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Comment by drharris | Hacker News Reader

I would not call this a dark pattern. You browse backwards through your personal library hierarchy, what happens when you reach the top of your hierarchy? It takes you to the entire world of music. Your personal library is a subset of the world. Sneaky? A bit, but hardly a "dark pattern". It isn't being nefarious about it, just saying "Oh, so you browsed all the way up and didn't find anything you wanted? Let us help."

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That is an absolutely ludicrous explanation. Nobody is using the iPod app and expecting to get to the store. That short cut is purely there to collect accidental clicks. If I wanted to purchase music, I would have opened the iTunes app.

I have personally hit that button accidentally many times while trying to get back to the albums view and waiting for the animations to finish in exactly the way this article describes. I did not want to go to the iTunes store! I just wanted to pick another album on my phone and now I have to double tap the button and navigate back to the music app.

They fixed the accidental tap issue, not it takes 2 taps for store button to activate when coming on to that screen.

I don't think it's totally ludicrious to every user. My parents wouldn't have second thoughts of opening the "music app" to buy music.

I'm sure you're equally happy getting Viagra spam in your inbox, because everyone likes sex.

The core issue is it breaks a core UI convention, clicking back and stopping at the beginning, just to push a few more people into a shopping portal. Coming from UX, that's probably the most brazen abuse of Apple's previous good name in design and user experience.

Also, where else are you going to put this button? The screen has limited space, and you want it near the top. You put it as a link in the Table, but that makes it strange and out of place with the other contents of the table. And if it is near the top it is in an even more awkward position.

I agree. I think the real issue is a UI "anti-pattern" that is implemented throughout the iOS UI. It's a throwback to the Windows Start button, but instead of a start button... No really, it's just like Windows 8 menu. But it falls short because there is no "control panel" list of icons, instead a deep menu.

This is a UI concept that has had a lot of usability testing on the Desktop. Personally, I feel tapping through hierarchical menus on a mobile device is just the wrong way to go about organizing/using the system.

> Personally, I feel tapping through hierarchical menus on a mobile device is just the wrong way to go about organizing/using the system.

I totally agree. I love the edge swiping introduced in iOS 7.

Unfortunately, I'm not willing to give up battery life and admin for a UI feature.

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