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Is my vision that bad? No, it's just a bug in Apple's Calculator

(martin.wojtczyk.de)
631 points wojtczyk | 4 comments | 31 Aug 24 04:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.06s | source
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jb1991 ◴[31 Aug 24 09:12 UTC] No.41407501[source]▶
On mobile devices, Apple’s Calculator app has always been one of the most frustrating apps I’ve ever used, and I’m surprised it’s a stock app by the company itself. If you press buttons quickly, like you would a normal calculator, many of the key presses simply don’t register at all. I’m not sure if they’re prioritizing some pretty little visual animation over actual functionality, but it’s incredibly surprising from a company that focuses on user interaction, supposedly.
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PaulHoule ◴[31 Aug 24 13:26 UTC] No.41408727[source]▶
Apple's greatest weakness is that many of it's fans and I'd assume people in house assume they are the epitome of UI design when actually it's not. The thoughtlessness/pixel ratio might be worse than Microsoft in some cases, which can be hard to believe.
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jb1991 ◴[31 Aug 24 14:31 UTC] No.41409129[source]▶
That might have been true once, but I don't think that's really true any more. Most users are not awed by their iPhone experience as they were ten years ago. Everyone realizes that iOS and Android are essentially identical for most practical purposes and usability, and most are not choosing the platform for that reason any more. I also think plenty of people in-house at Apple are well-aware of these issues.

Today, it is more about maintaining your suite of apps, the Cloud with all your data, the little blue bubbles in your group chats, and a host of other issues that are more a priority for choosing one platform over another, for most people. If I were to switch to Android now, it would be a huge PIA considering the 10+ years of platform integration and thousands of dollars of app purchases, iCloud, etc, that has made up a significant part of my digital life. I'm sure it would be similar for people going in reverse. Apple knows this, hence why services have become an essential part of their business.

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1. brookst ◴[31 Aug 24 14:35 UTC] No.41409181[source]▶
It’s really the cross-device stuff that keeps me in Apple’s ecosystem. Taking phone calls on my mac, having recent browser tabs from all devices on every device, etc. of course each individual thing can be done on windows / android / linux, but the out-of-the-box, no-config-required experience is really very good. Even if it is frequently and frustratingly not perfect.
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2. jmholla ◴[31 Aug 24 18:46 UTC] No.41410908[source]▶
Android has a lot of those features through KDE Connect now.
3. zelphirkalt ◴[31 Aug 24 19:47 UTC] No.41411412[source]▶
Calls on computer? Like Signal allows? Tabs from other device? Like Firefox offers?

The thing is, it is very easy in comparison to offer this cross device functionality, if you lock in your users and can simply make lots of assumptions about what software the user will be using. How much of that cross platform stuff works for non-standard browser or non-standard messenger?

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4. brookst ◴[02 Sep 24 14:51 UTC] No.41425815[source]▶
Well the phone calls work on every device. I suppose there’s a case that phone numbers are non-standard, but I think it takes motivated reasoning to get there.

And the cross-device stuff is based on cloudkit, so it’s easy for third parties to adopt and get those benefits using apple id rather than additional signins. Of course that has some lock in, which I recognize is so offensive to some people that the upsides aren’t worth it.