6 ms·

Pushing iOS

138 points by TechnoFou 12y ago

th0br0 12y ago
Couldn't all that he wants be provided by implementing a "native" Apple UI/UX on top of Android? It feels like all his points have been solved by Android for quite some time. Still, I like this block concept... it's a good compromise between widgets & actually starting the app.
- chris_overseas 12y ago
  Yes, a custom Android launcher would be able to implement this (though it might be a little tricky to figure out how to make the transition between app icon and widget since some apps don't have widgets, some have multiple widgets). Given the way the Android community has picked up on these sorts of things in the past, I wouldn't be too surprised if someone creates a launcher that implements this relatively soon.
  - rtcoms 12y ago
    Try Action Launcher for android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlaun...) Implementation here is , when you swipe up on an app icon it opens the widget related to that app
- ManFromUranus 12y ago
  He's just "invented" live tiles for iOS. T
miralabs 12y ago
Android widgets..unless I'm missing something here.
- czr80 12y ago
  They're widgets without: - the need to install something explicitly (separate from the app) - the need to name them "widgets" (to the user they're just a fancier icon), which reduces the apparent complexity to the user - they are completely invisible unless invoked by the user, thus preserving the simplicity iOS - they have a natural and fixed size that helps preserve the visual aesthetic of the grid layout, without special efforts by the user ...and probably more - that's just off the top of my head. I don't know if they're a good idea, by the way. But it's not good to just dismiss them as "android widgets".
  - Spittie 12y ago
    It reminds me of Action Launcher's "shutters". You have an icon on your homescreen, and swipe on it to show the relative widget. Not the same concept, but still closer than normal widgets. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlaun...
  - danieldk 12y ago
    - the need to install something explicitly (separate from the app) As widgets, apps provide them, you don't have to install them separately. - they are completely invisible unless invoked by the user, thus preserving the simplicity iOS As with widgets. You don't see them, until you start using them. they have a natural and fixed size that helps preserve the visual aesthetic of the grid layout, without special efforts by the user Actually, different sizes are nice, as widgets and Windows tiles have shown. Some like their calendar widget to be short, to just show the top 1 or 2 items. Others like their calendar widget to take up a complete screen, so that they can swipe to it. I think the nice addition here is more how you create/invoke a widget and that it is restricted to one widget per app. But it's not all that different from Android widgets, WP tiles, or Blackberry's widgets.
  - Touche 12y ago
    They are Android widgets, but less discoverable. Actually they are not discoverable at all. I don't see how this preserves "iOS simplicity" to introduce a feature that is not simple and can only be known by word of mouth.
burgreblast 12y ago
As users become more proficient with interfaces, it's nice to see functionality evolve from a simple "off | on" to a gradient between "less and more".
Geee 12y ago
I have yet to see a situation where widgets are actually useful.
- chris_overseas 12y ago
  I find them useful. Here's how: - Weather info. Before heading out for the day I can see instantly if I might need a jacket or umbrella later. - Tube status. I can see at a glance if there are any problems on any underground lines. If there are, I can click on the problem line to get more detailed information with a single touch. - Calendar. Shows me my schedule for the day. - Music. Control playback without having to launch an app. I also have widgets I tend to only use when I'm travelling, showing currency and timezone information.
  - sebii 12y ago
    Weather and Calender you can check from notification center and Music from control center. It's just a swipe down or a swipe up. If there are any problems on the subway, you get a push notification. You find all your notification in notification center, also your last messages and so on.
    - Infinitesimus 12y ago
      The difference is that you don't need to swipe down to see them. You just look at your phone and the information you want is there.
    - chris_overseas 12y ago
      Sure, and the lockscreen is another place to put information like this. > It's just a swipe down or a swipe up. That's why I prefer a widget (or lockscreen), there's no swiping required at all. As for getting push notifications for the subway... No thanks, I don't want a notification every time some subway line is running a little slow. I only want notifications for events I care about, with few or no false-positives.
      - 12y ago
nicolasd 12y ago
Nicely done, I am impressed. Because everyone is mentioning that's like Android's Widget-Concept, and Android already solved this - that's not the case in my opinion. I think it's too complex for users to know what a "widget" excatly is. This is more the concept of: Show me a little bit more than the app-icon - and that's it. Imho the user would understand the concept immediately and don't have to know what actually a "widget" is, or how to remove it.
