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Apple's new Tips App - Apple losing their game?

C

caterpillar89

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 22, 2014
1
0
Read this article about apple's tips app - and that it means that apple's standard is going down?

https://medium.com/user-experience-ux-experts/why-ios-8s-new-tips-app-signals-the-end-of-an-era-e9f7a075d4a0

Quote from the article:

"The investment in ‘Tips’ may be an indicator that the aggressive standards set by Jobs have been relaxed, and that it’s now okay to provide ‘help’ apps for ‘unavoidably difficult’ interfaces.

Unfortunately this will begin to manifest in the experience provided by Apple products and they could stand to lose the core value proposition their brand stood for."

What do you guys think?? Tips is irritating but I don't think it's the END of Apple.
 
I have no idea why the guy is so against the Tips app. I mean why not have it for iPhone users, especially to those who come into the new ecosystem (I am not sure if the tips app is on the iPad iOS 8 beta 4).

Was very surprised it popped up on mine last night and when it did it did offer a tip that i found useful.

If it helps navigate the user around, then why would the tips app harm Apple's standards in core value?
 
caterpillar89 said:
"The investment in ‘Tips’ may be an indicator that the aggressive standards set by Jobs have been relaxed, and that it’s now okay to provide ‘help’ apps for ‘unavoidably difficult’ interfaces.
Click to expand...
IIRC, going back to the original iPhone (from 2007, well within Job's reign), there has always been a Safari shortcut to a Users Guide and Tips.

You know, for `unavoidable difficult’ interfaces, like clicking the power button once to silence the ringer during an incoming call, or clicking the power button twice to send a call immediately to voicemail. Totally unintuitive.

I think it's wise to move the info from a webpage that's only seen by people who happen to scroll down to the bottom of the canned Safari shortcuts that came on every iPhone, and put it into a place that's much more visible.
 
C DM said:
Reading too much into nothing much.
Click to expand...

Sure it's easy after 6 years to say iOS is intuitive but I'm reminded of the scene in the first Sex and the City movie where Carrie needed a phone and Samantha handed her an iPhone. Carrie took one look at it and handed it back saying "I don't know how to use this". As I said in another thread, someone brand new to iOS would find navigating iOS 7 just as easy (or hard) as iOS 1-6. And I'll bet plenty of iOS 1-6 users would have appreciated a tips app.
 
caterpillar89 said:
Read this article about apple's tips app - and that it means that apple's standard is going down?

https://medium.com/user-experience-ux-experts/why-ios-8s-new-tips-app-signals-the-end-of-an-era-e9f7a075d4a0

Quote from the article:

"The investment in ‘Tips’ may be an indicator that the aggressive standards set by Jobs have been relaxed, and that it’s now okay to provide ‘help’ apps for ‘unavoidably difficult’ interfaces.

Unfortunately this will begin to manifest in the experience provided by Apple products and they could stand to lose the core value proposition their brand stood for."

What do you guys think?? Tips is irritating but I don't think it's the END of Apple.
Click to expand...

Wow. The end of Apple?

What, they can't include an app (yes, OK, it's annoying it's a default app) that will help beginners? And because of this she thinks it's the end of Apple?

This person is anti-Apple and has no idea what she's talking about.
 
caterpillar89 said:
Read this article about apple's tips app - and that it means that apple's standard is going down?

https://medium.com/user-experience-ux-experts/why-ios-8s-new-tips-app-signals-the-end-of-an-era-e9f7a075d4a0

Quote from the article:

"The investment in ‘Tips’ may be an indicator that the aggressive standards set by Jobs have been relaxed, and that it’s now okay to provide ‘help’ apps for ‘unavoidably difficult’ interfaces.

Unfortunately this will begin to manifest in the experience provided by Apple products and they could stand to lose the core value proposition their brand stood for."

What do you guys think?? Tips is irritating but I don't think it's the END of Apple.
Click to expand...

I think that the writer of that article is an idiot.
 
Maybe my wife could learn to use her phone without having to ask me how to do things. Thnak you Apple!
 
FYI...
For the first couple generations of iOS, Apple posted a long 15+ minute walk-through of the new iOS features. It featured a real Apple Store member doing the walk-through. Also, for Mac OS X Leopard, they did the same thing (30 minute) of all the features/little secrets.

An app for Tips is just the next evolution of this process. Not everything is intuitive. I know people who had iPhone's since 2008 and on iOS 6 they JUST discovered Notification Center.
 
What a tool. It's designed for people who probably don't regularly visit these forums to make the phone easier to use... my mom for example. It's not selling out or anything like that. The guy must not have had anything better to write about and was bored.
 
