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I switched to Android around the time iPhone 5 came out. Whenever I touch one now, I feel like a idiot and dinosaur. It can take me minutes to figure out the m
by the_duke 7y ago
I switched to Android around the time iPhone 5 came out.
Whenever I touch one now, I feel like a idiot and dinosaur. It can take me minutes to figure out the most basic things, and often I end up searching on the web.
In the pursuit of a "clean" UI, iOS has become completely unintuitive and confusing.
- jahbrewski 7y agoMy favorite unintuitive iOS feature is “shake to undo”
- jameshart 7y agoFor some reason this always accidentally triggers when I’m using the ‘Mail’ app. After opening an email, it offers me the opportunity to ‘Undo Read’. It means ‘leave the email you just read marked as unread for now’, but somehow instead the displayed confirmation modal implies that iOS can reach into my brain and take back the information imparted by the email.
- runj__ 7y agoPerhaps you are always unknowingly shaking with anger whenever you read emails?
- theshrike79 7y agoHas anyone ever used that on purpose?
- Y-bar 7y agoYes, often, it is such an odd manoeuvre that it is hard to forget, like dragging an ejectable to the trash. But I feel like I look stupid. And it does not always work. There has to be a better way.
- hackmiester 7y ago> it does not always work. Just keep shaking until you see the popup appear. The phone also "thumps" (with the vibration motor) to let you know it felt what you were trying to do. Disclaimer: I am not trying to posit that this is a better way.
- Brendinooo 7y agoI do! I don't like that it happens accidentally more than it should, but otherwise it's fine.
- smcl 7y agoHa, yep I feel like an absolute idiot doing that in public. My genuinely favourite hidden/unintuitive feature is the force-touch on the on-screen keyboard to see a little cursor you can scroll around the text field you are using. I hate that it's so unintuitive, but it's incredibly useful
- rickycook 7y agoand i hate that they removed it in the latest generation! i know you can do the hold down on space instead, and i know that you can then tap with a second finger, but there’s so much more you could do much quicker with the force touch keyboard!
- Angelwings93 7y agoYou can also do it by holding down the caret :)
- gjhr 7y agoOn many Android keyboards you can hold and drag on the space bar to do the same. You can also drag back on backspace to delete whole words/sentences. Similarly unintuitive though, I only know about it because I saw someone else mention it on the Internet.
- jedieaston 7y agoThey replaced/depreciated it in iOS 13 with some crazy three finger swipe thing that for the life of me I can’t remember, so I still shake my iPad or just hold down backspace. They need to rebuild their software development team.
- lonelappde 7y agoThese are PM/Design flaws, not software dev flaws.
- wlesieutre 7y agoThe standardized 3 finger swipe thing is great on iPad
- gumby 7y agoI think you mean “shake them up”
- lonelappde 7y agoiOS 13 just added a delightful feature where long press on a web browser link it opens on Safari, even if you are in Firefox, and even if you are in private browsing. It pops up a split screen window that has no close-window button. The only way to close the pop up window is to exit your browser and go Home, and then go to Safari to clean up.
- newscracker 7y agoI too found that annoying. If I understand correctly what you’re referring to, if you notice closely, there is a “Hide Preview” on the top right of that Safari popup. Tap that once and you’ll be back to just seeing a nice menu of what to do with the link and no more opening the link in a Safari popup.
- scrooched_moose 7y agoI was out with a group of friends last night and had an interesting conversation when no one else realized you can search iMessages. From the main Messages window, swipe down and previously hidden search bar appears. There's no indication this is an option or it exists. As far as I know it's been there since at least iOS 9.0 (probably longer) and 6 people hadn't found it yet.
- MiroF 7y agoThis is a common iOS design pattern now. I'm sure there are lots of search bars you are missing.
- jandrese 7y agoThe visual cue that one exists is, let me check my notes, oh here it is "go fuck yourself." The #1 thing that drives me crazy with phone UI is the huge amount of hidden functionality that you'll only ever discover if you find an article online or just randomly tap and swipe everything in the app until things happen. And then you have to remember that all in your head because there are no reminders anywhere about the functionality. And what do they do with all of the space they save by not having indicators? Absolutely nothing at all. Tons of whitespace is added to the app so you are always scrolling around anyway.
- overgard 7y agoI've been using an iPhone since 2010 and I had no idea
- helpPeople 7y agoMy complaints are that the OS seems slow. Maybe it's the animations, but it feels slow. Or when podcasts are buffering, instead of giving an indication, the play button stays on pause. Confused me until someone on the internet told me. The UI is unintuitive, but for work purposes it was fine. Found the near daily updates I had to "sign in" AND enter passcode for annoying. Especially when I was in work crisis mode. Not sure why Android doesn't have these problems, but I don't understand why anyone would get an iPhone, they feel years outdated.
- toper-centage 7y agoDunno about iOS but on android, one of the first things I do on a new phone is set all animations to twice the speed. I can't stand these sluggish animations.
- dmd 7y agoJust FYI, you can turn off all the animations in Accessibility -> Reduce Motion.
- JacKTrocinskI 7y agoSeems to me like since Steve Jobs passed away Apple has been changing for the worst.
- dexterdog 7y agoThat was the same time I switched. I was waiting for a bigger phone like the Note 1 & 2 and they refused to make one.