- mahouse 12y ago
  To be honest, it's exactly the same as Windows Phone tiles, if you haven't tried it already.
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    I could be wrong, but I thought WinPhone tiles aren't interactive? Tapping on them only leads to the application, they are otherwise read-only. The designer here is suggesting that the tile contain specific interactive elements (quick reply, play/pause, next song, etc).
nicholassmith 12y ago
Some weird comments in there, but I do like the blocks concept, but removing the text for just app icons isn't going to be really helpful if an app updates and changes the icon and the user doesn't know where the search pull down is.
- md2be 12y ago
  Why not just have a scroll-over function?
  - nicholassmith 12y ago
    To reveal the text? I'm not sure how workable that is, as the tap and hold is for movement and would show text below your finger anyway.
cones688 12y ago
BlackBerry 10 has had this for the last year or two, but who cares right? http://developer.blackberry.com/design/bb10/active_frames.html http://developer.blackberry.com/design/bb10/active_frames.ht...
- md2be 12y ago
  So long as the author wasn't aware of this, what difference does it make"?
- coldtea 12y ago
  Yep. Who cares? It's not like anybody is gonna get BB's again just for this.
GyoFar 12y ago
The production of this concept is nicely done, but I don't think the concept is particularly good or original at all. As someone has already mentioned, Action Launcher [1] on Android has a very similar feature. You can access widgets with the flick of a finger, not by pinching, which makes them a lot easier to access. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlaun...
madoublet 12y ago
For those not familiar with WP8, this is exactly how Windows Phone tiles work with a few minor interaction details. It does introduce a cool peek concept not available in tiles.
jimmcslim 12y ago
I love the general concept and agree that iOS is sorely in need of more customisation, and that Windows Phone probably has the right balance already. "But, if you want more information about an app, you can simply pinch the app icon bigger and it will now become an iOS Block." I physically tried this and it just feels awkward. The 'pinch to zoom out gesture' on iOS (e.g. maps, photos) generally has your fingertips about 1-2cm apart in my experience. To pinch an app icon seems quite clumsy and difficult for my medium size fingers... if I had big beefy sausage fingers I can imagine it would be quite a challenge!
- criswell 12y ago
  You wouldn't need to touch the icons directly. I imagine it would pick up the icon in the middle of a spread or pinch gesture as long as the touches started within like N pixels (based on the size of the app/icon) of each other. I really think it's a really great idea.
- AustinDizzy 12y ago
  Maybe replacing the pinch with a swipe down or a pull down on the icon will make it easier for users with sausage fingers. The icon could then fold out from both sides like a card instead of just growing with the stretch out.
saturdaysaint 12y ago
Nice mock-ups, but I disagree with most of the premises here. As far as I can tell, iOS doesn't have much problem with people leaving due to some quibble with the UI's supposed lack of sophistication. I'm sure there are some exceptions among HN readers, but among the very few people in my circles on Android, all cite screen size as their main reason. Japan, a country that's been at the cutting edge of the mobile market for decades, is flocking to the iPhone now that it's available on the big carriers - not what you'd expect if there was widespread perception of iOS as "dumbed down". The only thing I definitively agree with is that I hope Apple supports multiple profiles for iPad. As someone that uses both Android and iOS pretty regularly, I don't think widgets add much that the Notification shade and Action Center don't handle capably. I mostly hope that iOS 8 is invisible - add some APIs for Siri and hooks into home automation, improve performance.
- petercooper 12y ago
  all cite screen size as their main reason. Just one data point, but it was "keyboard" by far for me. The iOS keyboard is horrible and very difficult to customize so I took a risk and switched at my last update (and FWIW, I'm finding Android streets ahead in terms of functionality). Digging the larger screen size is something that came later for me but would definitely be another reason not to go back for me now.
  - nicholassmith 12y ago
    People leaving for keyboard reasons are generally, and I hate the term, 'power users'. For 90% of the iOS customer base the keyboard works perfectly well, I'm not the biggest lover of it but I think it's reasonably solid for what it is and what it does.
    - jkestner 12y ago
      I really liked the Swype keyboard on my Galaxy S, but I got over it. With any of these keyboards, I still naturally delay anything longer than a status text/email/tweet for when I'm back at my computer, or even iPad (part of it's having enough screen to see the email I'm replying to, or the other sections I've written).
deleted 12y ago
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- Touche 12y ago
