7 ms·

I am really "worried" about two features coming out of Apple the past few years: The touch bar mentioned here and the "3D touch" feature of the iPhone 7+. Thes

by chvid 9y ago

I am really "worried" about two features coming out of Apple the past few years: The touch bar mentioned here and the "3D touch" feature of the iPhone 7+. These are "obviously" bad interaction designs yet they come out of a company having almost infinite resources when it comes to design. What is going on here? Is it the marketing department taking over? Is it "we have created this chip and now we have to use it somewhere otherwise the money is lost"? Is it particular individuals whoes silly ideas are promoted beyond their merits like the anecdote that the paper clip got in Windows because the project was run by Bill Gates' wife?

aroman 9y ago
Have you actually used 3D touch? Because I use it just about every day, so much so that it's one of the biggest things I miss when using phones that don't have it. It also isn't touted as a major selling point anymore -- it just quietly exists, serving an extremely useful purpose as a better "right click" for touch screens. The touch bar I agree is major marketing hype.
- 2009mobile 9y ago
  3D touch isn't supported on the iPhone SE or on any iPads. Given that it's not supported across the iOS hardware line, it's not assigned any essential functionality. I expect that it'll play a larger role after the next major redesign of iOS in a couple years.
  - culturestate 9y ago
    They've started faking 3D Touch on iPads - see e.g. the new control center, which will respond mostly the same as it does on a modern iPhone if you use a similar "force touch" action (even though you're really just holding it for n milliseconds). I'm betting on a force-sensitive iPad sooner than later, probably the next-gen iPad Pro.
    - allendoerfer 9y ago
      Can't you just detect force, because the surface of the touch increases slightly, due to your skin being flexible? Seems like a feature you could emulate anyway.
      - culturestate 9y ago
        I'd imagine that would result in a slew of false triggers, because one can slightly vary the angle or pressure of their touch without intending to invoke any kind of secondary action. One of the reasons I like the implementation of 3D Touch versus e.g. long press on Android is that it's a deliberate, positive input.
  - dpkonofa 9y ago
    But, to the parent's point, right-clicking is never (and should never) be assigned any essential functionality. Everyone agrees that the hockey-puck mice were terrible but their initial goal was admirable, IMO - new users should always be able to find commands with a single click of a button or in a menu. More advanced users could do a secondary click for quicker access to commonly used features. That seems like a great design paradigm to follow for any alternate clicking.
- flukus 9y ago
  Have you seen non-technical people using their devices, particularly older people? Every button press they make is a force touch and if that doesn't do what's expected they'll press harder. It's hard enough getting them not to long press or double click and now the company known for making things easy to use is making things even more confusing for lay people.
  - vbezhenar 9y ago
    They stopped caring about those people when they dropped skeuomorphic design. They expect their users to have some experience with phones.
  - dpkonofa 9y ago
    The number of "non-technical" people is only shrinking every single day. Why would they continue to design hardware for everyone just to cater to a constantly shrinking minority demographic?
    - flukus 9y ago
      It's not shrinking and it's the majority demographic. I'd say it's growing in fact, younger people growing up with the internals of their devices more hidden from them than ever, they will have less technical literacy than their older peers.
- dmitriid 9y ago
  I'be yet to discover a single use case where it might be useful. And it's nightmare on laptops
  - terhechte 9y ago
    3D Touch on the keyboard to move the cursor or make text selections
    - nxc18 9y ago
      This could be accomplished just as well with long taps. I was a heavy force touch user, but I did not miss it on Android. Oreo even shows it's possible to have jump lists without force touch (gasp!) which was really the only particularly useful feature.
  - turtlebits 9y ago
    Here's the top things I use force touch for - - Moving the cursor - Opening Incognito mode for Safari - Requesting Desktop version of a site. - Turning on/off tethering from the control center - Setting brightness on the flashlight
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      I use most of these without the force touch :) Some of them are not even force touch, but a long press :) And funnily enough the most useful feature for the control center, turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off, are not even available there. So all in all force touch is next to useless (and it's nearly impossible to discover what it will do or not do in different situations)
- dismal2 9y ago
  What do you use it for?
  - hmottestad 9y ago
    Number one thing I use it for is on the keyboard. While typing, you see a mistake you did or need to change something. Press hard on the keyboard (on the iphone) and you get a cursor you can drag around, as if the keyboard becomes a trackpad.
    - krsdcbl 9y ago
      Android let's you touch & drag the spacebar for this - thing is, it works just fine on my cheap old phone, no pressure-touch required.
      - rickycook 9y ago
