7 ms·

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 the

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.

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.