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Comment by iamcalledrob | Hacker News Reader

Apple's switch away from the physical home button to gestures has created a usability threshold for the iPhone that many can't cross.

Intricate gestures are difficult to grok for some, and difficult to perform for others. Try using an iPhone and closing an app with shaky hands.

Currently the iPhone SE still has a physical button, but I'm worried what device I'll start recommending to older/less tech savvy people when that goes away.

iOS itself is a bit of a disaster zone too now. I see people constantly get stuck having activated the "press to edit your lock screen" by mistake, or getting confused by a constant stream of ads for iCloud, Apple Arcade etc.

It's sad because most of this poor UX is unnecessary. It feels like its origins are in Apple no longer caring, combined with running out of real ideas and getting distracted with things like widgets.

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My biggest gripe is continuously changing interfaces. You've sold me. I'm a customer, I'm using your thing. Why do you want to make it difficult for me to memorize my use of your thing? Moving menus and buttons around all the time is craziness. I don't have time, cognitive capacity, or interest in finding new ways to do the same functionality from before.

Things do need to change over time, I get it, I create things too. Sometimes new functionality evolves and has to go somewhere, sometimes you find a previous design was bad and there truly is an improved layout that will help most. Fine. Those sorts of states should converge quickly so I can memorize and dedicate it to muscle memory vs having to actively look and think all the time.

This is a big part of what made me start using linux. On windows, there's a new way to do basic stuff all the time and they screw around with menus that work perfectly well just to have something new.

That means that any tutorials will quickly get outdated and you can spend half your mental capacity just keeping up with this crap. The amount of times I googled how to do something in MS office, clicked an article from half a year ago and found that one of the options it mentions doesn't exist anymore is too damn high.

Things are nice on linux, especially the CLI world. You learn a little program once and use it for decades without thinking about it.

As always with Linux it depends on which distribution you're on but that hasn't been my experience at all with distributions like Ubuntu and Mint. I used Ubuntu back when the close, maximise and minimise buttons were on the top right and they moved them right from under me. I've tried to adjust to using flat packs but struggled with their very serious limitations while programs I rely on are no longer available in other package types. I have seen them see-saw between the horrible global menu and window menus, make wholesale changes to areas of the settings screen like display settings and mouse and trackpad settings. And I don't even know how many wildly different iterations of that horrible main menu application selector UI I have had to suffer through.

I use MATE, an old desktop environment descendant from GNOME 2. If I apply the principle of "It should last at least about as long as it's been around...", I can hopefully use it in peace :) (It'll probably look the same in another 20 years!)

I really don't see the benefit of almost anything else that came later (I did add an app launch shortcut that I rarely use). I also autohide most of the UI by default (bars and menus), so it's just there to do its basic function and allow me to focus. Performance is excellent.

That said, I think the main difference is mostly from community-focused development, it tends to bring out genuine usability concerns (which is why I think most *nix DEs work fine).

I've been through all the ups and downs around Ubuntu and gnome, but at least those changes generally happen at a time of my choosing too. I don't go to a commonly used app one day to do something quick only to find the entire UI was updated overnight.

Of course even the cli world has had it's changes though, systemd alone made decades of documentation obsolete.

As an older person, CLI is unusable. It is impossible to memorize all the switches, need to consult chatgpt at every step. I paid my dues to the CLI gods in my miniVAX days.

The recent overhaul of the Apple Watch was very egregious. Maybe I find it extra offensive since the device is physically attached to me at all times so the muscle memory is particularly strong. There are only 2 buttons on the device and they decided to completely change their behavior, throwing away 10 years of experience I had with the device. The new design isn’t even bad or anything, it’s just that the old design wasn’t bad either, so throwing it away was completely unjustifiable. It’s also offensive because I made the mistake of listening to their marketing and strapped one to everyone elderly in my life to help protect them from falls and heart failure, and now I have to help teach them a bunch of new stuff for no reason. Some of them just decided to stop using the thing instead, and I can hardly blame them.

Which version is this? I’m still on watch 5 and wondering whether I should get a new one.

COUGHmozilla

> You've sold me. I'm a customer, I'm using your thing. Why do you want to make it difficult for me to memorize my use of your thing?

Typical company these days: you're who? Ah yes, you're an existing customer. You're already paying us, sunk time into learning our product, and rearranged your work or life to be at least minimally dependent on us. We can safely ignore you - it's unlikely you'll leave near-term, so our focus is much better spent on acquiring new customers.

To be clear: I hate it, but this seems to be how most software products are being developed these days - all focus is on making them dumb and pretty enough to sell to first-time users, at the expense of already onboarded users.

