Comment by jpxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpxxx | Hacker News Reader

Every time I pick up an Android based phone it's always the same miserable first five minutes.

"Where are the apps? Is... Oh. Are these all of the apps or some of the apps? Where are all of the apps? Do I hit a button? Oh.. Oh, there's a browser. But why is it where it... do I drag this or something?"

"How do I stop making it putting squares on the faces in the pictures? Why would you do this? Is it in the Settings? Where is the settings? Is there one settings app? Is it in a menu? Do I tap something? Is it one of these hardware butto-OH where am I now?"

"How do I get this keyboard to go away? It shouldn't be up anymore. I hit enter. Didn't I? What the hell is this key with the arrow? Wait, is this "dismiss?" No.. do I touch the screen? Gotdamnit don't hit that I didn't want to hit that."

Even on a Galaxy S3 last week, it was the same experience. There's too much Old World UI in Android for my tastes.

You appear to be battling the highly technical concept of "familiarity". Anyone using an Android device for longer than a day has none of these issues, and someone that has never used an iOS device would have the same issues. For example:

"Where are the apps? Is... Oh. Are these all of the apps or some of the apps? Where are all of the apps? Do I hit a button? Oh.. Oh, I swipe from side to side. Oh, but some of them are inside folders? What's going on when I go too far left?"

I could go on, but really, what's the point?

shrug Your indignance over my experiences won't change anything from where I'm sitting.

From a no-name candybar running 1.6 to a dead latest Galaxy S3 running 4.0, I have had the same miserable first five minutes.

I've watched a Google marketing executive thrash around on 3.0 before having to wade in on his behalf, I've finished whatever e-mail setup the Verizon rep didn't do a dozen times, and I've spent nice long chunks of my time trying to troubleshoot issues, set up MDM, and fix sync drama of whatever type.

I've spent tens upon tens of hours doing my due diligence. But every time I pick up the device, it's the same five minutes. Whatever manufacturer, whatever device, whatever form factor, whatever.

Edit: Here's another way of putting it. When I pick up an "Android" device, I don't know what I'm getting. Stock? Cyanogen? Sense? Touchwiz? Motoblur? No-Name? No-name without OHA support? Carrier modifications? Manufacturer pre-loads? 1.x? 2.x? 3.x? 4.x?

This makes answering remarkably simple questions like "how do I set up e-mail" pretty difficult, because there are so many possible answers to that question (K-9? Mail? Maildroid? Gmail? Forward mail to Gmail?) -and- the ones that come before it like "how do I get to the apps" and "how do I unlock the phone" and "what button, if any, wakes the phone up".

These thousand distinctions without a difference make it hard to make predictions, design workflows, or make recommendations to anyone about anything Android. It's just this ever-expanding morass of STUFF.

Then I suggest that you may have a problem with your short term memory.

Sure. In the meantime, the world's most important new computing platform has some significant design issues that require attention.

You appear to have mistaken anecdotal evidence (yours) with a widespread trend.

Well, I was only born one person. In the meantime, the world's most important new computing platform has some significant design issues that will probably require attention before we arrive at an era when "what's in your pocket" is your entire computing experience.

I have the exact same problem every time I pick up my wife's ipod touch; I can't remember how to do anything on it. I'd take it one step further, however, and say that it's a lot easier to use the buttons that Android presents and figure out what they do then... discover "oh, you just 4 finger swipe" on the iDevice. The iDevices just seem to have a lot of interactions that you just won't ever discover on your own.

That being said, I really wish Android devices were as polished as the iPhone. I just don't think the ways that you interact with the system and their intuitiveness are a place where Apple wins out.

You missed the part where his 'short term memory issues' are not a problem with IOS devices.

I'm not sure if this is a slam or a support, but sure, let's talk about iOS.

There is no affordance for switching homepages, summoning notifications, deleting an application, moving an application, creating a folder, destroying a folder, or moving folders between pages. All homepage editing is hinted by a talkative modal popup that happens at first launch, the worst imaginable time for educating users on a relatively insignificant feature.

The blue (Done) button rules your world until black (Edit) is required. (Trashcan) icons get overloaded with filing tasks, (Send To) prints except when (Print) prints except when "Print" prints.

I've watched normal, bright human beings slam into every one of them. I've met people who literally never realized there was a lock button on their phone and simply throw it in their bag when they're done.

These problems are no more excusable and no less vexing to novice iOS users. The thing is that iOS has such an incredibly clean core interaction model of "Everything Is An App" and "Press Home When You Are Done" that it goes a long way to forgiving all the crippy crap nonsense added on after the fact. And most every question you have can reliably answered by another iOS user of the same technical skill and comfort because they're using, substantially, the same thing. iPod, iPad, 3.x, 6.x, whatever.

When Android can mean any of 20 different skins, layers, versions, and loadouts, even fundamental questions like "is there even a back button" have to be asked. Is it on the phone? Is it a soft key? Is it hiding due to context? IDK. Unless you know someone who has a substantially similar device, good luck with network learning.

