I've love my iPhone 6 Plus and hate it too. This includes iOS 8. After so many years, it's hard to understand why these issues are still around. So here is my master list of what frustrates the hell out of me:
This stuff is really frustrating but I know that the iPhone 6 Plus is one of the best phones out there. iOS 8 really is a big issue with its poor usability. I can live with some of the hardware knocks but iOS 8 needs to change.
- When I start a video in portrait mode in Safari, then switch to landscape, it crashes. Every. Single. Time.
- FaceTime can be good but also infuriating. When I lose a connection and it tries to "reconnect", there's no way to force quit FaceTime. It can spin on reconnect forever. I have to restart the phone. Then phone the person back and apologize for "dropping" the communications.
- Siri is something I like and use a lot. Having said that, 25% of the time I use it, it fails, "I'm sorry but I can't take your request right now... blah blah". Nothing's changed with Siri in this regard. It fails a lot. This is unacceptable at this point.
- Switching between portrait and landscape is tempermental. It's never been like this before on previous models. Something is slightly off with this. Sometimes it doesn't even respond (e.g., watching a movie then trying to switch).
- Lack of landscape mode in the most basic Apps! Jesus! I mount my iPhone in my car landscape mode. Makes sense: it's a Plus. Fire up the Phone App: no landscape mode. Are you kidding? After 7+years iOS has been out and no landscape mode in this App, none in Contacts (from Phone App), and other third party Apps that lack landscape mode.
- iOS 8 is a usability disaster. I like the modern flat design but it falls "flat" in many areas. For example, the design language and UI kit call for spelling out buttons. They're kinda no longer "buttons". This results in UIs that look cluttered: it's hard to know what's part of the UI and what's content, it looks ugly, etc. The design of core Apps in some cases outright sucks. For example, iTunes. Try landscape mode! What a useless pile of piss. Take a look at how small the scrubber bar is. Or how faded and lightly colored the bottom navigation bar is (e.g., Genius, Playlists..)... or how close the volume and play button is from lock screen... Or how cluttered and ugly the Control Panel is... same with the weather App... and on and on.
- iOS 8: lack of innovation. I look at iOS 2 and jesus I know there's lots of under the hood stuff but it's virtually the exact same. I find the home button, multi-tasking, lock screen entrance into the phone, screens of tiled icons, and fixed screen Apps to be totally lacking in 2014. Take a look at Windows 8. Try the weather App on the Surface Pro 3 or something. You can scroll to the right to reveal more UI/content in Apps. It's really cool. Or multi-tasking is pretty dang cool. What the hell is going on with iOS! I don't want change just for change sake but this latter stuff is excellent for usability and productivity. iOS is barely better than a Palm Pilot in some respects. Don't get me wrong, it's fast and smooth (most of the time), but it's lacking in many respects. And the Settings! Ugh! What a long-listed, unispired mess bloated all to hell. I could go on...
- I paid $1000 for my iPhone 6 Plus off contract. Don't argue with me that I can get it on contract. I need to own outright to get a good cell plan. This is way too much money for this device: they're too expensive, especially in 2014 after so many years of this being an evolved industry.
- The bezels. Oh those 1990s bezels. They're huge! Get rid of them Apple!
- All the mechanical buttons on the iPhone take away from its usability in 2014. Do we really need that mute switch on the side? No. Do we even need a home button anymore? I wish they could integrate touch ID into the glass and dump the bezels... and get rid of even the Thunderbolt cable and usher in wireless charging.
- iOS performs the best out of any other mobile OS, but on the 6 Plus, it's slow and choppy in many areas. We believe this to be because of up/downscaling the display. It's annoying in day-to-day use.
- This phone is too fragile. In 2014, it should be waterproof, very scratch resistant, and bend proof. It's none of these.
This stuff is really frustrating but I know that the iPhone 6 Plus is one of the best phones out there. iOS 8 really is a big issue with its poor usability. I can live with some of the hardware knocks but iOS 8 needs to change.
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