[leoc]

I'm still a bit agape at what they seem to have done to the in-app back button. I mean, it's always been maybe the worst thing about the iOS UI, a wart thrown into a convenient corner of the screen where it's easy for unsophisticated users to forget about or miss entirely. Obviously, it's just the outer symptom of a real, hard-to-handle problem - the different layers of 'back' or 'escape' in a full-screen mobile OS - but what have they done with it? Is it still a button, or just an indication that you can swipe left-to-right across the screen to go back? If it is still a button, then why in tarnation have they made it (possibly) harder to notice and (certainly) to identify as a button? Maybe the free-standing left arrow makes it harder to miss the 'go back' meaning compared to the cutesy border of the old button, but it looks like one step forward, one back at best.

[gdubs]

It has to do with the way UIViewController titles now work. When you tap something that pushes a new view controller onto the stack, the current title animates left and _becomes_ the new back button. The animation is not only pretty, it makes it really obvious where you are going, and how to get back.

[leoc]

Ooh, that sounds pretty impressive actually. I wonder why none of the reviews I saw seem to have mentioned that.

[melange]

Not only that, but by default, swipinging the view controller off to the right I.e. Physically reversing the animation that brought in in, also functions to go back, so the 'button' is more of a signpost of what you will go back to than something that must be used as a button.

The reviews don't mention this because frankly a lot of them are superficial - or they are focused on justifying a number or a thumbs up or down rating that they have assigned, rather than helping people to understand anything.