  I don't know why you couldn't have written a criticism of the article without all of the ad-hominems. The guy obviously put a lot of effort into this and doesn't deserve to be written off as a "newbie design" with "a pirated copy of Fireworks". I find your argument style very ineffective.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
mhenr18 12y ago
This idea is cool, except for the gesture. There needs to be a way to summon a block with one finger so that one-handed use is still possible. I'm assuming that the drive to stay as close to the current experience as possible influenced that - there's currently no "free" one-finger gesture/action on the home screen. I don't know how to pull it off, but needing to use two hands seems like it kills off the notion of doing things quickly. edit: Although it's worth pointing out that while it's a cool party trick, it's not something I'd use day-to-day. Changing the Control Centre to let me keep applets open within it for things like 1Password or composing a message? That would get used every day.
- andrewfong 12y ago
  +1 for control center applets. Android apps often do this by overloading the notifications pull down, but I always found this annoying since it got in the way of the actual notifications. A swipe left on the notifications tab or an extension of the control center for a "quick access" area would be great.
pseudometa 12y ago
This guy needs a windows phone, can we get him a windows phone?
- ManFromUranus 12y ago
  I agree, his whole iOS blocks, is simply windows live tiles.
  - TechnoFou 12y ago
    Live Tiles doesn't have interaction with them, and they're on a diffrrent ecosystem. This is the equivalent of "You want a notification on iOS? Get an Android"
- mtdewcmu 12y ago
  I think he forgot the most important rule of all in the Kingdom of Apple, which is that Apple makes the rules. Apple isn't interested in hearing advice, so if you have your own ideas and want to make them happen, the Kingdom of Apple is not for you.
coldtea 12y ago
>Seriously, for a device so thin in features and actual stuff to do, performance is disappointing. Really? Have you checked well written apps and what they can do? >The Google Chrome browser scrolling is horrific at times with a HUGE delay. How is that an iOS's "performance problem"? Use Safari. It's not like iOS doesn't offer the best scrolling experience compared to Android/Chrome.
- renata 12y ago
  It's iOS' performance problem because Chrome is forced to use a UIWebView instead of the Nitro engine: https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/ios/overview https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/ios/overview.
  - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
    It would be wonderful if Apple virtualized the UIWebView process so it could safely use nitro. Not only would it help Chrome (not that I bet Apple cares :), but also a huge number of applications. And, if apps were fully virtualized, it could possibly open up new, interesting possibilities that have been heretofore deemed unsafe.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      But virtualized would be slower for everybody, right?
    - joshschreuder 12y ago
      It does indeed help a large number of apps (though more and more are going full native since the Facebook app drama). Jailbreakers have had this for a while now with Nitrous, a tweak which unlocks the Nitro engine to all apps.
bluthru 12y ago
Doesn't the notification center and control center basically take care of this? Notification center could be a lot better, but requiring a two-finger pinch is a non-starter. Also, what's with this made-up title? >UX/UI & Branding Architect You're a designer.
- TechnoFou 12y ago
  No offence, but a designer posts a drawing on Dribble. A UX Architect, explains every step in the process and how and why it works that way. Notification Center gives you information that happened, but not that you might need and the two finger pinch is to limit the number of buttons required for the action. It is also a natural action to make something bigger to see more, like a picture. The beauty with this concept, is that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it, everybody's happy!
- aroman 12y ago
  Do you also tell people who describe themselves as "Python/Django hacker" to drop the "made-up title" and label themselves as "developer"? Seriously, what does it matter to you how the guy labels himself?
mortenjorck 12y ago
Good process leading to this, even if I disagree with some of the conclusions. It's nice to see speculative designers actually considering (and then documenting) the environment their concepts would have to work and compete in, rather than just pushing out a cool-looking set of Dribbble mockups with no context. I don't think Apple is going to add functionality to the home screen. It's always done one thing, and I imagine UX leads at Apple would probably consider anything else to be overloading its scope. That said, there is absolutely a good use case for widgets on iOS. The old iOS 5-6 weather widget was great, and the text-adventure version they replaced it with in iOS 7 is an inferior experience. Notification Center is almost certainly the best place for widgets: The iOS 7 calendar widget is a great example of the potential, and I really hope they finally open up the NC widget APIs in iOS 8.
