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631 points wojtczyk | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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jb1991 ◴[] 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 ◴[] 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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diggan ◴[] No.41408807[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.

Which led to people like me making a fool out of themselves. Always been using Android, and listened to iPhone users singing the praise of the amazing UI and UX of iOS. Well, eventually iPhone 12 Mini released so I figured, "why not give it a try, can't be worse than my current Motorola Moto G gen4 right?"

Well, it is worse. I still have the phone because it still works, but that was my first and last iPhone. Everything is dog slow, not because poor performance but because of slow animations. Same on Android by default, but at least I can speed it up. And the UX makes you jump through hoops, things are impossible to discover unless you watch tutorials on YouTube, and the amount of UI bugs seems sky-high for something that sells itself as "Premium".

And then CarPlay is just an abomination! Even the most basic things like "I'd like to answer a call while still being able to see the map I use for navigation" seems to be completely ignored and it honestly doesn't make any sense at all.

Ugh, I almost look forward to accidentally dropping the phone so I can go back to having a non-distracting experience in the car again.

Edit: I just remembered the most egregious issue: How can I see the current year without having to open up a separate calendar application/put a huge widget on my home screen?

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savanaly ◴[] No.41409240[source]
>Everything is dog slow, not because poor performance but because of slow animations.

Did you try Accessibility > Motion > Off?

>Things are impossible to discover unless you watch tutorials on YouTube

There's a pretty useful manual built into the device itself called Hints I think? Did you read that?

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diggan ◴[] No.41409580[source]
> Did you try Accessibility > Motion > Off?

There is no "Motion > Off" but there is a "Reduce Motion" toggle. Seems to be turning things that were slowly animated into even slower fade, like when you switch applications. Doesn't seem to actually affect much, animations inside for example Apple applications is still there, no matter if that toggle is on or off.

> There's a pretty useful manual built into the device itself called Hints I think? Did you read that?

I've browsed through it, but I don't think it's in no way extensive? I tried to find anything documenting the "Hold on spacebar and drag to move text cursor" in the Tips application (that I'm guessing you're referring to?) and found nothing, which is one of the features I "discovered" purely by accident.

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mh- ◴[] No.41410399{3}[source]
There's a manual for iOS. Here's[0] the section about the onscreen keyboard (ctrl-f for trackpad to find the spacebar thing).

Expand the Table of Contents + at the top to see all the sections.

(Like others, not defending the state of things, just trying to help.)

0: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-with-the-onscree...

edit: if you want it in an offline format, you can find it in the Apple Books app by searching iPhone User Guide.

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1. diggan ◴[] No.41410553{4}[source]
Yeah, with the helpful title of "Turn the onscreen keyboard into a trackpad", not even mentioning "move/moving" or "cursor", and also using "trackpad" wrong? A trackpad is for controlling a pointer, like a mouse, not to control the "insertion point of text".

Great that it is mentioned somewhere, in some manner, I guess.

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2. mh- ◴[] No.41412003[source]
Yeah that was quite hard to find, even though I already knew about the user guide. I searched for both cursor and spacebar and came up empty. Finally checked each section.

Not great.