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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone else anxious about updates?

I used to be so pumped for them when I was a teen. They’d unlock a world of new opportunities.

Now I just feel anxious that there’s change for change sake to justify the resourcing of the design teams and that they’ll make things I’m used to worse all for a bunch of features I’ll never use or want.

I don’t want more features. There’s so many already and they’re really cluttering.

Like when they moved the address bar to the bottom in Safari. Bad. Shame. But they let you revert it. I’m just waiting for that team to decide, “no those users are idiots. It’s been a year. Time to remove the setting and impose our new vision on existing users.”

…it’s me isn’t it? This sounds like old man yells at cloud speak.

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Maybe not just you, but probably more rare. I’m pretty excited for many of the new features coming in this update! (Lock Screen customization, live activities, and iMessage edits being a few very powerful and practical additions!)

I also liked the safari address bar change, as it’s objectively more ergonomic for thumb use.

Many recent iOS updates have significantly expanded power user features too: we have shortcuts and automations, customizable focus modes, default browser/mail apps, Home Screen widgets, etc. Most of which the HN crowd (and many others) have been asking for for years!

In fact, we’re at the point that people can technically customize app icons.

I think these updates objectively are unlocking a world of possibilities. The features I listed above a pretty powerful — especially shortcuts and automations.

It’s ok to not be in that headspace anymore — but many others still are :) You can always stick around on older iOS versions! And I’d argue there are vanishingly few new features that dramatically change the way you use your phone. The address bar being a good example.

Oh come on. Bad? Shame? I don’t know about you but my thumb is always at the bottom of the screen. Why would I want to reach all the way to the top to reach the address bar?

I’m surprised it took this long. Also surpasses that the gone screen isn’t bottoms up.

I use a spacer app for transparent icons for that.

Back button and menu items should also be in the bottom.. park in the ass to go all the way up there

When browsing I spend the most time interacting with the page, not with the address bar. Thus I want the page to be covering the easiest part of the screen to reach: the bottom.

... but as soon as you start scrolling on said page, the address bar minimizes? Are you sure that's an actual problem you have?

I’m hesitant to update my Mac (it’s still on the last macOS with a 10 in the major version), and I’ve been cautious about the UI changes for several years now. I think the last time I updated during the contemporary release cycle was Yosemite. As far as being more motivated by OS updates in the past, I was one of the schmucks who paid $30 for the first Mac OS X public beta.

I update iOS on my phone as soon as I’m notified I can. I have not been disappointed once. I was also skeptical of moving tabs to the bottom in Safari, turns out it’s awesome! It did take me a bit to get used to. But I can actually reach the address bar, and I can swipe between tabs and even create new ones in the same motion. It’s everything I miss with whatever godforsaken extension I used to use on desktop to scroll between tabs, and a lot more reliable.

The problem with macOS is it’s clear these well considered designs are a backport even if they really put in the effort to make them fit on the Mac. I will stick to 3 year major version upgrades until it feels otherwise. And I’ll continue to update my phone as soon as I get the notification that I can, until I feel similarly disappointed.

They won’t make them functionally worse. They’ll outright break them, and then move on, then eventually once everyone has stopped using it because it’s so broken they’ll quietly remove it.

Generally iOS is quite conservative in its update. They also tend to port the most useful/popular features of the various Android and Android custom launchers with a bit of lag so things are already quite ironed out when they land.

> …it’s me isn’t it? This sounds like old man yells at cloud speak.

Not just you. Other than the automatic OCR of chunks of text in the camera, I can't think of a major feature in the last few years' iOS updates that I have enjoyed and regularly used. Apple used to produce surprisingly stable and snappy software on an OS that didn't have protected memory and ran on a toaster (Mac OS <= 9). Now it produces crashy trash on a teraflops machine with an MMU.

How about if, instead of making buttons harder to identify, Apple fixed the Podcasts app to take fewer than five seconds to load the "downloaded episodes" list? Or to hang and crash less often? Or to not randomly require an internet connection to play downloaded episodes? Or to make the "Listen Now" thing less of an opaque AI-driven roulette wheel of uselessness?

App Library is a huge improvement particularly the Niagara-like list. Control center was also significantly improved and notifications are still lagging Android a bit but are getting better and better with each release.

App Library is a perfect demonstration of the adage that "Artificial Intelligence isn't." Mine has Audible, Clock, Settings, and Contacts in the first box, Craigslist, WhatsApp, something I don't recognize, and a folder of crap I don't use in the second, DDG, the App Store, Calculator, and another folder of crap in the third... Why would I ever use this?

EDIT: If it were marginally "intelligent," it would have a box for "listening to stuff" (Podcasts, Music, Audible, ...), "reading stuff" (DDG, Safari, Books, ...), "scheduling" (Calendar, Reminders, ...), etc. But I don't need AI constantly figuring these things out. I can put those apps in folders or known places on my home screen once, and never have to worry about them wandering around because an AI was trying to be helpful.

From Apple's support documentation (https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/find-your-apps-in-app...): "The apps in App Library are organized in categories intelligently, based on how you use your apps. You can add apps in App Library to the Home Screen, but you can’t move them to another category in App Library." So I can't even make it less useless. Great.

I’m fairly certain that only refers to the Suggestions category and the order into which app icons are displayed. Categories are fixed and depend of how the app is tagged. I was specifically mentioning the list view however. I don’t use the grouping.

I wouldn't mind if the interface froze for a few years :) . until I get a new device or something. As it is I will turn off the "auto update" feature for a month or two to let the other suckers test it for me.

> …it’s me isn’t it? This sounds like old man yells at cloud speak.

Not just you. I don't feel like the features they keep adding are very well conceived, and they just seem to ignore earlier features that need refining.

Why don't you like the address bar at the bottom? Surely it's more convenient to reach for. Is it muscle memory, or more just a dislike of change?

Muscle memory, and on smaller phones it was never a problem. I can reach the address bar on a 13 mini one handed, and it’s been so long that it’s more annoying to relearn it. It’s best to make it an option.

But it is an option.

Yeah, for the curious go to Settings -> Safari (perfectly natural place) and then scroll down to "TABS". "Single Tab" has the address bar at the top.

You do not have to go in Setting. In Safari, tap the “aA” on the left in address bar, and then select top or bottom address bar.

I love the address bar at the bottom.

> Like when they moved the address bar to the bottom in Safari. Bad. Shame

Yeah I'd have to disagree on that. The bottom is the correct place for the address bar on a phone. It's where your thumb is.

I’ve been on a similar journey. I’m not worried about the official releases, but in recent years I’ve stopped jumping on the public betas. Probably because I rely on my devices more for work since Covid

I mean, you don’t have to update, at least not right away. Just wait a couple of months for the new version to stabilize and see what the reports say. In the past I’ve sometimes skipped two or three major updates to reduce the frequency of disruptions. But I agree that everything has become increasingly cluttered and decreasingly “it just works”.

Why would you want the address bar at the top?

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