- Smudge 12y ago
  I can't stand the notification center. Even in its current form it always seems overcrowded with stuff I don't care about. Opening up the API for any app to eat up even more real estate would, in my opinion, be extremely misguided. If anything it needs to be dumbed down even further. There are two separate concerns here: 1. Notifications. Telling me that things have happened, when they happen. The notification center could (nay, should) excel at this, but currently it's only doing okay. I wish I didn't have to keep micromanaging my preferences to prevent apps from spamming me with useless stuff, but at least it works. 2. Persistent info. Stocks, weather, headlines, deadlines, etc. I don't want this stuff in the notification center. It gets in the way of everything coming at me from concern #1. I want to be able to find this elsewhere, without having to dig down into each app. And I definitely don't want apps trying to tell me persistent info in the form of a notification. I don't need to be notified that it's sunny out, or that something interesting (but not directly related to me, or actionable on my part) happened inside of one of my apps. But having to drill down into each individual app for this info is also a pain. This is where I love Microsoft's live tiles. The ability to peek inside of an app from the homescreen is awesome (way better than having to add separate widgets, a la Android, each with their own design patterns and set of controls). I'd use Windows Phone for this reason if it had the same app ecosystem as iOS, but of course I wouldn't expect it to. Currently my primary device is running Android, which, for me, is a nice trade-off between app availability and base OS experience. But if iOS were to add that ability to "peek" into any existing app to see what's happening, I'd definitely consider switching back.
Greenisus 12y ago
That's a clever approach to widget-izing apps, but I suspect that using the pinch gesture on such a small touch target could be problematic. In the iOS Human Interface Guidelines, Apple suggests that your touch targets have a minimum size of 44x44 points. (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/LayoutandAppearance.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex...) If you look at the icon size list at https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/IconMatrix.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex..., you'll see that iPhone 5 icons are only 60x60 points (divide the pixel sizes by two to get the point size). I imagine that 60x60 is simply too small for a two finger gesture to work well. Maybe this would work better with a one finger touch and drag gesture where the drag direction dictates how the icon will grow into a widget (but with icons on the top and bottom rows only able to grow in one direction). It would need to be a quick gesture, though, since tap and hold triggers that app reorganization mode of Springboard.
- dmur 12y ago
  A well-articulated point, but I disagree with ruling out the concept on this basis. Affordances could be made to make this sort of concept more usable. For example, the pinch could work when the user is approximately within the icon dimensions (e.g. only one finger is actually on the icon, the other is close to it) rather than the "strict" implementation requiring both fingers to be within the icon's dimensions.
  - Greenisus 12y ago
    Good point, but I'd worry about overlap, since you'd likely be touching two icons at once with an approximate touch. I suppose you could take the center point between the two touches and expand on whichever icon that lands on (with boundaries of course; it would be strange if you pinched the edges of the screen and it expanded an icon in the center). Another thing that's bothering me about it being a two finger gesture is that the entire point of this feature idea is to be able to see things quickly at a glance. I would imagine, then, that in these scenarios most people would be holding their iPhones with one hand and only touching the screen with one thumb. This wouldn't be such a big deal on iPad, but I think it would be on iPhone. That makes me feel more strongly that some kind of one finger gesture may be a better way to do this. Other people in this thread have pointed out some good points too about discoverability: which apps support the feature? How would the API be designed in a way that's performance and power efficient? This is definitely fun stuff to think about :)
ulfw 12y ago
Microsoft called. They want their Live Tiles back.
blt 12y ago
Tighten up your writing style son. Extremely flabby.
pavlov 12y ago
So these proposed blocks are non-overlapping app windows, neatly tiled within the icon grid. Isn't that basically what Xerox Star did in 1981? http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8010/xerox-star-8010-01.jpg http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8... Or -- the horror -- MS Windows 1.0 in 1985: http://fulupik.chez.com/perso4/Images/infor_win101tile2.gif http://fulupik.chez.com/perso4/Images/infor_win101tile2.gif
lasermike026 12y ago
Isn't WWDC next week?
calewis 12y ago
I stopped reading after the venn diagram showed that the windows phone was good for experience and customisation, are you joking?