        android doesn’t however do the drag selection like ios does: hard press keyboard to get a cursor -> drag around keyboard to place cursor -> hard press on word to start selection -> drag around keyboard to place end of selection it’s a phenomenal way to select text, and everyone i know that i show it to uses it every day from them on. it’s not discoverable, but DAMN it’s handy
        IanCal 9y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. To drag select text on android I just long press on text and drag my finger. It leaves little control points on each side to adjust to the character level (otherwise generally snaps to whole words). The first two steps seem unnecessary - why not just press on the word to start with?
        sirclueless 9y ago
        Because pressing on words involves taking your finger off the keyboard, and the text is anyways often too small to be precise. You can fix it with the control bars on the sides, but it's more finicky and more interaction and requires you to move your hands.
- bpicolo 9y ago
  It can be useful and still be terrible interaction design - it's uses are entirely lacking in discoverability
  - aroman 9y ago
    Something can lack obvious discoverability and still be good interaction design. In fact, I'd argue it's beneficial in this case, since it's generally an advanced/power user feature.
  - ballenf 9y ago
    Right-click on Mac laptop has the same non-discoverability. I'd argue force touch is more discoverable because it's very common for new users to press hard enough to accidentally activate it. Then you kind of play around for a few second until you realize how to do it intentionally. A couple Macbook users I know have never once right-clicked and are amazed at how handy it is once demonstrated to them.
snowwrestler 9y ago
3D Touch is a great way to move a cursor around in text you're writing. Just push in anywhere on the keyboard until it pops, then slide you finger to move the cursor. I use this all the time; it's much more precise than the old direct touch way to move the cursor.
- abtinf 9y ago
  I’ve always used iPhones and had no idea this feature existed. Thanks.
  - chvid 9y ago
    I don't want to digress into why 3D touch is bad design. But you are sort of pointing it out right there. Everything has to be learned. There is no natural metaphor or "affordance" that guides how it is supposed to be used. It changes from device to device, from application to application. I am pretty sure that Apple had plenty of design people (or just people with common sense) pointing out the flaws of the touch bar and 3D touch. Yet these big expensive projects are put forward. What drives that?
    - rickycook 9y ago
      the same argument has been applied to voice assistants, but that doesn’t stop them being incredibly handy
    - rsynnott 9y ago
      I feel like 3D Touch is very much right-clicking for phones; useful when you know it's there, but the vast majority of people don't know it's there.
      - bpicolo 9y ago
        Right clicking on desktop brings up a contextual menu - useful. In the case of 3D touch in apps it frequently just directly performs an action, which is worse for understanding what's happening.
cstejerean 9y ago
The fact that people that frequent HN complain about something does not make it an obviously bad idea. Most of the developer complaints about the touchbar are about losing the hardware function and escape keys (which depending on how you use your laptop can be a bad trade off). Outside of that audience (and for those that code most of the time using an external keyboard) it’s actually pretty great. I say this based both on my experience for the past 18 months as well as from observing others (primarily non-developers).
- reificator 9y ago
  So if developers are not (a part of) the target audience for a "Pro" branded device, then who are?
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    people that have money but no idea of what they are doing like the guy in front of me on the train last week that used an iPad pro as a laptop, with an external keyboard and an external trackpad occupying way more space than my real laptop...
- b1daly 9y ago
  Most “civilian” users of MacBooks don’t even know that you have to turn on the function keys, System Preferences, you want them to work as function keys. Or rather, the fn key toggles between the function keys and the default media controls that are mapped to them. The OS setting determines which is the default, and which is secondary. I don’t even mess with the keyboard on my MBP, unless I’m actually mobile. Even then, I often drag along my preferred input devices. It’s very hard to guage the relative weight of these different potential target markets. But, really, I’m dumbfounded at how many people I know don’t even know that the function keys are a thing! This seems to be the cases with Windows 10, also.
- dpkonofa 9y ago
  I agree and find it so weird to hear so many people complaining on here and I am a developer. I never liked the function keys and never cared for them specifically because you have to memorize the functions for each numbered key and then, once you do, you're tied to that specific piece of software. If you ever want to try something new, you're stuck memorizing a completely different set of key mappings. To me, the Touch Bar is incredibly useful and, if I really need to do some work where I absolutely need function keys, I can just plug in a regular keyboard. No one I know complains about the Touch Bar except people on Reddit and HN and I know tons of people with the new laptops. I also don't understand the hate for the new keyboards but that's a whole other rabbit hole to go down.