> it's unlikely you'll leave near-term

Yeah. You’ve chosen Apple for a reason, and since you have only one real alternative that you emphatically do not want, you’ll just have to deal with whatever we throw at you.

The parent refers to the phenomenon described in detail here: https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-margi...

The two phenomena exist together. Yes, companies target Marls, but most, especially startups, seem to be more interested in acquiring new Marls than it is in milking the ones they already have.

>... getting confused by a constant stream of ads for iCloud, Apple Arcade etc. It's sad because most of this poor UX is unnecessary.

UX went from an altruist field around making tasks easier to perform to tricking people into spending money, clicking away rights to their personal data, etc.

It's the logical path of end users being the product. This axiom started around "free" services like Facebook, but now we see it even in expensive products like iPhones and Windows 11.

Not an elderly or disabled person, I probably even fit some people's definition of a touch screen wizard since I regularly use swiping keyboards without looking, but I really can't be bothered with those weird slidey gestures between apps on iOS or Android. At least on Android I can switch to regular (configurable!) bottom buttons.

Gods I miss having real customizable gestures on Android. It took me years to unlearn my gesture set, especially "double tap with three fingers" to close the current app and go home.

I used to use xposed edge to configure the crap out my gestures, it was great. Now that xposed isn't really a thing anymore, I followed the rest of the world and use my phone with two hands most of the time and use my index finger for the top of the screen with one hand.

Not terribly hard at my age, but why do I have to?

In principle, I like for example the four-finger sliding gesture to switch apps on the iPad, but it’s implemented in a way that makes it very easy to accidentally swipe to the second-next app instead of to the next app. Similarly, there’s a gesture for Speak Screen where you swipe down from the top with two fingers, but it regularly takes me more than three attempts before it doesn’t instead swipe down the lock screen or the control center. I honestly don’t understand how they think this is fine.

My mum finds the iPhone hard to use (she has early stage dementia), she has an Apple Watch for fall detection, I've tried turning off everything but still there's stacks of stuff you can't turn off. I'd love to make a simple interface with "Answer Phone" and a list of people she can call but its not possible, once you see her use it, you realise how insanely complex the UI is. Swiping is also harder for older people because their hands are dryer and less conductive. We need to keep the iPhone though for the fall detection, I'm examining options but there's not much around.

Luckily this kind of thing was announced this year:

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/16/apple-previews-ios-17-a...

Wow, Point and Speak looks amazing. Despite all their faults, Apple really deserves credit for bringing great accessibility stuff like this to millions of consumers.

>Detection Mode in Magnifier and Point and Speak

>In the Magnifier app, Point and Speak helps users interact with physical objects that have several text labels. For example, while using a household appliance, Point and Speak combines input from the Camera app, the LiDAR Scanner, and on-device machine learning to announce the text on buttons as users move their finger across the keypad.

>Point and Speak is built into the Magnifier app on iPhone and iPad , works with VoiceOver, and can be used with other Magnifier features such as People Detection, Door Detection, and Image Descriptions to help users navigate their physical environment more effectively.

> to millions of consumers.

It's billions!

If we're being pedantic, a single billion; only Android has 2+ billions of users.

It still looks a bit complex, I'll see how it goes

Have you looked at the RAZ Memory Cell Phone? I've been considering that for my mom, who also has early stage dementia.

Thanks, that looks great, I'll see if they're in Australia yet.

> Apple's switch away from the physical home button to gestures has created a usability threshold for the iPhone that many can't cross.

Funny you mention home buttons being more usable. I've got mild wrist pain (not RSI levels fortunately), and I find the pressure required to press it disturbingly high, often resorting to using the assitivetouch button instead.

It was better with actual physical button. Current SE has a fake software button that didn't move, only vibrate at certain pressure. It feels more difficult to press even at easiest setting because of the way pressure detection works.

The samsung s8 was the best compromise for this - it didn't have a physical home button, but had an area on screen where the home button would normally be that acted like the home button with a firm press of the finger.

Not sure if it had special hardware or just well written drivers, but it always worked flawlessly even with a hung app in the foreground.

Imo ios gestures are not even that good compared to android. The ability to go back by swiping from any edge is so much easier than reaching to the top left of the screen...

iOS does that too though, you almost never have to use the top left arrow

Generally it's when the bean-counters get more leverage during economic slowdowns you see the dark patterns emerge.

Not sure if they are to blame here though. Cars, sure. But for phones design and software cost doesn't decrease with worse UX, support costs probably even rise.

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