138 points by TechnoFou 12y ago

Couldn't all that he wants be provided by implementing a "native" Apple UI/UX on top of Android? It feels like all his points have been solved by Android for quite some time. Still, I like this block concept... it's a good compromise between widgets & actually starting the app.

chris_overseas 12y ago
Yes, a custom Android launcher would be able to implement this (though it might be a little tricky to figure out how to make the transition between app icon and widget since some apps don't have widgets, some have multiple widgets). Given the way the Android community has picked up on these sorts of things in the past, I wouldn't be too surprised if someone creates a launcher that implements this relatively soon.
- rtcoms 12y ago
  Try Action Launcher for android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlaun...) Implementation here is , when you swipe up on an app icon it opens the widget related to that app
ManFromUranus 12y ago
He's just "invented" live tiles for iOS. T

miralabs 12y ago

Android widgets..unless I'm missing something here.

czr80 12y ago
They're widgets without: - the need to install something explicitly (separate from the app) - the need to name them "widgets" (to the user they're just a fancier icon), which reduces the apparent complexity to the user - they are completely invisible unless invoked by the user, thus preserving the simplicity iOS - they have a natural and fixed size that helps preserve the visual aesthetic of the grid layout, without special efforts by the user ...and probably more - that's just off the top of my head. I don't know if they're a good idea, by the way. But it's not good to just dismiss them as "android widgets".
- Spittie 12y ago
  It reminds me of Action Launcher's "shutters". You have an icon on your homescreen, and swipe on it to show the relative widget. Not the same concept, but still closer than normal widgets. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlaun...
- danieldk 12y ago
  - the need to install something explicitly (separate from the app) As widgets, apps provide them, you don't have to install them separately. - they are completely invisible unless invoked by the user, thus preserving the simplicity iOS As with widgets. You don't see them, until you start using them. they have a natural and fixed size that helps preserve the visual aesthetic of the grid layout, without special efforts by the user Actually, different sizes are nice, as widgets and Windows tiles have shown. Some like their calendar widget to be short, to just show the top 1 or 2 items. Others like their calendar widget to take up a complete screen, so that they can swipe to it. I think the nice addition here is more how you create/invoke a widget and that it is restricted to one widget per app. But it's not all that different from Android widgets, WP tiles, or Blackberry's widgets.
- Touche 12y ago
  They are Android widgets, but less discoverable. Actually they are not discoverable at all. I don't see how this preserves "iOS simplicity" to introduce a feature that is not simple and can only be known by word of mouth.

burgreblast 12y ago

As users become more proficient with interfaces, it's nice to see functionality evolve from a simple "off | on" to a gradient between "less and more".

Geee 12y ago

I have yet to see a situation where widgets are actually useful.

chris_overseas 12y ago
I find them useful. Here's how: - Weather info. Before heading out for the day I can see instantly if I might need a jacket or umbrella later. - Tube status. I can see at a glance if there are any problems on any underground lines. If there are, I can click on the problem line to get more detailed information with a single touch. - Calendar. Shows me my schedule for the day. - Music. Control playback without having to launch an app. I also have widgets I tend to only use when I'm travelling, showing currency and timezone information.
- sebii 12y ago
  Weather and Calender you can check from notification center and Music from control center. It's just a swipe down or a swipe up. If there are any problems on the subway, you get a push notification. You find all your notification in notification center, also your last messages and so on.
  - Infinitesimus 12y ago
    The difference is that you don't need to swipe down to see them. You just look at your phone and the information you want is there.
  - chris_overseas 12y ago
    Sure, and the lockscreen is another place to put information like this. > It's just a swipe down or a swipe up. That's why I prefer a widget (or lockscreen), there's no swiping required at all. As for getting push notifications for the subway... No thanks, I don't want a notification every time some subway line is running a little slow. I only want notifications for events I care about, with few or no false-positives.
    - 12y ago

nicolasd 12y ago

Nicely done, I am impressed. Because everyone is mentioning that's like Android's Widget-Concept, and Android already solved this - that's not the case in my opinion. I think it's too complex for users to know what a "widget" excatly is. This is more the concept of: Show me a little bit more than the app-icon - and that's it. Imho the user would understand the concept immediately and don't have to know what actually a "widget" is, or how to remove it.

