1) Apple taking a stab at it, because it’s the kind of thing where UX really matters and Apple does UX well.
2) Apple not being trapped in the “if we can’t sell a billion of them then why even bother?” mindset that so many other companies get trapped in, often because they’re not bursting at the seams with cash, talent, and runway.
I hear people say this often enough to question my own sanity, because I don't find Apple's UX to be very good at all. I find it confusing and it makes things difficult to figure out.
It's probably invisible to most Apple users but it's a bit puzzling to anybody coming from anywhere else.
This is even worse on Apple smartphones, because a lot of stuff is done using mystery gestures that you have to already have memorized.
Skeuomorphism used to provide a small amount of relief, but since that's gone out of fashion, it eliminated even those clues.
In short, I find Apple's user interfaces to be very opaque. In fairness to Apple, this is also true of Android, Windows, and Gnome. But in the case of Android, it feels intuitive to me simply because I've internalized how to do the stuff that it gives no hint as to how to do.
What system(s) do you find more discoverable, and how? I’m honestly curious because I love checking our new systems or window managers and it’s bugged me not to have some of this elsewhere for a while.
The search bar in the menu is fine if there is a menu to search. IIRC or at least last time I used it the screenshot tool had no menus and was extremely unclear as to how to save a screenshot as a file in the location you actually want.
To your point about trackpads though, I agree. I can’t stand a mouse on macOS, it loses too much convenience, especially with BTT available.
That said, is there any system today that you find more discoverable? I mean serenityOS actually fits that bill, and classics like older macOS or windows 98, but anything modern?
The Dock also works, although you have to move the pointer downwars to show it. In a lot of ways Clicking on Icons is MacOS foundation mode and everything else is superfluous. I, as a Poweruser, forget that sometimes.
> IIRC or at least last time I used it the screenshot tool had no menus and was extremely unclear as to how to save a screenshot as a file in the location you actually want.
The Screenshot tool btw. is also an App under Applications → Utilities. If you use that, you’ll get a floating palette with different options including for different locations. Those options then get also used by the Poweruser ⇧⌘n shortcuts.
(I don’t necessary disagree with you, there is too much invisible navigation.)
As for where to save that screenshot, that is available in the Options section of the floating menu.
You don't. They are hidden. If you are supposed to see them they shouldn't be hidden.
I understand that other operating systems make a different choice about this, but that doesn't make their choice is the correct one.
Did you know that you can hold the spacebar to move your cursor around on iOS? Without my friend telling me about that feature, I also found text selection in iOS to be deeply frustrating as compared to Android
I just tested this on my phone (albeit it is an iPhone 8, so a bit older model perhaps without as many features). A short tap is sufficient to turn it on and off. A longer tap brings up the intensity slider. I was unable to tap the icon quickly enough so as not to register the tap and toggle the flashlight.
Upon retesting a couple times, I did notice that on the first tap the icon is illuminated but it did take a split second more for the actual flashlight to turn on. But waiting the split second was sufficient instead of further tapping.
I’m using the menu that is pulled up while the phone is unlocked (by dragging from the bottom of the screen, on my model), for reference.
For the flashlight in particular, the button inside the control center can do a few different things—including closing the control center entirely—if you fumble the tap even slightly with an upward push of the thumb. With the Lock Screen, a sliding motion of any kind will just not turn the light on if your slide doesn't begin and end inside of the UI element that you're entirely obscuring the view of with your enormous fingers. You can accidentally open the Lock Screen customizer. It's even possible to get haptic feedback from the lockscreen flashlight button without actually turning it on.
While I don't have any of these problems, I am familiar with them and have observed others struggle. There are accessibility settings that are designed to help (repeated input filters and such) but they all slow the UI down and somehow make it more confusing because the phone is just more likely to do nothing rather than the wrong thing.
On a multi monitor setup, why is it impossible to drag a window over to a monitor where another window is fullscreened?
How do you select a specific resolution or refresh rate when you're plugged into an older meeting room projector?
I had to use an iPhone for a few weeks when mine broke. That was enough to convince me to never touch any of their products again. I'd love to tell you more about it but it's been 4 years and I just don't remember all of of details. The main thing I remember is that it was anything but intuitive to use and it was an entirely frustrating experience. Easily the worst phone experience I've ever had
My 70-80+ year old parents can use iOS abd ipados mostly fine but get lots of things wrong on their Mac, so it seems to be a net improvement.
For the life of him he can't he can't look at a text message while in a phone call and then get back to the call menu.