- globular-toast 7y agoThe iPhones have degraded in every respect as far as I can tell. When I got my first Android phone about 4 years ago I didn't want to spend a lot of money. I was surprised at how expensive the iPhone was but after using a friends phone I understood that it was a higher quality product and you got what you paid for. But my girlfriend recently got the latest one (11?) and I was shocked at how bad it is. It feels absolutely massive for a start. Has weird software. But it has a huge design flaw that I really struggle to believe actually exists. I've pinched myself several times and I'm now convinced that it's true. Somehow it's considered OK that the phone doesn't even sit flat on a surface. The cameras bulge out of the back such the whole thing rocks like a table with a short leg when you use it. If anyone can explain how that is considered OK I'd love to know.
- wlesieutre 7y agoBugs me too (iPhone SE is the last good phone anyone made), but I think the assumption at this point is that it’s a $1000 phone and everyone puts a case on it, so as long as the case is as thick as the camera bump it’ll sit flat. The iPad is worse. Camera bump sticks out so that it doesn’t sit flat, and no one should be using a 13” tablet as a camera so I’m not sure why they thought adding a good camera was important enough to make it not sit flat on a table.
- nine_k 7y agoWhy, Apple kills multiple birds with one stone. On pictures, iPhone looks sleek, easy to brag about. In spec sheets, iPhone is impressively thin. In real life, iPhone is expectedly fragile, so people put protective covers on it. It also solves the problem of uneven shape. In real life, people want a wider choice of colors, textures, and a larger battery. Custom covers solve this at no expense to Apple, which can continue to pretend they don't exist.
- guitarbill 7y ago> In real life, people want a wider choice of colors, textures, and a larger battery. Custom covers solve this [...] Absolutely. I'd go one further and say many owners don't want Apple to "solve" it. The cover can be more than utility, for some it's an expression of themselves. Plain covers. Sports team covers. Franchise covers. Utility covers with e.g. battery packs also say something about you. Covers are a feature, and I'm glad there's a healthy 3rd party market Apple doesn't control.
- ansible 7y agoThe best user interfaces (which include some video games) have great discoverability for new users, while rewarding the user with greater speed and efficiency after learning the app after a time. With all the things mentioned in this thread so far, how are you supposed to discover them if you are a new user?
- newscracker 7y agoThe poor design described in the article is really bad. But > Whenever I touch one now, I feel like a idiot and dinosaur. It can take me minutes to figure out the most basic things, and often I end up searching on the web. This is exactly how I feel when I pick an Android phone (even with stock Android). Finding apps and launching them quickly seems like an art to learn. And don’t even get me started on how settings are organized. So I conclude that both platforms are a matter of getting used to and learning how to use them, since both makers have crammed a lot more on to smaller screens than can be intuitively deduced. Funnily enough, among all the Android users I’ve seen, everyone has a habit of force killing their apps every time they close it! I wonder how they learned that and why they even do it (I can understand killing rogue apps or buggy apps).
- MiroF 7y agoI use both and am now a current iPhone user. Certain things on iPhone (like muting all notifications with "Do Not Disturb" are much more unintuitive on the iPhone)
- guptaneil 7y agoI’m genuinely curious, how do you turn on Do Not Disturb in Android? On iOS, you swipe the top right corner to open the control panel and then tap the moon icon for enabling Do Not Disturb. I won’t argue that magically knowing the control panel is in the top right corner or that moon == Do Not Disturb is intuitive, but I am curious how android does it that is significantly better?
- wj 7y agoI can't figure out how to turn the flashlight off on my wife's iPhone whenever my kids somehow turn it on. Always end up restarting the phone.
- ahbyb 7y agoThank God that setting does not persist through reboots! Seriously though, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and the control center will appear, a button to turn the flashlight on or off should be there.
- hackmiester 7y agoFor iPhone 10 and newer, the control center is found by swiping downward, starting to the right of the notch.
- skunkworker 7y agoIf it's a X/Xs/11. It's on the initial lock screen. The bottom left of 2 buttons has a flashlight icon. You just touch the phone to wake it up then click the flashlight.
- war1025 7y agoI managed to lock myself out of the office earlier this year on a work from home day, so no one I worked with was there and my phone / keys were at my desk. We're in an office park, so I could still get into the building, just not into our office. Wandered around a while hoping to find someone that would let me use their computer. Eventually found someone I'd seen a couple times before. Told them I was locked out and asked if I could use their computer to contact someone who could come let me in. Instead of their computer, they handed me their iPhone and said they'd be back in a few minutes. I had absolutely zero idea what the heck was going on. Eventually did manage to find a browser. Took probably a minute to figure out how to open a new tab. Finally managed to navigate to the Slack page and sign in, only to be greeted by a notice that I couldn't actually use Slack from the website, I had to download the app for "optimal experience". I wasn't about to install an app on some random person's phone, so instead I just accepted defeat. Handed the phone back when they came to check. Told them no luck but I'd figure something out. Ended up just walking two miles to the coffee shop I was planning to meet my wife at for lunch and waiting. End slightly related rant.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoYou know, those things can also make something called a 'phone call' where you are voice-connected?
- war1025 7y agoNot so easy to do when you haven't committed your coworkers numbers to memory.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago...call home, get spouse to send email or call co-worker. Have some imagination.
- war1025 7y agoYou will note that I did solve the problem. I met my wife where I was planning to meet her anyway, and from there used her phone to make the needed connections. All told I lost maybe an hour of my day. Not really a big deal.
- jarjoura 7y agoHahaha, funny, I feel the exact same way about Android whenever I pick one up. Not saying one is better or worse, just different enough to be unintuitive and confusing to an outsider.