by chvid 9y ago

aroman 9y ago

Have you actually used 3D touch? Because I use it just about every day, so much so that it's one of the biggest things I miss when using phones that don't have it. It also isn't touted as a major selling point anymore -- it just quietly exists, serving an extremely useful purpose as a better "right click" for touch screens. The touch bar I agree is major marketing hype.

2009mobile 9y ago
3D touch isn't supported on the iPhone SE or on any iPads. Given that it's not supported across the iOS hardware line, it's not assigned any essential functionality. I expect that it'll play a larger role after the next major redesign of iOS in a couple years.
- culturestate 9y ago
  They've started faking 3D Touch on iPads - see e.g. the new control center, which will respond mostly the same as it does on a modern iPhone if you use a similar "force touch" action (even though you're really just holding it for n milliseconds). I'm betting on a force-sensitive iPad sooner than later, probably the next-gen iPad Pro.
  - allendoerfer 9y ago
    Can't you just detect force, because the surface of the touch increases slightly, due to your skin being flexible? Seems like a feature you could emulate anyway.
    - culturestate 9y ago
      I'd imagine that would result in a slew of false triggers, because one can slightly vary the angle or pressure of their touch without intending to invoke any kind of secondary action. One of the reasons I like the implementation of 3D Touch versus e.g. long press on Android is that it's a deliberate, positive input.
- dpkonofa 9y ago
  But, to the parent's point, right-clicking is never (and should never) be assigned any essential functionality. Everyone agrees that the hockey-puck mice were terrible but their initial goal was admirable, IMO - new users should always be able to find commands with a single click of a button or in a menu. More advanced users could do a secondary click for quicker access to commonly used features. That seems like a great design paradigm to follow for any alternate clicking.
flukus 9y ago
Have you seen non-technical people using their devices, particularly older people? Every button press they make is a force touch and if that doesn't do what's expected they'll press harder. It's hard enough getting them not to long press or double click and now the company known for making things easy to use is making things even more confusing for lay people.
- vbezhenar 9y ago
  They stopped caring about those people when they dropped skeuomorphic design. They expect their users to have some experience with phones.
- dpkonofa 9y ago
  The number of "non-technical" people is only shrinking every single day. Why would they continue to design hardware for everyone just to cater to a constantly shrinking minority demographic?
  - flukus 9y ago
    It's not shrinking and it's the majority demographic. I'd say it's growing in fact, younger people growing up with the internals of their devices more hidden from them than ever, they will have less technical literacy than their older peers.
dmitriid 9y ago
I'be yet to discover a single use case where it might be useful. And it's nightmare on laptops
- terhechte 9y ago
  3D Touch on the keyboard to move the cursor or make text selections
  - nxc18 9y ago
    This could be accomplished just as well with long taps. I was a heavy force touch user, but I did not miss it on Android. Oreo even shows it's possible to have jump lists without force touch (gasp!) which was really the only particularly useful feature.
- turtlebits 9y ago
  Here's the top things I use force touch for - - Moving the cursor - Opening Incognito mode for Safari - Requesting Desktop version of a site. - Turning on/off tethering from the control center - Setting brightness on the flashlight
  - dmitriid 9y ago
    I use most of these without the force touch :) Some of them are not even force touch, but a long press :) And funnily enough the most useful feature for the control center, turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off, are not even available there. So all in all force touch is next to useless (and it's nearly impossible to discover what it will do or not do in different situations)
dismal2 9y ago
What do you use it for?
- hmottestad 9y ago
  Number one thing I use it for is on the keyboard. While typing, you see a mistake you did or need to change something. Press hard on the keyboard (on the iphone) and you get a cursor you can drag around, as if the keyboard becomes a trackpad.
  - krsdcbl 9y ago
    Android let's you touch & drag the spacebar for this - thing is, it works just fine on my cheap old phone, no pressure-touch required.
    - rickycook 9y ago
      android doesn’t however do the drag selection like ios does: hard press keyboard to get a cursor -> drag around keyboard to place cursor -> hard press on word to start selection -> drag around keyboard to place end of selection it’s a phenomenal way to select text, and everyone i know that i show it to uses it every day from them on. it’s not discoverable, but DAMN it’s handy
      - IanCal 9y ago
        I'm not sure I understand. To drag select text on android I just long press on text and drag my finger. It leaves little control points on each side to adjust to the character level (otherwise generally snaps to whole words). The first two steps seem unnecessary - why not just press on the word to start with?
        sirclueless 9y ago
        Because pressing on words involves taking your finger off the keyboard, and the text is anyways often too small to be precise. You can fix it with the control bars on the sides, but it's more finicky and more interaction and requires you to move your hands.
bpicolo 9y ago
It can be useful and still be terrible interaction design - it's uses are entirely lacking in discoverability
- aroman 9y ago
  Something can lack obvious discoverability and still be good interaction design. In fact, I'd argue it's beneficial in this case, since it's generally an advanced/power user feature.
- ballenf 9y ago
  Right-click on Mac laptop has the same non-discoverability. I'd argue force touch is more discoverable because it's very common for new users to press hard enough to accidentally activate it. Then you kind of play around for a few second until you realize how to do it intentionally. A couple Macbook users I know have never once right-clicked and are amazed at how handy it is once demonstrated to them.