He unknowingly mutes notifications for contacts and has no chance of figuring out how to unmute them.
He accidentally calls his contacts all the time.
Those 9 sections are all unlabeled for some insane reason (I suppose maybe this type of plain table view thing has never had a UI element to make headings?), so even the intent of the designer is unknown. If you want a certain setting, you just have to keep scrolling. There is Search in here, though the search is mediocre and it’s still hard to find things.
Oh, and Settings has a junk drawer too called General, which seems to mostly mean “someone was forced to pull 15 or so items into a subfolder, and it also uses the “random groups without headings” method of organization.
All of this seems low-effort and like the designers didn’t learn even basic lessons from 40 years of GUI design (or like the ones calling the shots are fine art majors more concerned with words like “uncluttered” and “elegant” than “usability” and “discoverable.”
I have many examples, but I'll just pick one. When having multiple instances of an app, the doc adds a "dot" by the app icon. This dot is present no matter whether I have 2 instances or 10 instances. Oftentimes I forget instances there (which can open due to many reasons, including for instance private browsing) because it's not easy to tell that I have 3, instead of my usual 2 instances.
Additionally, switching instances is unnecessary slow and requires more clicks than the older Windows taskbar (which is hopefully coming back as MSFT imitated Apple's terrible UX). Maybe you love this but I objectively lose productivity with this UX decision.
This is why open windows are represented on the second level, e.g. listed in the context menu that appears when you right click a dock icon. Programs and windows are not synonymous, and in fact windows belong to programs.
Macs have used this model since they first gained multitasking decades ago.
That's simply not the case.
The dock adds a dot to the application icon if the application is running.
If you have multiple instance of the application running, there will be multiple icons (each with a dot) in the dock. This is fairly difficult to do, the only way I know how is by starting the application again from the command line. Well, or when you're running an application you are developing from Xcode.
So not 100% sure what you mean with "multiple instances", but almost certainly not actual multiple instances. I am guessing you mean an application with multiple documents open.
So basically, what you regard as "bad UX" is simply you trying to map assumptions from one environment onto a different environment, and finding that your assumptions don't reflect reality.
And yes, the application will be running (showing a dot) whenever you have 1 or more documents open in the app.
To switch between documents of an application, you can either go to the application's "Window" menu and chose one from there, or to the dock icon and choose one from there.
Anyway, I'm using Chrome and that's what happens.
Alt-Tab (erm... Cmd-Tab) switching through applications instead of windows (and then having a separate hotkey to tab through windows, but only within one application), and that mess combined with the fact that there can be UI applications that just have a menu bar but no open windows is just incredibly bizarre (and even though I'm now a primary Mac user for more than a decade it still feels incredibly clunky - at least there's this gesture-controlled 'exploded-desktop-view' as a workaround).
...and when it comes to the new stuff:
- hiding the scroll bar, what a completely non-sensical decision from a UX point of view, I now need to wiggle the touchpad to see where I am in a document, and how much of the document I'm currently viewing (yes I know that this can be disabled, and that's the first thing I do on a new Mac, along with inverting the scrolling direction)
- arranging buttons vertically in popup dialogs on macOS devices with landscape display orientation (arguably it makes sense on an iPhone with portrait display orientation, but in either case the vertical arrangement makes it a lot more likely to accidentally hit the wrong button)
- the new settings panel is just a massive step back from the old one (which wasn't all that great either)
- don't even get me started on iOS, if you don't know the 'magic gestures' nothing makes sense (same shit on Android though)
I’m assuming you came to macOS from some years using Windows?
...but I was also exposed to 90's Macs somewhat. I remember that my switch from the Amiga UI to Windows was fairly smooth, but I never got quite used to the Mac UI (not that it matters all that much though because I mostly switched back to the command line anyway, that's the only way to keep sane when switching regularly between Mac, Windows and Linux).
Visual Studio on Windows does drive me crazy for exactly this reason, especially as each instance can only have one top-level document (solution) open at a time.
I think the app vs window centric model really comes down to user preference - I think I could get used to window again but I had Chrome, Audacity, and the windows explorer open last night with maybe five windows and was alt-tabbing to all the wrong places. My brain just makes sense of “get to application, then find the window” better than a list of windows I have to sift through across disparate apps.
I agree with the scroll bars and settings getting worse. Buttons are either way, but - like app vs window switching - could be remedied with a setting to change the behavior.
Or why don't we have Copy and Paste keys on our keyboards. Or Undo and Redo keys?
Or why is the USB drive in the back of an Apple monitor?
