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Compounding this frustration (on iOS at least) is stuff like "force touch" and hidden toolbars. Depending on how hard you press a button you might get a totally

Compounding this frustration (on iOS at least) is stuff like "force touch" and hidden toolbars. Depending on how hard you press a button you might get a totally different UI interaction. Are others good at knowing exactly how many newtons of force it takes to follow a hyperlink instead of triggering this horrid mini-preview window? Maybe that's why Jonny Ive made millions of dollars while I work like a stiff for a living. Want to open a new tab in mobile Safari while on a webpage? Oh I must tap the invisible button bar at the bottom. So obvious. I just wish Apple et al. didn't force these choices on us, that we could disable silliness like force touch and hidden toolbars. But alas one cannot.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
Force touch is the best evidence we have that designers have lost their power at Apple. The best thing Steve Jobs did was hire serious designers and defend their ideas against the rest of the organization. That’s clearly not happening anymore. My guess is that “Designer at Apple” became such a desirable title that the design roles have been taken over by wannabees.
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  Force Touch is on its way out. Has been for about two generations of iPhone. There's now Haptic Touch which is nothing but a long-press with better feedback.
  - thom 7y ago
    All this means is that instead of people accidentally discovering the obscure behaviour as they do now (and then working out how to carefully tap out of it), they'll just never find it. That's certainly less annoying to me, who has never used any of these weird popup menus, but doesn't seem a massive improvement overall.
    - zapzupnz 7y ago
      > they'll just never find it Why not? People always complained about accidentally activating Force Touch when trying to long press. Long press has a precedent in iOS; 3D/Force Touch never did.
      - thom 7y ago
        I have no idea what I should be long pressing (there are no affordances that I know of other than randomly trying it) and I’ve only ever accidentally activated force touch. Perhaps I am unique.
  - redwall_hp 7y ago
    It has the same problem: invisible, undiscoverable UI driven by seemingly random gestures. Who cares if you long press or press harder? You still can't tell it's an option unless you try it on everything.
    - ta999999171 7y ago
      It's meant to be reserved for advanced features that you only want to offer to users that know how to find them. See: right click.
      - jclulow 7y ago
        I don't think right click is in the same category. For one thing, the right mouse button is prominent and next to the left one. For another, there was a pretty well established language that right clicking either did nothing (was harmless) or brought up a contextual menu of advanced actions you could then read.
        m_mueller 7y ago
        And Apple UI designers (IMO rightfully) were against exactly these hidden context menus. You can see in the older versions of Pages/Keynote/Numbers how UI was meant to work: Instead of right-click menus there was the Info button (promimently found in the shortcut list), which opened a non-modal context menu that could be placed anywhere on screen in a persistent way. This then allowed manipulating all the detail object settings with minimal mouse travel and clicks. I'd say the one thing that MS Office always did really well in comparison is the format paster. Cmd-alt-c/v just isn't as intuitive and discoverable.
        PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
        Not always. After working for years at Apple I was told (in response to a bug report I filed about missing menu items) that Mac menus might totally change their contents if you PRESSED A MODIFIER KEY. WTF! So every Mac menu conceivably had (has?) 7 sets of contents, 6 of which are essentially secret. Idiotic.
  - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
    Worth noting they also disabled the feature on older hardware in iOS13 for feature parity. So even if your device can detect pressure it no longer bothers.
    - simonklitj 7y ago
      Not true. Force touch works perfectly in iOS 13 on my XS. As does long pressing. It is true though that they had disabled force touch altogether in the iOS 13 beta.
      - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
        Doesn't work the same as it used to on my iPhone 7. You don't get the feedback as you force press an icon on the home screen anymore, you can tell its just the same simulated algorithm as on the new phones.
- knolan 7y ago
  You can set the amount of force required for 3D Touch in settings. It’s a feature I liked, it behaved like a right click in many instances. Also its double action made text selection easy.
- Touche 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure invisible UI started very much while Jobs was in power. Hiding the scrollbar, for example. I think it's quite a myth that Jobs knew good design. Jobs had a fetish for minimalism. For simple, single use, UIs that's often a good choice. I think that's what made iPods and the first generations of iPhones so well designed. But as smartphones have transitioned into being primary use devices with greater abilities, hidden UIs and extreme minimalism because a worse choice.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Well, they didn't hide the scrollbar on desktop until Lion, at which point Steve was in quite poor health. On mobile, and particularly on screens the size of the original iPhone, hiding the scrollbar is a necessary tradeoff for screen real-estate. It also doesn't necessarily hurt usability if you know the exact screen size you're designing for, and can ensure elements are never fully cut off on your initial view.
    - oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
      It hurts usability in several ways. For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document. Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is.
      - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
