actually kind of weird that I'm in this position because I used to be all about customization and huge into the Jailbreak/Rooting scenes.

Your experience is honestly exactly how I felt trying to help my mother with her Android a couple weeks ago.

No idea what the official settings looks like or where I would find what I wanted. No idea what the quickest ways to navigate the ui are. Just pages and pages of icons to scroll through. Multiple of which were called some variant of “settings”. Many of which were dodgy phone tuning apps she’d downloaded then Android and her phones manufacturer both had their own.

It’s not an iPhone or Android thing it’s an unfamiliar phone messed with by a tech illiterate thing.

FYI fastest way to get to settings or anything on iOS is to pull down in the middle of the screen. A search bar will come up and by the time you’ve typed “se” in to it settings should be the first result.

Works for contacts, calendar appointments, etc as well. It’s a solid choice for first thing you try when looking for basically anything.

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