Hidden interface controls that affect usability

I am the same, long time Android user and when I borrow my wife's iPhone it is an exercise in frustration. Interactions are hidden, not intuitive, or just plain missing.

Now that Pixel cameras outclass iPhone cameras, and even Samsung is on par, there is really no reason to ever switch to the Apple ecosystem anymore IMO.

> there is really no reason to ever switch to the Apple ecosystem anymore IMO

Not having anything to do with Google is a pretty good reason I think.

> [iPhone] Interactions are hidden, not intuitive, or just plain missing.

And they aren't even consistent from app to app. That's perhaps the most frustrating thing.

That’s thanks to third party devs, not Apple. If you look primarily at proper native UIKit/SwiftUI apps, there’s a lot more consistency, but there’s a lot of cross platform lowest common denominator garbage out there that pays zero mind to platform conventions.

You see this under macOS, too. A lot of Electron apps for instance replace the window manager’s standard titlebar with some custom thing that doesn’t implement chunks of the standard titlebar’s functionality. It’s frustrating.

If you were a long time iphone user you’d say the same thing about android. It’s just about what you’re used to dude.

Not really. In Android there will be a back button, on iPhone you're supposed to know to swipe in some direction. On Android there will be a button to show running apps, on iPhone you will need to swipe correctly from somewhere. When 3d touch existed I think there were like 11 different ways of pressing the home button depending on context.

Android by default is also swipe swipe swipe. You need to tweak the settings to get the older and saner 3-button setup back.

As far as the Back button, on iOS the norm is for it to be present somewhere in the UI of the app in any context where there's a "back" to go to. For cross-app switching, there's an OS-supplied Back button in the status bar on top, again, showing only when it's relevant (admittedly it's very tiny and easy to miss). Having two might sound complicated but tbh I rather prefer it that way because in Android it can sometimes be confusing as to what the single global Back button will do in any given case (i.e. whether it'll navigate within the current app, or switch you back to the previous app).

The best one, unfortunately it's a terrible user experience for a high cost.

Modern Android defaults to the same random swipe experience as iOS. But you can go back to the much more usable three-button setup.

Kinda. I was always upset that Apple never let me do everything I wanted with my hardware, but as my usage pattern changed, I started to value the convenience of a more or less consistent system over discoverability.

In Messages, to create a new message tap the pencil-in-a-square icon in the upper right corner.

In Notes, to create a new Note, tap the pencil-in-a-square icon in the lower right corner.

In Calendar, to create a new appointment, tap the + icon in the upper right corner.

In Reminders, to create a new reminder, tap the + in a blue circle in the lower left corner. At least it offers a text label "New Reminder"

These are all Apple apps and they all do it differently. And that's not even getting into gestures and other actions that you just have to stumble upon to even know they exist.

Consistency has been on the decline within Apple apps for sure, but it gets much worse after introducing cross platform apps into the mix.

The main one I end up missing most is the swipe to go back gesture within apps. It comes for “free” when using UIKit and SwiftUI navigation primitives (UINavigationController, UISplitViewController, and their SwiftUI counterparts) but it’s almost always missing from apps built with React Native and such.

Ahh so you’re making assumptions about iPhones without even knowing how they work at all, your zealous yet nonsensical input makes more sense now.