I think it makes sense to include the Tips app. It will probably save people a few trips to the Genius bar.
 
I think 'Tips' is a great idea, there are so many features on iPhone's that the vast majority of people won't even know existed.

I myself only discovered the other day that you stop a timer ringing by tapping the lock button, thought it only worked for phone calls! This is after years of owning and developing for the iPhone; surely it can only be a good thing?
 
caterpillar89 said:
Read this article about apple's tips app - and that it means that apple's standard is going down?

https://medium.com/user-experience-ux-experts/why-ios-8s-new-tips-app-signals-the-end-of-an-era-e9f7a075d4a0

Quote from the article:

"The investment in ‘Tips’ may be an indicator that the aggressive standards set by Jobs have been relaxed, and that it’s now okay to provide ‘help’ apps for ‘unavoidably difficult’ interfaces.

Unfortunately this will begin to manifest in the experience provided by Apple products and they could stand to lose the core value proposition their brand stood for."

What do you guys think?? Tips is irritating but I don't think it's the END of Apple.
Click to expand...

Have you ever been to a genius bar? Since the introduction of the iPhone Apple has used the monitors above the bar to give "tips" on uncommonly known features of iOS.

The Tips app doesn't necessarily indicate a less intuitive UI. The UI is as intuitive as it's ever been, there are simply more features now than there were before.

Let's say Betty from Kansas who's in her 50's buys an iPhone. There's no way she'll ever know about the notify me feature in mail that tells you if a specific person you're waiting for a response from gets back to you. Does that mean that the UI has become unintuitive? No. It's a very specific feature that isn't necessary to her life but might come in handy once in a while. Tips app will teach her about it. It's akin to her geeky nephew saying "Hey Aunt Betty let me show you this cool thing you're iPhone can do."
 
I think it's sad there's a tip app in the first place.

For example, it's not exactly intuitive that double home button is multitasking or that drag down is Spotlight.

And for Interactive Notifications, when texts come in, why not have a Reply or Ignore button, instead of having to teach us that we have to drag down to Reply?
 
jhtrico1850 said:
I think it's sad there's a tip app in the first place.

For example, it's not exactly intuitive that double home button is multitasking or that drag down is Spotlight.

And for Interactive Notifications, when texts come in, why not have a Reply or Ignore button, instead of having to teach us that we have to drag down to Reply?
Click to expand...
Not everything can be a simple in-your-face" feature. With more functionality being added more things become a bit less "in-your-face". The alternative is to have less features exposed. We can just remove multitasking or spotlight or something like that instead of adding a somewhat less obvious (yet still very simple) function to access it. Not sure that's really better...in fact it's worse.
 
Isn't the Tips app just a digital version of the "finger tips" guide included with the iPhone, that also can be updated?
 
I helped a woman the other day who was frustrated because her day-old iPhone 5S "just died all of a sudden". Tried plugging it in with her lightning cable and power adapter to see if maybe her cable or charger wasn't working.

Nope. She just had no idea she actually had to charge the phone.

That's an extreme example, but I'd say 90% of people - or even more - have no clue about many of the extremely basic features we here take for granted. The Tips app will be huge.
 
Tips would definitely be helpful for those new users as others have mentioned. Just because it's included doesn't mean it's the end of Apple. Apple was trying to push downloading the iOS handbook for new users when I got my parents an iPad 2. So instead of telling people to download that user guide, they now can just access "Tips". Simple. I don't know why people are bitching about not being able to delete it. Just put it in a folder an never look at it again. Simple.
 
Let's compare the feature set of iOS 1 to iOS 8.

And let's over go over the fact that many users still don't know what FaceTime Audio is or what Photo Streams on iOS 7 are.

Welcome to the Tips app. A way to teach users what new features are in iOS 8. Most users are just going to update only because their devices pop up with a notification to do so. They do not read tech blogs or Apple's website. The Tips app is the perfect solution to educate users on the new features. The demos in the app seem to be heavily iOS 8-based.
 
It's fine for people who can't use their phone (cough cough cough my dad) they can look at tips. And for the reset of us we can dream of deleting it and throw it in some folder that it will never be seen. I swear if my dad couldn't ask me questions about his phone he would be at apple to have them move apps around for him.
 
iOS is not especially intuitive IMHO. I found it slightly more intuitive than Windows 8 but that ain't sayin' much. Now, 8 or 9 months later it "seems " highly intuitive to me, but what I'm actually experiencing is *familiarity* as well as the fact that I've finally managed to beat iOS into something useable without having to pull my hair out. I think Android is far more intuitive to someone who is used to a Windows NT derivative like XP or 7.

I think the lack of an easily accessible file system probably makes a lot of PC users nuts.
 
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