        > For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document. How would you propose doing that on a 3.5" screen without a mouse or stylus? > Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is. You scroll the screen a tiny bit and the scrollbar pops up. Again, keep the size of the screen in mind—making the scrollbar persistent would be a poor use of space.
        oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
        iOS isn’t just used on 3.5” screens, though - my 8” iPad mini screen could certainly accommodate a scrollbar. I also frequently interact with controls smaller than a scrollbar - apple's 'finger resolving' algorithm seems more than capable of this. I know it’s still there - that’s why I said “instant”. It’s a very minor concern, I’ll grant you.
terandle 7y ago
Apple has killed off 3D Touch first with the XR and now the entire iPhone 11 line
- spectramax 7y ago
  They've still kept the functionality AFAIK - you could just long-touch for force touch menu. Instead of pressing hard, you're now pressing longer to invoke the 3D touch menu. I know why Apple got rid of force touch - BOM cost. Not that I condone the concept of Force Touch, but some wizbang designer pitched to the management that hey "We could solve this using just the UI with long press, and save $$$ in LCD costs to put a force sensitive layer". That's exactly how this happened. Edit: Just checked on iPhone 11 Pro - yup, just long touch an icon to popup a contextual menu which used to require pressing with force.
  - gdubs 7y ago
    Except, long press has been a gesture since the earliest days of iOS. They’re simply reverting back. I think you’re correct that cost was a factor, but more likely that the marginally utility of force touch over long-press wasn’t worth the trade-off. (Both gestures have to be learned, but force touch is faster once learned. But probably not enough people used it to justify the extra layer of technology.)
  - terandle 7y ago
    The main reason they got rid of it because it was a gimmick that never really panned out and having two different ways of invoking a context menu based on force was a UX disaster for the novice user. I'm glad Apple was able to swallow their pride and drop their "breakthrough innovative pressure sensitive screen" - reducing BOM costs was the icing on the cake, although it seems like they have just replaced that space with more battery so I wouldn't be surprised if the BOM difference was negligible in the end.
    - spectramax 7y ago
      I’m not sure if I buy that - Apple makes millions of iPhones every year, shaving off a part from the BOM has huge impact. I worked in manufacturing for 10 years where we made 6 million things per week. It was a big deal.
egdod 7y ago
Force touch at least seems to be on its way out. I hope. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/05/29/3d-touch-2019-iphones https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/05/29/3d-touch-2019-i...
- spectramax 7y ago
  It is out in hardware, but not entirely in the UI. The UI for force-touch is replaced by long press on the icon or widget.
  - dangus 7y ago
    The UI is totally new in iOS 13, it’s descriptive and more explicit about what’s happening, looks a lot like a right click menu. Try holding down on an app icon in the home screen to see.
perl4ever 7y ago
This made me think, how long did it take for cars to acquire basically their modern standard interface, and have personal computers been around that long? Apparently, the Austin 7 popularized what are now standard controls for cars in 1922 (although it wasn't the very first example), and the IC auto was patented in 1886, which means it was about 36 years before people mostly settled on one interface. By comparison, microcomputers have been around longer, but if you consider the GUI personal computer as a separate class, the Apple Lisa came out in 1983, which was...36 years ago! But it doesn't seem like we are converging to one standard.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  I feel like we have converged! Without exception, laptops are two panels connected by a hinge, with the top containing a screen and the bottom a keyboard and trackpad. The “desktop” metaphor is universal — draggable, tilable windows adorn a hierarchical filesystem. Basically all modern phones are rectangles dedicated entirely to their screens, with which you interact using your fingers. Turn them on and you get a grid of app icons, each of which takes up the full screen when launched. Sure, there’s a lot more variation on top of these foundations — but then, computers are way more complex than cars.
- vsareto 7y ago
  It's funny you mention cars, because there's definitely a new trend towards touch screens, and it happened fairly recently.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    There's also the increasing number of weird controls for automatic transmissions. However, I think the last major difference in the basic controls of a car was automatic vs. traditional manual, and that seems to be resolving. I can imagine things that nobody seems to be doing - like what if you have a CVT, but manual control of the gear ratio through a lever with no detents?
- gerdesj 7y ago
  Me and the wife have a car each. The reverse gear is in a different position in each. On mine the headlights are controlled with a rotary switch at lower right of the steering wheel, in hers you twist part of the left stalk. If you accidentally press the centre of my headlight control you raise or lower the lights - hilarious. Some cars have the handbrake on a stick behind the steering wheel, some have it as a lever in the central console. Some have a small paddle. Then there is the which side of the road do you drive thing ...
mikehollinger 7y ago
> Want to open a new tab in mobile Safari while on a webpage? Oh I must tap the invisible button bar at the bottom. So obvious. ... I didn’t know there’s a button bar there until just now, and I tend to think that I know what I’m doing. I’ve always scrolled all the way back to the top of the page to get to that bar. I genuinely wonder what else I’ve missed now.
- 333c 7y ago
  Just scrolling up a small amount should bring the bar back. No need to scroll to the top.

