[Sfi81]

Agree with much of the article. I personally find Apple iOS devices completely unusable because I have to constantly try to guess what kind of action or gesture will achieve what I want to do rather than being obvious. The same for several apps which appear to have become successful first on iOS before being ported to Android. I find remembering these gestures and actions an unnecessary cognitive load.

[enraged_camel]

"Completely unusable"? Don't you think that's a bit over the top?

I don't know any advanced features but I can use all apps just fine. Pinch-to-zoom and a few swipe types are sufficient for most use cases.

Edit: why the downvotes? I didn't say anything controversial. If you disagree, write a reply.

[91bananas]

I'm right with you, the grandparent is insane. Flat out.

I love reading quotes like that that are backed with, you guessed it, absolutely nothing.

Pinch to zoom is a great example. It may not be your first guess but it's the type of thing that you do a couple times then look back thinking, Wow! that's a great way of representing zoom on a device capable of listening to multiple inputs at a time. And subsequently will never forget how to do it, and it becomes your first tool when you want to zoom.

[gambiter]

HN is so anti-Apple it's not funny. I've noticed if an argument makes Apple better, no matter how reasonable you are, you tend to get downvotes.

Anyway, I agree with you. (There are two of us!) Apple's stuff is built to be easy enough for a know-nothing user to get the basics done, and depending on your skill, you gain access to more and more over time.

[jakejake]

If you put an iPhone in any 5-year olds hand they seem to have no trouble figuring it out.

[mikeash]

Five-year-olds have no trouble figuring out how to do the stuff a five-year-old wants to do with an iPad. More advanced stuff, not so much.

[jasonlotito]

Incorrect. I have a 5-year old here, and they do have trouble figuring things out. What they learn are simple patterns the bring success. There are some things that are simple. Press the home button to go back to the screen with the boxes. Press a box to open the thing that plays kids singing! Yay.

But then none of what they are dealing with, for the most part, is made by Apple. They are using apps built by others, and some apps are just incredibly confusing.

Apple is rife with UX problems. Just look at the newest device they came out with, the Watch. Two buttons that are positioned in a way that constantly have them activating when I lift my hand up. Why do I have screenshots of my watch every day littering my computer? I mean, I cannot fathom someone used this and didn't have this issue.

The Watch is a beta device, and everyone I've met with one has agreed with that sentiment (both techies and non-techies alike).

This doesn't even begin to touch their software, or the OSs themselves. Here is a company that still can't get windowing right.

The only reason I still use their products is because OS X is built on UNIX and is supported by major companies, but even that is going away, so there is less incentive.

[pedalpete]

Can you elaborate on the windowing issue? I don't have a mac anymore, and always disliked the menu at the top of the screen UX (which is the same as my Ubuntu). I'm not sure what the windowing issue you're referring to is.

Also, how is OS X moving away from UNIX? Or is it that major companies are moving away from UNIX? I'm not sure I've seen evidence of either of these.

[jasonlotito]

First, apologies on the confusion on Unix. That was my fault.

> is supported by major companies, but even that is going away, so there is less incentive.

I meant that companies supporting OS X, not Unix. The two reasons were:

1) Unix 2) OS X support

The second point is what I meant was going away. I see companies that matter to me supporting OS X less and less. The latest company to do so is Blizzard. Again, apologies for the confusion.

As for the windowing issue, I have to download a third party app to handle most of the stuff I get for free on every other major and many non-major windowing systems from a decade ago. This includes snapping and auto sizing and moving windows among monitors.

Couple this with OS X's horrible support for external monitors on it's laptops. Several times a week I have issues when I disconnect my mac. Either my sees a phantom monitor that is not there and so windows still exist there that I can't reach or bring over. I have to close the lid and open it up again.

The full screen support is still an absolute insult. And the when they changed what the stop light did and made it maximize is annoying.

The only reason people started using their computers again was because of Unix.

[scintill76]

This is a common refrain, but is it possible that adults have learned valid paradigms that make using the iPhone as it is today, more difficult? If you want to design for 5-year-olds and have them retain that forever, I guess it can work, but maybe it's a design failure if the people who actually buy your product have a harder time using it.

To use another analogy, it's somewhat like saying "Well, people literate in a left-to-right language have no problem using it." Great, but presumably Apple was aiming for a global audience, so pointing out success stories in some subsections of that audience does not mean they succeeded overall.

[marssaxman]

I've certainly noticed that my decades of touch-typing experience make it much more difficult for me to enter text on a buttonless touch keyboard. I'm constantly growling and swearing at the machine and deleting words and typing them over, because I can't shake the habit of watching the text as I type instead of the buttons I'm trying to push. Someone who had never learned to type properly would be unlikely to have this problem.

[iSnow]

Maybe embracing the system and its physical constraints instead of fighting it would help, in that case using something like swype that is both fast and completely different from typing (makes it easier to transition).

At least that worked for me and I am typing without looking at the keys too.

[jakejake]

I think a 5 year old with no preconceived notions of a user interface is probably the best validation of whether a device is "usable." Also my 93 year old grandmother took to her iPhone almost instantaneously. As did my technically challenged parents, all of their friends and pretty much any of the hundreds of people who I have ever seen pick up an iPhone. I have actually never even heard of a single person picking up and iPhone and saying "I can't figure this out - it's unusable!" until your post. And on a tech forum no less - what are you even doing here?

Perhaps you feel Apple should have designed a beautiful rotary phone?

[scintill76]

> I think a 5 year old with no preconceived notions of a user interface is probably the best validation of whether a device is "usable."

But Western 5-year-olds have already had 5 years to watch their parents use contemporary technology. I'm not sure there's such thing as a "blank slate" here. And I doubt the average 5-year-old from a rural town in a third-world country is going to pick up an iPhone as easily as an American one. You're picking like 1% of the world population and making them the benchmark for universal design. I suppose the ultimate end to this line of reasoning is that there is no such thing as perfectly universal design, and I'm OK with that.

> I have actually never even heard of a single person picking up and iPhone and saying "I can't figure this out - it's unusable!" until your post.

When did I say that? You might have me confused with the GP poster.

> Perhaps you feel Apple should have designed a beautiful rotary phone?

Why not? Many 5-year-olds probably could use rotary phones just fine back in the day. Maybe Apple doesn't actually have a monopoly on making it possible for 5-year-olds to use technology.

[91bananas]

+8 here

[13thLetter]

I have to wonder which iPhone era you're thinking of. Back in the early days, maybe. Nowadays? The iPhone is a puzzle box. I imagine a 5 year old would have a great time playing with it and seeing all the surprising things that happen in response to various actions, but if you want to actually use it for anything it's not nearly as pleasant an experience.

[kalleboo]

I've put an iPad in front of a 5 year old and she's continually activating weird gestures and swipe-in features by mistake and getting confused