siglesias

Buy it or not, but in the WWDC UI session they stated that they switched to monochrome sidebar icons so that the interface would emphasize the content, be it the Mail message, photos, or album art.

> but it's dishonest to present the lack of indication as a point against Android when iOS doesn't even have a precise analogue of this

No it isn't. This whole argument just boils down to whether it makes sense to require an unlabeled backward pointing arrow to be present at all times in all UIs. In practice it doesn't make much sense to require a button that isn't always used and doesn't always do the same thing just for the sake of returning to the previous app from an empty navigation stack when you need to do that occasionally. iOS might not do it, but this comes with the added benefits that no back buttons anywhere in the iOS UI is ambiguous.

> If the user can't remember where they came from, why would they want to go back?

Because "back" is often conflated with "out"--the user might simply be done with the task and wants to get out. Unfortunately, the app simply shoots them to the previous app on the stack, which may or may not be where they want to go or remembered they came from.

Ex: Many apps go to the browser, but the user might not remember which app sent them to the browser. They might have thought it was Twitter, when it was in fact the home screen.

To enlighten you, the home double tap in iOS does not take you straight to the previous application. It brings up iOS's multitask tray that has the four previously viewed apps on it, in order of recent use. The first app on it is always the previous app. You can see which one it is. Android doesn't show this to you, nor do you even have the option of getting to the previous app unless you are at the bottom of the stack.

Edit: We're arguing about the merits of having a dedicated back button. If an advantage to the iOS task switching feature is found in yet another button on Android, that doesn't contribute support to the back button's existence.

You miss my point in disabling the back button. The user still needs to test it every time to see what it does and where it goes, if it works at all. That's bad UI.

As for going back to the previous app, as I argue below, the back button is crippled there too because you need to be in the root view controller of whatever stack you're in for it to do that, and you need to remember which app sent you there, which is not indicated in the UI.

In iOS you can get back to the previous app from anywhere in the navigation stack with a double-tap gesture. An additional tap, to be sure, but all ambiguity from the constant and ever-present back button is removed.

As a developer, I don't want the obligation of an unlabeled inconsistent back button constantly to annoy and confuse my user. I want it to be there when I want it to be there. This holds in general for the iOS ecosystem.

The one feature that you are really stating is a plus of a dedicated back button is to serve as a pointer to the referring app, but there is nothing in the UI to indicate that the back button will go there either, just a mental note by the user!

If you sum up all of the points of confusion that could possibly arise from a permanent and ambiguous unlabeled back button to be used for in-app navigation and compare it to the pain of double tapping to get back to the previous app in iOS (guaranteed, by the way, from any point in the app), I don't see how you could possibly come to the conclusion that forcing a back button into every point of every UI is a net plus. Not even close.

But doesn't that render the function of the back button ambiguous? Task switching is not the same thing as navigating a stack of views.

EDIT (more): I can also imagine many situations in which I want to disallow a back button (like in my own application for example), or in which the back button could be expected to perform, but actually doesn't. Say I'm in a game and have navigated to a level, start the level, but then decide I want to exit. It isn't clear that the programmer has implemented the back function, or what level of destruction the back button will perform. I'm going to have to test the back button every time I press it to see what it even does, or what the implementation is. This is poor UI. In iOS, the developer is free to label the back button or to disable it entirely to remove ambiguity. I would say that this is far more powerful than occasionally switching to the previous app if I haven't navigated at all yet in the stack of the new app.

The back button on iOS is in the software, which chooses whether there is a back button, where it belongs.

GigaOM

Pictures go to your photos folder. As for the rest, it's incumbent on Microsoft and/or Google to do a mobile version of their apps, or is it not?

Outlook?

It seems to me that Topolsky's complaint can be summarized as, "Apple is is messing this up by not providing a web-based front end to these services, a front end with which I can access my iCloud data from any device, anywhere."

But do 80% - 90% of customers want this? Doesn't the complaint that iCloud services are not accessible from any computer rest on the assumption that people are frequently accessing their data from different computers? What are the reasons someone would do this? I could think of a time a few years ago when, say, I was at a friend's house, sans laptop, and needed to check my email, so I logged into Gmail, etc, but I have my smartphone now. The email is with me on the go. Where is the data to support the claim that consumers use web services frequently on anywhere other than their own computers? I'd like to see that.

And I think Apple had a study sample in MobileMe that showed that even with web front ends to the 3 arguably most important on-the-go services: contacts, calendar, and email, that customers rejected (or didn't need) the web app because they owned smartphones! What's more, this is a biased sample, the customers who found the service so compelling that they paid $99 a year for it. It was very likely that the data showed that the web apps were by and large ignored.

Apple's iCloud represents a bet that the rest of the Internet services--Google, Flikr, Facebook, can take the other side on, and we'll still be able to use those services on Apple products.

I think it would save lives if Apple figured out a way to be smart with voice recognition and speech to enable hands and eyes free texting. It absolutely should be on the roadmap for them.

When I say "enable," I mean "encourage more of," which implies preexistence of a problem that is being exacerbated.

OK, may I ask who that is that should make this call?

If I have a kill switch on my platform for apps that endanger people and I see that the app is endangering people, I'll feel a moral obligation to toggle that kill switch. Again, this is a rather straightforward call.

The moral argument in favor of rejecting this app pivots around whether it does in fact enable more drunk driving. If it does, there doesn't seem to be good justification for allowing the app to exist. I don't think the calculus should be any more complicated than this.

Edit: I'll disclaim that I have a bias, having had a friend die drinking and driving.

Come on. This is a weak argument. Most people are going to get this app so that they can drink and drive, not to avoid getting busted for a broken taillight.

Do you check for DUI checkpoints every time you get in your car? Because I don't.

That would be a disturbing aspect of government.

EDIT: To be clear, walled garden owners are under no legal obligations to comply with "suggestions" from government that apps be removed. If senators try to get their way by threatening regulation, I would say that's bad behavior on the part of those senators.

More like when he was in charge.

On mobile or on your desktop? I think we need to make a distinction here.

I think it's as simple as, consumers don't want to deal with the latency. I pick a song, it plays instantly, within half a second. Online players for now seem naive.

Here's his value add: Ashton's going to show that the service is so trustworthy that he'll start using it himself. You can't get that anywhere else.

The SAT can be tutored (and is). Lower income students can't afford this tutoring, so on average and on a purely economic basis you would expect that higher income kids achieve higher scores than lower income ones.

Did you read the rest of the article?

I think everyone who keeps saying that LinkedIn is evidence of a tech bubble should just stop complaining and take a short position. Put your money where your mouth is.

Levy interviewed Chan et al for his book. Not speculation.

>> In fact, the acquisition by most accounts sounded more like a move by Ballmer to buy something that others may have wanted to own — just for the sake of others not owning it.

This struck me because I'm presently reading Stephen Levy's In the Plex, in which he reports at great lengths about why Google decided not to purchase Skype when eBay had it up for sale: mainly owing to Skype's peer-to-peer technology not being compatible with Google's existing centralized infrastructure. What reason would Microsoft have to think that this reasoning had changed?

A video editing app, for example.

Is that a cause or an effect?

I personally find the Angry Birds-Facebook-Netflix picture of the future of computing extremely depressing. Where's Google's suite of content creation apps that "non-techy" people can explore to express their creativity?