mahouse 12y ago
To be honest, it's exactly the same as Windows Phone tiles, if you haven't tried it already.
- potatolicious 12y ago
  I could be wrong, but I thought WinPhone tiles aren't interactive? Tapping on them only leads to the application, they are otherwise read-only. The designer here is suggesting that the tile contain specific interactive elements (quick reply, play/pause, next song, etc).

nicholassmith 12y ago

Some weird comments in there, but I do like the blocks concept, but removing the text for just app icons isn't going to be really helpful if an app updates and changes the icon and the user doesn't know where the search pull down is.

md2be 12y ago
Why not just have a scroll-over function?
- nicholassmith 12y ago
  To reveal the text? I'm not sure how workable that is, as the tap and hold is for movement and would show text below your finger anyway.

cones688 12y ago

BlackBerry 10 has had this for the last year or two, but who cares right? http://developer.blackberry.com/design/bb10/active_frames.html http://developer.blackberry.com/design/bb10/active_frames.ht...

md2be 12y ago
So long as the author wasn't aware of this, what difference does it make"?
coldtea 12y ago
Yep. Who cares? It's not like anybody is gonna get BB's again just for this.

GyoFar 12y ago

The production of this concept is nicely done, but I don't think the concept is particularly good or original at all. As someone has already mentioned, Action Launcher [1] on Android has a very similar feature. You can access widgets with the flick of a finger, not by pinching, which makes them a lot easier to access. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlauncher.playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.actionlaun...

madoublet 12y ago

For those not familiar with WP8, this is exactly how Windows Phone tiles work with a few minor interaction details. It does introduce a cool peek concept not available in tiles.

jimmcslim 12y ago

I love the general concept and agree that iOS is sorely in need of more customisation, and that Windows Phone probably has the right balance already. "But, if you want more information about an app, you can simply pinch the app icon bigger and it will now become an iOS Block." I physically tried this and it just feels awkward. The 'pinch to zoom out gesture' on iOS (e.g. maps, photos) generally has your fingertips about 1-2cm apart in my experience. To pinch an app icon seems quite clumsy and difficult for my medium size fingers... if I had big beefy sausage fingers I can imagine it would be quite a challenge!

criswell 12y ago
You wouldn't need to touch the icons directly. I imagine it would pick up the icon in the middle of a spread or pinch gesture as long as the touches started within like N pixels (based on the size of the app/icon) of each other. I really think it's a really great idea.
AustinDizzy 12y ago
Maybe replacing the pinch with a swipe down or a pull down on the icon will make it easier for users with sausage fingers. The icon could then fold out from both sides like a card instead of just growing with the stretch out.

saturdaysaint 12y ago

Nice mock-ups, but I disagree with most of the premises here. As far as I can tell, iOS doesn't have much problem with people leaving due to some quibble with the UI's supposed lack of sophistication. I'm sure there are some exceptions among HN readers, but among the very few people in my circles on Android, all cite screen size as their main reason. Japan, a country that's been at the cutting edge of the mobile market for decades, is flocking to the iPhone now that it's available on the big carriers - not what you'd expect if there was widespread perception of iOS as "dumbed down". The only thing I definitively agree with is that I hope Apple supports multiple profiles for iPad. As someone that uses both Android and iOS pretty regularly, I don't think widgets add much that the Notification shade and Action Center don't handle capably. I mostly hope that iOS 8 is invisible - add some APIs for Siri and hooks into home automation, improve performance.

petercooper 12y ago
all cite screen size as their main reason. Just one data point, but it was "keyboard" by far for me. The iOS keyboard is horrible and very difficult to customize so I took a risk and switched at my last update (and FWIW, I'm finding Android streets ahead in terms of functionality). Digging the larger screen size is something that came later for me but would definitely be another reason not to go back for me now.
- nicholassmith 12y ago
  People leaving for keyboard reasons are generally, and I hate the term, 'power users'. For 90% of the iOS customer base the keyboard works perfectly well, I'm not the biggest lover of it but I think it's reasonably solid for what it is and what it does.
  - jkestner 12y ago
    I really liked the Swype keyboard on my Galaxy S, but I got over it. With any of these keyboards, I still naturally delay anything longer than a status text/email/tweet for when I'm back at my computer, or even iPad (part of it's having enough screen to see the email I'm replying to, or the other sections I've written).

