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by elsurudo 2353 days ago
Looks nice overall, but I'm not a fan. It has nothing to do with the implementation itself... just the fact that I view the consistency of the iOS UI toolkit as being more important than fancy looks.

It's a good thing (tm) that no matter which app I open up, the date picker looks the same, and works the same. This is the nice thing about native apps. So I wish we would stop reinventing wheels like this (once again, no offence intended to the author – this is a more of general critique).

5 comments

I have to say I don't really like the iOS date picker. Especially since you're "whipping around" 3 or more wheels (year, month, day, time etc.) in close proximity, it feels very imprecise.

I'd love it if there were also some + and - buttons so I could easily add one month, one year etc.

Fair enough, but it's the standard control. I know how to use it and I expect to see it when I have to set a date in an app.
I think it looks terrific. I really like the notion of trying horizontal vs vertical scrolling.

Plus, I'm a big fan of reinventing the wheel. The final chapter of date pickers has not been written, IMHO, and am grateful for these types of experiments. I can easily imagine a "cover flow" inspired picker being great for certain use cases, like buying tickets.

Per @yoz-y down thread, I agree with need for text input. I like Fantastical's approach. Had hoped it'd become more common.

Native apps have built custom UIKit controls since the launch of the app store.
That being said, there is a standard component for this in the Cocoa Touch SDK: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidatepicker
...yeah, that’s the whole point of the comment chain.

Point was that nobody has considered it perfect from day one.

The standard control could use improvements (hm, I'd probably vote for a dictation button that lets me say "next Wednesday" instead of doing math), and we need handsome alternatives like this to nudge it forward. Because user familiarity is critical, I'd prefer to see an implementation that adds functionality with minimal changes to the way we all robotically enter a date/time/whatever. A subclass, if possible.

My portfolio is filled with regrets where I chose something interesting over something obvious.

If only the iOS date picker wasn't so fiddly and annoying to use.

Also, in the calendar app, when creating an event, i carefully select the date and time, and then i scroll down to set an alarm - and about half the time, the date picker takes my scroll so i lose the date i just entered. So annoying.

None offense was taken, in fact, I'd really like to hear more advice, which got me more motivated. So thanks!