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by raverbashing 2550 days ago
> I wonder why they decided to kill it. There must have been a good reason.

Because it is tacky and it didn't age well

I'd say the initial use of it was maybe in discoverability, but I suppose when smartphones became more popular that lost its main function.

I think it gets distracting sometimes and it is needlessly design heavy (think how much images you need to do that).
2 comments
zapzupnz 2550 days ago
You got distracted by the Rose Tinted Glasses Brigade, but I think you're absolutely right.

On top of that, I think there were other design considerations — how to make iOS' scale up to iPad more easily (remember when Siri was in a little box in the middle of the screen?) to the point where iPad apps can now be adapted with a checkbox to run on macOS. I think the groundwork started in iOS 7.

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acqq 2550 days ago
My parents still handle easier the UI where they see the "buttons" for the navigation. They are just confused when some of the text is clickable and some is not.

For those who don't know them, the "buttons" like "Cancel" "Next" here:

https://www.dummies.com/wp-content/uploads/293595.image1.jpg

Young users don't have such problems, but original iOS was easy to use for the older generations too. Steve Jobs cared about the easy discoverability. That is something that started as early as with Apple Lisa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-atKrg0T4 also recently on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20247545

It was a big step back for my parents when iOS removed the buttons present in the older design and replaced them with the plain text.

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raverbashing 2550 days ago
I'm not sure how that looks like in a modern iOS version

I'd say this is a good example of (light) skeumorphism (which is mostly good and non-intrusive), I was mostly talking about stuff like the notes app https://www.dummies.com/consumer-electronics/tablets/ipad/ho...

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acqq 2550 days ago
> I'm not sure how that looks like in a modern iOS version

https://www.authsmtp.com/images/setup/iOS11-smtp-server-setu...

They never know that they are supposed to click on these to proceed. With the button look it was obvious to them.

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