Or why is everything so opinionated?
Or that mouse that could only be charged with the cable plugged into the bottom so you couldn't use it?
Or in earlier versions of OSX, you had to upgrade the OS by starting iTunes (wtf?) ...
> Or why don't we have Copy and Paste keys on our keyboards. Or Undo and Redo keys?
Copy: Cmd+c
Paste: Cmd+v
Undo: Cmd+z
Redo: Cmd+Shift+z or maybe Cmd+y if the devs do windows stuff too
Also Apple just killed some of my app notifs with the update and despite all of my settings being proper some apps like Instagram just don’t work.
20 years later, given an Android and an iPhone, they were equally difficult (or easy) to use. Furthermore, after having used Android for years finding stuff on an iPhone was definitely difficult. Probably the other way around is true.
I too thought Apple UIs were confoundingly bad, but one day I decided to take a step back and approach it as any ordinary man would. I pretended I knew nothing and cared nothing about computers.
You know what happened? It was intuitive. It was consistent. It was harmonious. My mind was blown.
Apple UIs are made for the ordinary man, not for tech nerds and professionals like us. Forget alt-tabbing and window managing, the vast majority of people on the planet don't know and don't care about computers; and it's those people Apple caters to.
Apple at least designs their UIs to accomodate how normal people use computers, which is why their stuff doesn't mesh well with tech nerds and professionals without a mindset change. We are not normal people.
I feel like the iPhone mini being only two years long is a strong counterpoint to this. There's a small hope for an iPhone 15 mini, but with no 14 mini, it's a long shot. It accounted for 6% of all iPhone sales in it's first quarter, after a delayed and rocky launch.[1] There is a small but somewhat vocal minority that want smaller screens, which Linus Tech Tips' sub-channel Mac Address covered recently. [2]
[1] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/iphone-12-mini-sales-a-disast... [2] https://youtu.be/BjhiYa0KsSM
I use an iPhone 12 mini that I ordered on launch day and love it. Finally a worthy successor to the 5S/SE1.
Apple also doesn’t update the SE every year.
Also, the 12 mini was released 6 months after the 2020 SE, and the 2020 SE was released ~4 years after the previous SE. it stands to reason that many people who wanted a smaller phone jumped on the 2020 SE, and then had no reason to buy a 12 mini.
Also, the 12 mini battery life sucked. The 13 mini is perfectly usable though.
It seems to be the opposite with folding phones. A lot of Android manufacturers releasing them, despite low sales numbers, while Apple apparently thinks: if we can’t sell a billion of them then why even bother?
That being said I feel like this is almost the obverse, they have a product that sells well so they don't need to follow each trend that comes out. So they can pick and choose which way they run with things.
I don't agree that this is a myth.
If you look at the first generation iPhone in a vacuum, it was limited, perhaps (but I think there are plenty of arguments that the first gen iPhone was pushing envelopes - name one other phone that had a fully functioning web browser at the time, and pinch/zoom felt magical), but nitpicks about functionality aside, I don't think this framing makes sense for other reasons.
A product line is not just its initial release. It is a process, an organizational discipline, a manufacturing and logistics pipeline, an ongoing upgrade cycle, an ongoing engagement with customers, an understanding of the market, etc.
When the first generation phone was released, plans for the 3GS were already well under way. The 1st gen phone was a necessary step to get you that 3GS. When operating at Apple's scale, at least a decade of roadmap if not more was already planned in depth. The 3GS was not a reaction to the success of the 1, it is the real product Apple envisioned and planned to ship before we even knew the iPhone would exist.
If the 3GS got it right, so did the gen 1, in a certain sense.
And as an aside, I have to say I really liked my 1st gen iPhone compared to everything else I'd had up to that point, and I was a gadget junkie who had owned quite a few of the other "hot" phones at the time.
I highly doubt that considering that web app / native app store debacle.
Also was there any real reason to not support 3g from the beginning? A lot of “dumber” phones had it so it seems more likely that they just made a mistake.
I don't think early politics about how apps get shipped plays too much into the core planning for the device, e.g. form factor, manufacturing, user interactions, structure of built-in apps, etc. are all pretty much orthogonal to the app distribution model.
But even then, there were clearly two camps, which means there was a disagreement about a specific path, but not a lack of forward thinking. And then they course corrected. Something that many companies simply do not do.
> are all pretty much orthogonal to the app distribution model.
I’m not sure it’s only the distribution but the entire existence of native third party apps that they weren’t sure about.