snowwrestler 9y ago

3D Touch is a great way to move a cursor around in text you're writing. Just push in anywhere on the keyboard until it pops, then slide you finger to move the cursor. I use this all the time; it's much more precise than the old direct touch way to move the cursor.

abtinf 9y ago
I’ve always used iPhones and had no idea this feature existed. Thanks.
- chvid 9y ago
  I don't want to digress into why 3D touch is bad design. But you are sort of pointing it out right there. Everything has to be learned. There is no natural metaphor or "affordance" that guides how it is supposed to be used. It changes from device to device, from application to application. I am pretty sure that Apple had plenty of design people (or just people with common sense) pointing out the flaws of the touch bar and 3D touch. Yet these big expensive projects are put forward. What drives that?
  - rickycook 9y ago
    the same argument has been applied to voice assistants, but that doesn’t stop them being incredibly handy
  - rsynnott 9y ago
    I feel like 3D Touch is very much right-clicking for phones; useful when you know it's there, but the vast majority of people don't know it's there.
    - bpicolo 9y ago
      Right clicking on desktop brings up a contextual menu - useful. In the case of 3D touch in apps it frequently just directly performs an action, which is worse for understanding what's happening.

cstejerean 9y ago

The fact that people that frequent HN complain about something does not make it an obviously bad idea. Most of the developer complaints about the touchbar are about losing the hardware function and escape keys (which depending on how you use your laptop can be a bad trade off). Outside of that audience (and for those that code most of the time using an external keyboard) it’s actually pretty great. I say this based both on my experience for the past 18 months as well as from observing others (primarily non-developers).

reificator 9y ago
So if developers are not (a part of) the target audience for a "Pro" branded device, then who are?
- walterstucco 9y ago
  people that have money but no idea of what they are doing like the guy in front of me on the train last week that used an iPad pro as a laptop, with an external keyboard and an external trackpad occupying way more space than my real laptop...
b1daly 9y ago
Most “civilian” users of MacBooks don’t even know that you have to turn on the function keys, System Preferences, you want them to work as function keys. Or rather, the fn key toggles between the function keys and the default media controls that are mapped to them. The OS setting determines which is the default, and which is secondary. I don’t even mess with the keyboard on my MBP, unless I’m actually mobile. Even then, I often drag along my preferred input devices. It’s very hard to guage the relative weight of these different potential target markets. But, really, I’m dumbfounded at how many people I know don’t even know that the function keys are a thing! This seems to be the cases with Windows 10, also.
dpkonofa 9y ago
I agree and find it so weird to hear so many people complaining on here and I am a developer. I never liked the function keys and never cared for them specifically because you have to memorize the functions for each numbered key and then, once you do, you're tied to that specific piece of software. If you ever want to try something new, you're stuck memorizing a completely different set of key mappings. To me, the Touch Bar is incredibly useful and, if I really need to do some work where I absolutely need function keys, I can just plug in a regular keyboard. No one I know complains about the Touch Bar except people on Reddit and HN and I know tons of people with the new laptops. I also don't understand the hate for the new keyboards but that's a whole other rabbit hole to go down.