All computers suck. Android sucks in some key areas, starting with "Where are the apps"? The answer "depends" isn't good enough.

iOS sucks in some pretty key areas too. The only difference is what you're familiar with.

I had been using an iPhone for two or three weeks before I discovered (by accident) that double-pressing the home button actually did anything. To my knowledge, this is the only time double-pressing anything is the correct interaction in iOS; I'm so trained at this point that you either single-press or long-press that this startled me. How anybody ever figures this out is beyond me.

The same goes for navigating text - it also took me a while to find out that long-pressing creates a magnifying glass. I still prefer Android's version, which is consistent on all text fields (including the browser URL bar!) and faster.

The browser forces me to scroll up all the way in order to navigate to a different page. The URL bar and search bar are inexplicably different, which makes no sense on a mobile device.

I still couldn't tell you without looking which icons I can move on my homescreen and which I can't. Even if I look, I couldn't explain why I'm unable to move many of them.

Settings - man, why does this have to be so complicated? Even Cyanogenmod, which offers a far greater level of customization, makes much more sense. Almost all relevant settings for a particular application are inside the application itself - this isn't split half-and-half arbitrarily.

Taking a screenshot? I always forget that this requires pressing two buttons that are very awkward to hold down at the same time. On any ICS+ phone, I can just long-press the power button. Simple. Easy.

The notification bar is completely superfluous. I receive a notification from Twitter, then tap that notification to go to Twitter to read it, and then I notice that I have to go back to the notification bar to clear the notification again.

I've never had any problems with buttons. All Android phones have a back button; the only question is whether it is hard or soft, but I don't really care about that.

Maybe that means I, the user, am just dumb. But I never have had any of these problems on Android.

I couldn't agree more on Settings. Apple made the hideous mistake in iOS 2 of placing each third party app's settings in the OS's Settings app. Developers correctly determined that nobody wants to leave their app to change how it worked and mostly ignored it. But there they sit, dozens of them, ignored forever.

For screenshots, Android absolutely does not get a pass. iOS has had instant PNG screenshots since 1.0. That it took Google 4 years to provide any kind of screenshot functionality at all sans debugger is almost insane.

The rest, yep. Many of the unconventional features and idioms in IOS were released to great fanfare to the fans and featured in advertising. Those coming to the platform after the fact are left playing "hidden secrets".

(as an aside, how are you unable to move icons? They are all movable. only a few built-in ones cannot be placed into a folder.)

You're not dumb. Users are not dumb. They simply have their expectations on how something works met or not, and the more expectations and prior experience you come with, the more frustrating it is when those expectations are not met.

Mobile OSes are not the end of the line in simple computer design. I firmly believe there's another order of magnitude to go, and I am certain I'll see it in my life.

> Android absolutely does not get a pass. iOS has had instant PNG screenshots since 1.0

We're comparing usability, not features. Android's interface is more usable and intuitive.

> only a few built-in ones cannot be placed into a folder

I never use Newsstand. Why shouldn't I be able to place it in a folder

> You're not dumb. Users are not dumb. They simply have their expectations on how something works met or not, and the more expectations and prior experience you come with, the more frustrating it is when those expectations are not met.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. All I know is that, after several months, I'm still frustrated that I can barely do basic things like type on the phone properly (at a reasonable speed) because of all the sloppy design with the text entry. Since the iPhone doesn't let you swap keyboards out, this means that my only other solution is to use my Galaxy Nexus for any serious work.

So there you have it - this incredibly expensive hallmark of 'good design' is relegated to being little more than a flashy toy e-reader! Oh, the irony....

What kind of serious work are you doing on your Nexus?

For starters, anything involving typing, like email.

We're not on the same page.

> Why shouldn't I be able to place it in a folder

For all intents and purposes, Newsstand is a folder. You can't put folders in folders.

Whether or not you agree with that is an argument of opinion, but that's the fact.

> Whether or not you agree with that is an argument of opinion

That's the problem - almost any design decision can be framed that way. As long as you have the ability to change it, it remains an 'opinion', but as soon as it's the only interface available, then it becomes 'opinion posing as fact'.

On JB screenshot is two buttons. Maybe you are describing a cyanogen feature.

You're right, that's to bring up the menu, but the Jelly Bean action is the power and volume down buttons, which on virtually any newer Android phone is far easier to press than the corresponding buttons on the iPhone.

That wasn't very nice.

That's how I feel using an iOS device - death by a thousand papercuts. All the apps are on the home screens, no dedicated back button...I can only use it for a few minutes before getting frustrated.

And apparently iOS doesn't have any public transit directions in the maps app? In 2012?! Are you fucking shitting me?

Yep. If you go for public transit instructions, the Maps app will geolocate and prompt you to download a third party transit direction app that "might" be most appropriate.

It's going to go over like a lead balloon next week - I find Google's transit maps invaluable.

Given the relative popularity of mass transit inside and outside the US, I'm wondering if we're going to see greater divergence between iOS's US and non-US market share after iOS 6.