erikpukinskis 7y ago

Force touch is the best evidence we have that designers have lost their power at Apple. The best thing Steve Jobs did was hire serious designers and defend their ideas against the rest of the organization. That’s clearly not happening anymore. My guess is that “Designer at Apple” became such a desirable title that the design roles have been taken over by wannabees.

zapzupnz 7y ago
Force Touch is on its way out. Has been for about two generations of iPhone. There's now Haptic Touch which is nothing but a long-press with better feedback.
- thom 7y ago
  All this means is that instead of people accidentally discovering the obscure behaviour as they do now (and then working out how to carefully tap out of it), they'll just never find it. That's certainly less annoying to me, who has never used any of these weird popup menus, but doesn't seem a massive improvement overall.
  - zapzupnz 7y ago
    > they'll just never find it Why not? People always complained about accidentally activating Force Touch when trying to long press. Long press has a precedent in iOS; 3D/Force Touch never did.
    - thom 7y ago
      I have no idea what I should be long pressing (there are no affordances that I know of other than randomly trying it) and I’ve only ever accidentally activated force touch. Perhaps I am unique.
- redwall_hp 7y ago
  It has the same problem: invisible, undiscoverable UI driven by seemingly random gestures. Who cares if you long press or press harder? You still can't tell it's an option unless you try it on everything.
  - ta999999171 7y ago
    It's meant to be reserved for advanced features that you only want to offer to users that know how to find them. See: right click.
    - jclulow 7y ago
      I don't think right click is in the same category. For one thing, the right mouse button is prominent and next to the left one. For another, there was a pretty well established language that right clicking either did nothing (was harmless) or brought up a contextual menu of advanced actions you could then read.
      - m_mueller 7y ago
        And Apple UI designers (IMO rightfully) were against exactly these hidden context menus. You can see in the older versions of Pages/Keynote/Numbers how UI was meant to work: Instead of right-click menus there was the Info button (promimently found in the shortcut list), which opened a non-modal context menu that could be placed anywhere on screen in a persistent way. This then allowed manipulating all the detail object settings with minimal mouse travel and clicks. I'd say the one thing that MS Office always did really well in comparison is the format paster. Cmd-alt-c/v just isn't as intuitive and discoverable.
        PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
        Not always. After working for years at Apple I was told (in response to a bug report I filed about missing menu items) that Mac menus might totally change their contents if you PRESSED A MODIFIER KEY. WTF! So every Mac menu conceivably had (has?) 7 sets of contents, 6 of which are essentially secret. Idiotic.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  Worth noting they also disabled the feature on older hardware in iOS13 for feature parity. So even if your device can detect pressure it no longer bothers.
  - simonklitj 7y ago
    Not true. Force touch works perfectly in iOS 13 on my XS. As does long pressing. It is true though that they had disabled force touch altogether in the iOS 13 beta.
    - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
      Doesn't work the same as it used to on my iPhone 7. You don't get the feedback as you force press an icon on the home screen anymore, you can tell its just the same simulated algorithm as on the new phones.
knolan 7y ago
You can set the amount of force required for 3D Touch in settings. It’s a feature I liked, it behaved like a right click in many instances. Also its double action made text selection easy.
Touche 7y ago
I'm pretty sure invisible UI started very much while Jobs was in power. Hiding the scrollbar, for example. I think it's quite a myth that Jobs knew good design. Jobs had a fetish for minimalism. For simple, single use, UIs that's often a good choice. I think that's what made iPods and the first generations of iPhones so well designed. But as smartphones have transitioned into being primary use devices with greater abilities, hidden UIs and extreme minimalism because a worse choice.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Well, they didn't hide the scrollbar on desktop until Lion, at which point Steve was in quite poor health. On mobile, and particularly on screens the size of the original iPhone, hiding the scrollbar is a necessary tradeoff for screen real-estate. It also doesn't necessarily hurt usability if you know the exact screen size you're designing for, and can ensure elements are never fully cut off on your initial view.
  - oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
    It hurts usability in several ways. For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document. Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      > For example, you can’t click on an iOS scrollbar to jump to a specific part of the document. How would you propose doing that on a 3.5" screen without a mouse or stylus? > Nor can you use it as an instant reference to determine how long the document is. You scroll the screen a tiny bit and the scrollbar pops up. Again, keep the size of the screen in mind—making the scrollbar persistent would be a poor use of space.
      - oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
        iOS isn’t just used on 3.5” screens, though - my 8” iPad mini screen could certainly accommodate a scrollbar. I also frequently interact with controls smaller than a scrollbar - apple's 'finger resolving' algorithm seems more than capable of this. I know it’s still there - that’s why I said “instant”. It’s a very minor concern, I’ll grant you.

