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Apple's view provides a photo library icon and shows as a half-screen popover unless the user starts scrolling, keeping context.

by _g5q8 5y ago

handrous 5y ago
Yeah, I edited in that Apple's is "barely better", and that's most of the "barely". I also found the "add" element, though similarly non-buttonish, a little easier to spot, in part because the area in question was smaller, but also because the color stood out a bit better. The thing about Apple's that's way worse is the photo gallery icon. Pinwheel = photos. So you just have to have memorized the icon to have any hope of figuring that out, especially since there are like 9-10 icons in that part of the screen (plus you can scroll sideways for more). I also just noticed that, on my view (I assume the icon presence or ordering changes for some people) I have a grey "camera" icon and a grey "App Store" (but seemingly at the top of some kind of "stack"?) icon to the left of the message input field, then directly under the grey App Store icon, on the app list, is a blue "App Store" icon. Naturally, these do completely different things: the blue one opens something to do with the App Store, while the grey one... presents me autocomplete options? WTF?
- _g5q8 5y ago
  Yeah, that app store stack icon is a little funky. It's meant to represent a stack of apps - which that bar is, an app launcher for within messages.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Ah, that explains it. I rarely use iMessage for anything but quick texts to people who aren't in one of my other messaging apps, so I hadn't looked too closely at it until I checked it out to compare the iOS flow to the shit-show of an Android one I'd just dealt with. Checking it again, I see now that the grey app-store-stack icon is toggling the horizontal app list, so it's not that it was bringing up the suggestion list before, but that it was turning off the app list, revealing the suggestion list. Of course it doesn't in any way visually represent a toggle, as its appearance remains the same whether it's "on" or "off", and it's not visually tied to the app list, so the connection is rather metaphysical. Sigh. But, at least now I know how it works. I generally like Apple design well enough but IMO they derailed way off the usability/discoverability tracks back in iOS7 and have yet to fully recover—it's just that almost everything else is even worse.

Apple's view provides a photo library icon and shows as a half-screen popover unless the user starts scrolling, keeping context.

by _g5q8 5y ago

Apple's view provides a photo library icon and shows as a half-screen popover unless the user starts scrolling, keeping context.

handrous 5y ago

Yeah, I edited in that Apple's is "barely better", and that's most of the "barely". I also found the "add" element, though similarly non-buttonish, a little easier to spot, in part because the area in question was smaller, but also because the color stood out a bit better. The thing about Apple's that's way worse is the photo gallery icon. Pinwheel = photos. So you just have to have memorized the icon to have any hope of figuring that out, especially since there are like 9-10 icons in that part of the screen (plus you can scroll sideways for more). I also just noticed that, on my view (I assume the icon presence or ordering changes for some people) I have a grey "camera" icon and a grey "App Store" (but seemingly at the top of some kind of "stack"?) icon to the left of the message input field, then directly under the grey App Store icon, on the app list, is a blue "App Store" icon. Naturally, these do completely different things: the blue one opens something to do with the App Store, while the grey one... presents me autocomplete options? WTF?

_g5q8 5y ago
Yeah, that app store stack icon is a little funky. It's meant to represent a stack of apps - which that bar is, an app launcher for within messages.
- handrous 5y ago
  Ah, that explains it. I rarely use iMessage for anything but quick texts to people who aren't in one of my other messaging apps, so I hadn't looked too closely at it until I checked it out to compare the iOS flow to the shit-show of an Android one I'd just dealt with. Checking it again, I see now that the grey app-store-stack icon is toggling the horizontal app list, so it's not that it was bringing up the suggestion list before, but that it was turning off the app list, revealing the suggestion list. Of course it doesn't in any way visually represent a toggle, as its appearance remains the same whether it's "on" or "off", and it's not visually tied to the app list, so the connection is rather metaphysical. Sigh. But, at least now I know how it works. I generally like Apple design well enough but IMO they derailed way off the usability/discoverability tracks back in iOS7 and have yet to fully recover—it's just that almost everything else is even worse.