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I've had a lot of trouble as well. A constant source of frustration is the seemingly unnecessary split between contacts and messages. I don't understand why the

by codyb 11y ago

I've had a lot of trouble as well. A constant source of frustration is the seemingly unnecessary split between contacts and messages. I don't understand why they're not under one roof and instead frustratingly claw myself around to get to the right section. If I want to send a message to someone why do I have to exit messages to scroll through a list of my contacts? It's ridiculous. Another one is that for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to access the search for app feature until recently. I knew it existed, and I guess it's a downwards pointing tap in the middle of the screen but it took me forever to find it again and then to actually figure out what I had done to trigger it. Then there's the loading my phone with apps I have no use for such as Music, Playbook, and the Apple Watch app. I understand these have useful features to people but I don't understand why I can't at the very least hide the damn icons and instead have to either create a folder for "Shit I don't use ever" or delegate them to some far off slide screen. It seems like it goes on and on and while the old iOS's did look a bit clunky, everything was very clear in my opinion in terms of functionality and I'm not exactly sure why there was a move away from it. And this is all a shame since Apple's hardware software integrated and closed source environment is a terrific way to make a phone in my opinion where I barely have to worry about malware since apps are checked by their App Store team, everything looks standardized and decent because of the components they provide, and things run really fast (at least until your phone is two generations old) because of their language support and hardware integration. It's frustrating.

rendezvouscp 11y ago
With regard to “why do I have to exit messages to scroll through a list of my contacts”: are you aware that you can start a new message and either start typing in the “To” field or tap the + button to bring up your list of contacts? Is there something else you’re looking for?
- BurningFrog 11y ago
  Sounds like a textbook case of a feature that is not discoverable enough. It is essential to understand that a feature is worse than worthless to the extent that users are not aware of it.
  - skygazer 11y ago
    I agree with your general point on the increasing lack of discoverability, but this feature, in fairness to Apple, is "hidden" behind basically the only graphical icon in the Messages app, on the main screen, of a pen on paper, practically screaming to be touched, and once touched, jumps to an email-composer-esq screen with a "to:" text box with the cursor flashing in it.
    - codyb 11y ago
      I have to say, I am a bit surprised I never touched it. It truly is the only icon there, I dunno what I could have thought it meant, but I guess it never occurred to me that it would bring up contacts.
- comex 11y ago
  For what it's worth, you also don't need to do that if you've ever had a conversation with them (since deleting your message history), since you can use the conversation search field in the app's home screen - though some users may not know that scrolling up from the initial view of a scrolling list in iOS sometimes reveals a search field. And this also works with non-contacts and group conversations: you couldn't just change the home screen to be a contact list, you'd have to combine them with those other two types of conversation, which sounds more likely to cause confusion than the current setup.
  - codyb 11y ago
    See, and that does work and I know about that feature somewhere, but there's no indication where that works. So if I know it works in one place, it doesn't occur to me that it might work somewhere else.

by codyb 11y ago

rendezvouscp 11y ago

With regard to “why do I have to exit messages to scroll through a list of my contacts”: are you aware that you can start a new message and either start typing in the “To” field or tap the + button to bring up your list of contacts? Is there something else you’re looking for?

BurningFrog 11y ago
Sounds like a textbook case of a feature that is not discoverable enough. It is essential to understand that a feature is worse than worthless to the extent that users are not aware of it.
- skygazer 11y ago
  I agree with your general point on the increasing lack of discoverability, but this feature, in fairness to Apple, is "hidden" behind basically the only graphical icon in the Messages app, on the main screen, of a pen on paper, practically screaming to be touched, and once touched, jumps to an email-composer-esq screen with a "to:" text box with the cursor flashing in it.
  - codyb 11y ago
    I have to say, I am a bit surprised I never touched it. It truly is the only icon there, I dunno what I could have thought it meant, but I guess it never occurred to me that it would bring up contacts.
comex 11y ago
For what it's worth, you also don't need to do that if you've ever had a conversation with them (since deleting your message history), since you can use the conversation search field in the app's home screen - though some users may not know that scrolling up from the initial view of a scrolling list in iOS sometimes reveals a search field. And this also works with non-contacts and group conversations: you couldn't just change the home screen to be a contact list, you'd have to combine them with those other two types of conversation, which sounds more likely to cause confusion than the current setup.
- codyb 11y ago
  See, and that does work and I know about that feature somewhere, but there's no indication where that works. So if I know it works in one place, it doesn't occur to me that it might work somewhere else.