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... there is a back swipe gesture. And it works much more consistently than Android's "Where the heck is this gonna take me" back button. Every app you can swip

... there is a back swipe gesture. And it works much more consistently than Android's "Where the heck is this gonna take me" back button. Every app you can swipe back, and it's a much nicer animation than Android. The back button is a cudgel: a sign of a poorly designed UX. Apps aren't websites, the concept of "back" is not universal, so a universal button doesn't make sense. It only exists on Android because it started off as a non-touch OS.

pretext-1 3y ago
It works better because iOS had this for many years and apps implement it natively. Android's implementation is basically a workaround. The back gesture is recognized by the system and forwarded as back button event to the app. On iOS the gesture is handled by the app, which can provide proper animation, giving users the ability to “preview” what’s behind (and pull back to the left to stop going back). Android is trying to copy that right now (as they should because it works really well), but it will take many years for apps to adopt it.
- alexdbird 3y ago
  > it will take many years for apps to adopt it This is the flaw with the Apple back gesture, sadly, as although it's generally really easy to support this in native app — essentially it comes for free and you just don't break it — plenty of developers just don't care about invisible quality of life things. The gesture is properly called 'Interactive Pop'.
  - macintosh-hd 3y ago
    Proton Mail's app broke the gesture and it annoys me at least 5 times per week.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    It's not a perfect rule but most fully native (as in written with Obj-C or Swift) tend to leave this functionality intact. For React Native and other alternative UI stacks all bets are off.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    How is it different to android developers breaking shit? It’s not hard to break the “atomic” back gesture either, hell, websites are getting really good at breaking my back button! Shitty apps/developers are everywhere, we should not limit ourselves over them.
    - alexdbird 3y ago
      I'm not sure I understand you. If an Android developer breaks the back gesture, surely they also break the back button, so they've completely broken the back function? An iOS app can have fully functional back buttons, but break the back gesture only.
flutas 3y ago
> there is a back swipe gesture > Every app you can swipe back > the concept of "back" is not universal, so a universal button doesn't make sense. > It only exists on Android because it started off as a non-touch OS. ... so android has the exact same gesture and it's a bad thing only there because it started as a non touch OS, iOS has it but it's totally not the same concept at all and perfect. Hmmm.
- drcongo 3y ago
  You misread. Parent said the back "button" is a cudgel, not the gesture. Though unfortunately someone at Google decided to give the gesture the same behaviour as the button, so yeah, it is a bit silly on Android.
- matchbok 3y ago
  The back swipe on iOS is per-app, not a global function. I should have clarified. It is different, and a better implementation.
- kaba0 3y ago
  Android had the back button since the beginnings. They added an option a few years back to hide the usual three buttons at the bottom of the screen and to enable an ios-like navigation with a swipe up for home, etc. That made a swipe from the left or right edge recognized by the OS trigger a back button. That is quite different from the app itself recognizing an in-process swipe left, showing the underlying screen you would be brought to. Though some android apps do support this as well.
afavour 3y ago
> It only exists on Android because it started off as a non-touch OS. That doesn’t really make sense, it has very little to do with the actual interaction. It seems Android apps were originally envisaged as a collection of islands rather than one solid block. In that context the back button does make sense, you’d be jumping from “activity” to “activity” rather than app to app, and the back button would provide a logical thread through all of that. But it didn’t work out that way at all, apps became just as centralised as iOS ones and the back button’s original functionality became kind of vestigial.

pretext-1 3y ago

It works better because iOS had this for many years and apps implement it natively. Android's implementation is basically a workaround. The back gesture is recognized by the system and forwarded as back button event to the app. On iOS the gesture is handled by the app, which can provide proper animation, giving users the ability to “preview” what’s behind (and pull back to the left to stop going back). Android is trying to copy that right now (as they should because it works really well), but it will take many years for apps to adopt it.

alexdbird 3y ago
> it will take many years for apps to adopt it This is the flaw with the Apple back gesture, sadly, as although it's generally really easy to support this in native app — essentially it comes for free and you just don't break it — plenty of developers just don't care about invisible quality of life things. The gesture is properly called 'Interactive Pop'.
- macintosh-hd 3y ago
  Proton Mail's app broke the gesture and it annoys me at least 5 times per week.
- jwells89 3y ago
  It's not a perfect rule but most fully native (as in written with Obj-C or Swift) tend to leave this functionality intact. For React Native and other alternative UI stacks all bets are off.
- kaba0 3y ago
  How is it different to android developers breaking shit? It’s not hard to break the “atomic” back gesture either, hell, websites are getting really good at breaking my back button! Shitty apps/developers are everywhere, we should not limit ourselves over them.
  - alexdbird 3y ago
    I'm not sure I understand you. If an Android developer breaks the back gesture, surely they also break the back button, so they've completely broken the back function? An iOS app can have fully functional back buttons, but break the back gesture only.

flutas 3y ago

> there is a back swipe gesture > Every app you can swipe back > the concept of "back" is not universal, so a universal button doesn't make sense. > It only exists on Android because it started off as a non-touch OS. ... so android has the exact same gesture and it's a bad thing only there because it started as a non touch OS, iOS has it but it's totally not the same concept at all and perfect. Hmmm.

drcongo 3y ago
You misread. Parent said the back "button" is a cudgel, not the gesture. Though unfortunately someone at Google decided to give the gesture the same behaviour as the button, so yeah, it is a bit silly on Android.
matchbok 3y ago
The back swipe on iOS is per-app, not a global function. I should have clarified. It is different, and a better implementation.
kaba0 3y ago
Android had the back button since the beginnings. They added an option a few years back to hide the usual three buttons at the bottom of the screen and to enable an ios-like navigation with a swipe up for home, etc. That made a swipe from the left or right edge recognized by the OS trigger a back button. That is quite different from the app itself recognizing an in-process swipe left, showing the underlying screen you would be brought to. Though some android apps do support this as well.

afavour 3y ago

> It only exists on Android because it started off as a non-touch OS. That doesn’t really make sense, it has very little to do with the actual interaction. It seems Android apps were originally envisaged as a collection of islands rather than one solid block. In that context the back button does make sense, you’d be jumping from “activity” to “activity” rather than app to app, and the back button would provide a logical thread through all of that. But it didn’t work out that way at all, apps became just as centralised as iOS ones and the back button’s original functionality became kind of vestigial.