You mean the same Apple where Jobs said that no one would want to watch video on a tiny screen less than two years before the video iPod?
Apple didn’t go from idea of a fully featured SDK and an App Store in nine months without already planning to do so.
- support for mouse input
- a native file manager app (2017!)
- pressure-sensitive pens and screens (~ 4 years after Samsung)
- Multiple apps on same screen (2019!)
None of these are things that take years to get right. Apple commentators simply get lazy and recycle this iPod-era talking point.
What would you do with one on a device where every app is heavily sandboxed and there's no common file system?
> pressure-sensitive pens and screens (~ 4 years after Samsung)
When they did release this, no competition was even close to the precision and fidelity.
When Apple releases something later than competition it's usually (but not always) justified and results in a better execution
Access each app's sandbox to move/copy/exfiltrate the data contained there, for whatever reason the user desires. Not much different from the way file managers are used on traditional desktop systems.
That breaks the security promise that apps don't have direct access to other apps' data.
There's a reason you can't even access photos without an explicit user prompt.
> Not much different from the way file managers are used on traditional desktop systems
Traditional desktop systems never had heavily sandboxed apps with no outside access
No it doesn't. Giving the user the ability to get their hands on their own data is not the same as giving other apps direct access to it.
> Traditional desktop systems never had heavily sandboxed apps with no outside access
That's completely orthogonal.
Does the user have the need for that on an iPhone?
I don't think a single app on my phone has any files I'd ever need access to
> That's completely orthogonal.
Of course it's not orthogonal
You questioned whether there was a use case for file managers when apps do not share a "common file system" and are "heavily sandboxed", and stipulated that providing one would break the security promise of not giving apps "direct access to other apps' data".
Whether desktop systems have traditionally sandboxed their apps to the same degree is, in fact, orthogonal. It's a separate question entirely.
> Does the user have the need for that on an iPhone?
Sorry, but when I spot somebody moving the goalposts (and failing to acknowledge when one they staked out earlier was satisfied), my approach is not to indulge them by continuing to respond as if they're just like anyone else having a discussion in good faith. Instead, I say, "you are moving the goalposts; you are not asking in good faith". This is monumentally helpful in making economical use of my time.
Regarding other features, I don't understand the connection you're trying to draw here, or how they serve as counterpoints. All these anecdotes point to is where Apple has chosen to focus resources and in what order. Having worked on a product team, there are dozens of "obvious" things that get cut from every release. I don't see this as some enormous indictment of the product.
Mouse input on what? iPhone? Is this a thing?
A native file manager is a feature that applies to a small subset of users. Do some people want it? Sure! Does a lack of it somehow imply Apple is failing? I think that's hard to argue. Anecdotally, as a highly technical user, I rarely if ever touch that app. I don't think most of my friends/family know it exists.
Multiple apps on the same screen ... on the only tablet in the market worth considering. Again, this is a gripe about roadmap order and not an effective argument against the core claim.
And core to the claim is the fact that Apple is often late to the party.
> None of these are things that take years to get right. Apple commentators simply get lazy and recycle this iPod-era talking point.
I don't think anyone is making the claim that these things take years to get right. More interesting than this would be to examine what they chose to ship instead.
If you don't believe the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook Air and AirPods are market-defining products, we'll have to just agree to disagree. It's not as if the iPod was the last product to resemble the "Apple does it better" pattern.
The recent pixel foldable shows the way to totally screw up a foldable screen. I’m sure you’re totally happy with yours, but all the foldables I’ve seen have distortion at the fold and it’s definitely a week point that will eventually degrade. Not for me.
I was actually around when the first iPhone came about. As a tech enthusiast it was incredibly disruptive. Everyone was still shipping devices with stylus and this device with a capacitive screen came and blew everyone’s socks off. I don’t think anyone can rewrite that history.
https://store.apple.com/xc/product/IPHONE13_MAIN
Any source that they stopped making it?
I'm a really avid mountain biker, road cyclist and snowboarder, and I'd love some basic telemetry displayed in the goggles or glasses I'm already wearing. Nothing kills a ride faster than having to stop to pull out your phone to see if you missed a turn or to figure out which unmarked trail you're supposed to take. (Not to mention all of the information we current have to look down at our cycling computers to see: HR, watts, cadence, etc.)
I know that's not the problem Apple's solving here, but I'm hopeful that anything they can do to push AR will filter down quickly.
If they are 100% certain this is the final form factor they would take one path. If they think we need to get this out in the world and see how it is useful they would take the other.