deleted 12y ago

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Touche 12y ago
I don't know why you couldn't have written a criticism of the article without all of the ad-hominems. The guy obviously put a lot of effort into this and doesn't deserve to be written off as a "newbie design" with "a pirated copy of Fireworks". I find your argument style very ineffective.
- deleted 12y ago
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mhenr18 12y ago

This idea is cool, except for the gesture. There needs to be a way to summon a block with one finger so that one-handed use is still possible. I'm assuming that the drive to stay as close to the current experience as possible influenced that - there's currently no "free" one-finger gesture/action on the home screen. I don't know how to pull it off, but needing to use two hands seems like it kills off the notion of doing things quickly. edit: Although it's worth pointing out that while it's a cool party trick, it's not something I'd use day-to-day. Changing the Control Centre to let me keep applets open within it for things like 1Password or composing a message? That would get used every day.

andrewfong 12y ago
+1 for control center applets. Android apps often do this by overloading the notifications pull down, but I always found this annoying since it got in the way of the actual notifications. A swipe left on the notifications tab or an extension of the control center for a "quick access" area would be great.

pseudometa 12y ago

This guy needs a windows phone, can we get him a windows phone?

ManFromUranus 12y ago
I agree, his whole iOS blocks, is simply windows live tiles.
- TechnoFou 12y ago
  Live Tiles doesn't have interaction with them, and they're on a diffrrent ecosystem. This is the equivalent of "You want a notification on iOS? Get an Android"
mtdewcmu 12y ago
I think he forgot the most important rule of all in the Kingdom of Apple, which is that Apple makes the rules. Apple isn't interested in hearing advice, so if you have your own ideas and want to make them happen, the Kingdom of Apple is not for you.

coldtea 12y ago

>Seriously, for a device so thin in features and actual stuff to do, performance is disappointing. Really? Have you checked well written apps and what they can do? >The Google Chrome browser scrolling is horrific at times with a HUGE delay. How is that an iOS's "performance problem"? Use Safari. It's not like iOS doesn't offer the best scrolling experience compared to Android/Chrome.

renata 12y ago
It's iOS' performance problem because Chrome is forced to use a UIWebView instead of the Nitro engine: https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/ios/overview https://developer.chrome.com/multidevice/ios/overview.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  It would be wonderful if Apple virtualized the UIWebView process so it could safely use nitro. Not only would it help Chrome (not that I bet Apple cares :), but also a huge number of applications. And, if apps were fully virtualized, it could possibly open up new, interesting possibilities that have been heretofore deemed unsafe.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    But virtualized would be slower for everybody, right?
  - joshschreuder 12y ago
    It does indeed help a large number of apps (though more and more are going full native since the Facebook app drama). Jailbreakers have had this for a while now with Nitrous, a tweak which unlocks the Nitro engine to all apps.

bluthru 12y ago

Doesn't the notification center and control center basically take care of this? Notification center could be a lot better, but requiring a two-finger pinch is a non-starter. Also, what's with this made-up title? >UX/UI & Branding Architect You're a designer.

TechnoFou 12y ago
No offence, but a designer posts a drawing on Dribble. A UX Architect, explains every step in the process and how and why it works that way. Notification Center gives you information that happened, but not that you might need and the two finger pinch is to limit the number of buttons required for the action. It is also a natural action to make something bigger to see more, like a picture. The beauty with this concept, is that if you don't like it, you don't have to use it, everybody's happy!
aroman 12y ago
Do you also tell people who describe themselves as "Python/Django hacker" to drop the "made-up title" and label themselves as "developer"? Seriously, what does it matter to you how the guy labels himself?

mortenjorck 12y ago

Good process leading to this, even if I disagree with some of the conclusions. It's nice to see speculative designers actually considering (and then documenting) the environment their concepts would have to work and compete in, rather than just pushing out a cool-looking set of Dribbble mockups with no context. I don't think Apple is going to add functionality to the home screen. It's always done one thing, and I imagine UX leads at Apple would probably consider anything else to be overloading its scope. That said, there is absolutely a good use case for widgets on iOS. The old iOS 5-6 weather widget was great, and the text-adventure version they replaced it with in iOS 7 is an inferior experience. Notification Center is almost certainly the best place for widgets: The iOS 7 calendar widget is a great example of the potential, and I really hope they finally open up the NC widget APIs in iOS 8.