I'm also wondering if that's why this mistake was possible - too many suburban US decisionmakers who didn't understand in their gut why mass transit was a huge deal to a lot of people.

Google Maps doesn't have ANY public transit directions in most countries.

So you guys from the US need to stop acting as though this feature is somehow a game changer. It will almost exclusively affect US users only.

I'm an Australian living in Japan and this absolutely is a game changer for me. If anything I would think it affects many other countries more than the US.

I am not saying it is useful only that it is not a game changer for most people. Even in Japan you can use apps like Hyperdia for the JR and subways.

The iPhone predates the official launch of Google Transit and at the beginning didn't have many cities and so many providers have apps available.

> Even in Japan you can use apps like Hyperdia for the JR and subways.

That doesn't change the fact that Google Maps provides a complete, end-to-end solution for getting from point A to point B, using any combination of public transit options and walking.

For example, when I was in Japan, I was able to enter the addresses of the starting and ending points, and then get a list of travel options, with the total time and cost included for comparison. You can't get that if you're using a JR/subway-specific app.

Moreover, you can't just tap on an address in another app and have it take you directly to the Google Maps app anymore.

> The iPhone predates the official launch of Google Transit and at the beginning didn't have many cities and so many providers have apps available.

Yeah, and the original iPhone also didn't have any 3rd party apps. That doesn't mean it's acceptable in 2012 not to have 3rd party apps. It really doesn't matter what things were like before Google Transit launched. All that matters is the current situation, which is that Apple fucked up big time by allowing such a huge regression to get into a release version of iOS.

Google Transit is available for far more than just the US. http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/transit/

Germany got support just a couple of days ago. That said, so far it only covers trains -- which also tells you that being marked green in that page doesn't say much about the extent of the support -- so for the most part I'm (happily) stuck with my existing dedicated public transport app.

UK here.. I use this feature multiple times a day. If it's not available, for me, it is a game changer. Moreover, Google transit was introduced in 2007, even before iPhone 3G, so I don't understand what do you mean by "The iPhone predates the official launch of Google Transit"

I feel the same way about iPhones. I can never find a damn thing on them. Though, got a new GS3 recently and agree with all you've said.

I could harp on with Cyanogenmod, Cyanogenmod, Cyanogenmod... but really the issue is that they try to sell high-end phones to non-technical people, which you can't really blame them for.

The big phone manufacturers really need to figure out a way to have two versions of their products: one marketed to technical people and one marketed to non-technical people.

Hell, make the contract on the technical one come without a warranty for software so that people can flash whatever ROM on there with impunity. I've never given a crap about warranty's because I know that my intended use of pretty much every electronic device I've ever owned will break the warranty but not the device...

"Where are the apps? Is... Oh. Are these all of the apps or some of the apps? Where are all of the apps?"

Did you pick up someone else's phone? When you initialize an account for the first time (as someone who's done this a bunch with custom ROMs on Android), there will be tutorial overlays on the screen explaining the answers to those questions.

Yep. My job rarely has me setting Android up for the first time.

What is the issue in this case?

I mean - if you pick up the device of someone else, without getting any introduction (and - a slight bias?), isn't that kind of expected?

I'd argue that we could have similar reactions to iOS, Web OS, S60, S40 etc.. Or really in any interaction. If you didn't read about iOS or never used one of these devices, the home button is _not_ intuitive to figure out. Ignoring all the following warts and hidden features.

So your recollection of your Android experience is probably spot on, but not surprising for me. I cannot imagine that, with the effort you invested in that example session with an Android device, you'd be able to 'grasp' any other platform.

Especially if, as this comment I'm replying to seems to indicate, you just grab the customized device of someone else.

I don't know if I have any grand thesis, I'm just complaining into a textbox.

Bottom-basement minute-one functionality in Android still seems to be in flux, and it's bothersome to me. Hardware buttons become software buttons become contextual buttons become hardware buttons again. Launchers are now widgets are now resizable widgets are now autolayout widgets are now fixed. PIN unlock is now dot unlock is now swipe unlock is now picture unlock is now face unlock is now biometric unlock is now passcode unlock. It all depends on a matrix of Carrier, Manufacturer, Customization, and Major Version that makes it difficult to guess what you're going to expect when you up to a new phone, a new line, a new family, or pick up someone else's device and try to be productive.

On one hand you've got a profound proliferation of designs targeted at a profound proliferation of markets, which is good. But on the other hand you've got these evolving fiefdoms of UI that impose their own vision on top of a platform that is increasingly under the control of Google's own vision. (for instance the end of theming and other 4.0 era mandates) The relearning costs are enormous for the tech-uninvolved and the UI-blind. We don't experience them because we're fluent.

This gray goo platform is now shipping a half billion units a year and the market is still trying to figure out if there should even be a back button. It's unsettling.

Wouldn't it be normal to learn those things after the first time? I think you are exaggerating a bit.

The entire iOS UI is an app picker. If you want an app picker in Android, click the menu button.

If you want more than that, buy an Android.

Seriously, are you kidding us?

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