terandle 7y ago

Apple has killed off 3D Touch first with the XR and now the entire iPhone 11 line

spectramax 7y ago
They've still kept the functionality AFAIK - you could just long-touch for force touch menu. Instead of pressing hard, you're now pressing longer to invoke the 3D touch menu. I know why Apple got rid of force touch - BOM cost. Not that I condone the concept of Force Touch, but some wizbang designer pitched to the management that hey "We could solve this using just the UI with long press, and save $$$ in LCD costs to put a force sensitive layer". That's exactly how this happened. Edit: Just checked on iPhone 11 Pro - yup, just long touch an icon to popup a contextual menu which used to require pressing with force.
- gdubs 7y ago
  Except, long press has been a gesture since the earliest days of iOS. They’re simply reverting back. I think you’re correct that cost was a factor, but more likely that the marginally utility of force touch over long-press wasn’t worth the trade-off. (Both gestures have to be learned, but force touch is faster once learned. But probably not enough people used it to justify the extra layer of technology.)
- terandle 7y ago
  The main reason they got rid of it because it was a gimmick that never really panned out and having two different ways of invoking a context menu based on force was a UX disaster for the novice user. I'm glad Apple was able to swallow their pride and drop their "breakthrough innovative pressure sensitive screen" - reducing BOM costs was the icing on the cake, although it seems like they have just replaced that space with more battery so I wouldn't be surprised if the BOM difference was negligible in the end.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    I’m not sure if I buy that - Apple makes millions of iPhones every year, shaving off a part from the BOM has huge impact. I worked in manufacturing for 10 years where we made 6 million things per week. It was a big deal.

egdod 7y ago

Force touch at least seems to be on its way out. I hope. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/05/29/3d-touch-2019-iphones https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/05/29/3d-touch-2019-i...

spectramax 7y ago
It is out in hardware, but not entirely in the UI. The UI for force-touch is replaced by long press on the icon or widget.
- dangus 7y ago
  The UI is totally new in iOS 13, it’s descriptive and more explicit about what’s happening, looks a lot like a right click menu. Try holding down on an app icon in the home screen to see.

perl4ever 7y ago

This made me think, how long did it take for cars to acquire basically their modern standard interface, and have personal computers been around that long? Apparently, the Austin 7 popularized what are now standard controls for cars in 1922 (although it wasn't the very first example), and the IC auto was patented in 1886, which means it was about 36 years before people mostly settled on one interface. By comparison, microcomputers have been around longer, but if you consider the GUI personal computer as a separate class, the Apple Lisa came out in 1983, which was...36 years ago! But it doesn't seem like we are converging to one standard.

jakelazaroff 7y ago
I feel like we have converged! Without exception, laptops are two panels connected by a hinge, with the top containing a screen and the bottom a keyboard and trackpad. The “desktop” metaphor is universal — draggable, tilable windows adorn a hierarchical filesystem. Basically all modern phones are rectangles dedicated entirely to their screens, with which you interact using your fingers. Turn them on and you get a grid of app icons, each of which takes up the full screen when launched. Sure, there’s a lot more variation on top of these foundations — but then, computers are way more complex than cars.
vsareto 7y ago
It's funny you mention cars, because there's definitely a new trend towards touch screens, and it happened fairly recently.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  There's also the increasing number of weird controls for automatic transmissions. However, I think the last major difference in the basic controls of a car was automatic vs. traditional manual, and that seems to be resolving. I can imagine things that nobody seems to be doing - like what if you have a CVT, but manual control of the gear ratio through a lever with no detents?
gerdesj 7y ago
Me and the wife have a car each. The reverse gear is in a different position in each. On mine the headlights are controlled with a rotary switch at lower right of the steering wheel, in hers you twist part of the left stalk. If you accidentally press the centre of my headlight control you raise or lower the lights - hilarious. Some cars have the handbrake on a stick behind the steering wheel, some have it as a lever in the central console. Some have a small paddle. Then there is the which side of the road do you drive thing ...

mikehollinger 7y ago

> Want to open a new tab in mobile Safari while on a webpage? Oh I must tap the invisible button bar at the bottom. So obvious. ... I didn’t know there’s a button bar there until just now, and I tend to think that I know what I’m doing. I’ve always scrolled all the way back to the top of the page to get to that bar. I genuinely wonder what else I’ve missed now.

333c 7y ago
Just scrolling up a small amount should bring the bar back. No need to scroll to the top.