Smudge 12y ago
I can't stand the notification center. Even in its current form it always seems overcrowded with stuff I don't care about. Opening up the API for any app to eat up even more real estate would, in my opinion, be extremely misguided. If anything it needs to be dumbed down even further. There are two separate concerns here: 1. Notifications. Telling me that things have happened, when they happen. The notification center could (nay, should) excel at this, but currently it's only doing okay. I wish I didn't have to keep micromanaging my preferences to prevent apps from spamming me with useless stuff, but at least it works. 2. Persistent info. Stocks, weather, headlines, deadlines, etc. I don't want this stuff in the notification center. It gets in the way of everything coming at me from concern #1. I want to be able to find this elsewhere, without having to dig down into each app. And I definitely don't want apps trying to tell me persistent info in the form of a notification. I don't need to be notified that it's sunny out, or that something interesting (but not directly related to me, or actionable on my part) happened inside of one of my apps. But having to drill down into each individual app for this info is also a pain. This is where I love Microsoft's live tiles. The ability to peek inside of an app from the homescreen is awesome (way better than having to add separate widgets, a la Android, each with their own design patterns and set of controls). I'd use Windows Phone for this reason if it had the same app ecosystem as iOS, but of course I wouldn't expect it to. Currently my primary device is running Android, which, for me, is a nice trade-off between app availability and base OS experience. But if iOS were to add that ability to "peek" into any existing app to see what's happening, I'd definitely consider switching back.

Greenisus 12y ago

That's a clever approach to widget-izing apps, but I suspect that using the pinch gesture on such a small touch target could be problematic. In the iOS Human Interface Guidelines, Apple suggests that your touch targets have a minimum size of 44x44 points. (https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/LayoutandAppearance.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex...) If you look at the icon size list at https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/IconMatrix.html https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userex..., you'll see that iPhone 5 icons are only 60x60 points (divide the pixel sizes by two to get the point size). I imagine that 60x60 is simply too small for a two finger gesture to work well. Maybe this would work better with a one finger touch and drag gesture where the drag direction dictates how the icon will grow into a widget (but with icons on the top and bottom rows only able to grow in one direction). It would need to be a quick gesture, though, since tap and hold triggers that app reorganization mode of Springboard.

dmur 12y ago
A well-articulated point, but I disagree with ruling out the concept on this basis. Affordances could be made to make this sort of concept more usable. For example, the pinch could work when the user is approximately within the icon dimensions (e.g. only one finger is actually on the icon, the other is close to it) rather than the "strict" implementation requiring both fingers to be within the icon's dimensions.
- Greenisus 12y ago
  Good point, but I'd worry about overlap, since you'd likely be touching two icons at once with an approximate touch. I suppose you could take the center point between the two touches and expand on whichever icon that lands on (with boundaries of course; it would be strange if you pinched the edges of the screen and it expanded an icon in the center). Another thing that's bothering me about it being a two finger gesture is that the entire point of this feature idea is to be able to see things quickly at a glance. I would imagine, then, that in these scenarios most people would be holding their iPhones with one hand and only touching the screen with one thumb. This wouldn't be such a big deal on iPad, but I think it would be on iPhone. That makes me feel more strongly that some kind of one finger gesture may be a better way to do this. Other people in this thread have pointed out some good points too about discoverability: which apps support the feature? How would the API be designed in a way that's performance and power efficient? This is definitely fun stuff to think about :)

ulfw 12y ago

Microsoft called. They want their Live Tiles back.

blt 12y ago

Tighten up your writing style son. Extremely flabby.

pavlov 12y ago

So these proposed blocks are non-overlapping app windows, neatly tiled within the icon grid. Isn't that basically what Xerox Star did in 1981? http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8010/xerox-star-8010-01.jpg http://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-8... Or -- the horror -- MS Windows 1.0 in 1985: http://fulupik.chez.com/perso4/Images/infor_win101tile2.gif http://fulupik.chez.com/perso4/Images/infor_win101tile2.gif

lasermike026 12y ago

Isn't WWDC next week?

calewis 12y ago

I stopped reading after the venn diagram showed that the windows phone was good for experience and customisation, are you joking?