iPhone iOS 13 why I am still disappointed

[neil74]

I have been using iOS13 since beta 1, not as my daily as honestly I still gravitate to android as I have for a year or 2 now but enough to form an opinion and whilst there are some nice touches and obvious improvements I still feel let down and very disappointed that (new iphone xi features aside) this is how iOS will be until mid to late 2020. Here is what I do not like, not going to mention lack of home screen customisation which would still be my number 1 grip but that dead horse and been well and truly flogged.

- Accessing notifications and control centre is still awkward (why can't we change the swipe down for search to something else at least?) Also why not using a quick swipe up from the bottom for something? It should not interfere with the long swipe up.

- When you do finally swipe down for notifications it is still a confusing mess IMO

- Other than force touch for cursor swipe which I really like, the keyboard is not great at all. You still need multiple presses for simple punctuation and they still stop 3rd party keyboards from implementing stuff like long press for symbols (which is IMO way way better than that silly swipe up thing that Apple uses)

- Still cannot see the battery % in the status bar

- Still no always on display. All the time apple is trying to sell us apple watches sadly I do not think we will ever get this

- Not a fan of how you move icons and folders now

- I still do not like the UI for apple music. Album management still does not work for me and adding my own manual playlists still adds the corresponding album for each song which clutters my album view with 100s of 1 or 2 track albums. Also I think that you cannot see enough of your music when browsing so lots of scrolling is needed to find anything at all. Feels like it has been designed to fit in with the rest of iOS rather than for the usability of the app.

I have said elsewhere that I am historically an apple person but have edged more and more to android over the last couple of years. There is still a lot to like and an app slickness that you often do not get on android but honestly I still think that it is more ios12.5 than iOS13 and I think they have gone big on the hype for dark mode to try and gloss over this. Dark Mode is nice, I like it but it really is not a huge feature or big deal IMO.

YMMV I am still maybe naively hoping that they may be holding something back for the new iPhones....

 

[SoYoung]

The music app is very bland and I don't really like it since they redesigned it with iOS 10 I think ? The redesign from iOS 8.4 was so much better.

 

[Shirasaki]

Quick swipe up is for dock on iPad. But swiping down to get control Center is very unfriendly for people using their iPhone with left hand.

Battery percentage is gone for all X phone. I miss it but it is not gonna come back.

AOD with how Apple utilises display could be a problem. But I have no idea what that exact problem is.

not a fan of invoking wiggle mode by randomly dragging icons around either.

Apple Music UI from iOS 10 is garbage. At this point I am not sure if they will ever bother iTunes library user anymore. My guess is no.

 

[hancuriang]

But you swipe down to access notifications and control center in android?

Battery percentage is not there in iphone 8 and below? but wouod be cool if you can touch/swipe battery to reveal percentage a la nintendo switch...

Moving icons replaced by long press menu is fine... people rarely moving icons i bet

 

[TimFL1]

But you swipe down to access notifications and control center in android?

Battery percentage is not there in iphone 8 and below? but wouod be cool if you can touch/swipe battery to reveal percentage a la nintendo switch...

Moving icons replaced by long press menu is fine... people rarely moving icons i bet

This. The hold to wiggle and move was fine back then but nowadays holding should always invoke a right click with an option to enter edit mode. Who moves apps around or uninstalls them a lot nowadays? Perfectly fine to have it tucked away a bit so you don‘t access it by accident, especially with them killing 3D touch in favor of haptic touch...

 

[Ludatyk]

YMMV I am still maybe naively hoping that they may be holding something back for the new iPhones....

Holding back? Ummm.. from the rumors of this year iPhones it appears as though the camera will be the selling point. If you are disappointed by what you mention in regards to iOS 13, Apple adding any additional features to the camera won’t please you at all.

Back through iOS releases, it’s been a back and forth between iPad and iPhone. It’s tough to please both groups... when iOS 12 was released, iPad users complained it wasn’t enough features tied to the iPad. And now that iOS 13 has been announced, Apple put more thought into the iPad.

I think next year, Apple will put more effort into adding features for the iPhone.

 

[JokerPower]

For me, there are 3 main downsides using the iOS:

1. No split screen on iPhone. Why I can’t use two apps at the same time? This can be very useful when multitasking.. imagine you have Safari on the upper side and Mail on the lower side of the screen. We already have big screens, why this feature is iPad only?! Android phones can do this for years..

2. Still no picture in picture. Let’s say you’re watching a video in Safari or Facebook, and you’re multitasking using other app. Why video can’t play in the background? Again, Android can do this..

3. Redesigned incoming phone call. The screen is the same as in 2007.. you’re recording a video or play online games and this nasty window interrupts your activity.. and the bad side is that you can’t hide it.. answer or reject the call.. very user friendly!

 

[jdechko]

@JokerPower Those are pretty much the items on my wish list now, although in reverse order.

I have this feeling that the revolutionary days of the iPhone are behind us, and that after 13 years, we are mainly going to see incremental updates which lack the wow factor. Not that I'm necessarily complaining about it.

There's a fine line between adding worthwhile features and feature bloat.

 

[Ludatyk]

3. Redesigned incoming phone call. The screen is the same as in 2007.. you’re recording a video or play online games and this nasty window interrupts your activity.. and the bad side is that you can’t hide it.. answer or reject the call.. very user friendly!

I think this will be in iOS 14, that's been a missing opportunity. And how Siri does full screen when activated needs to be as similar to macOS. As I recall, Craig has stated they are working on that.

The first 2... is definitely not in the cards for iOS. Reason being, it would feel gimmick on a smaller screen. And that's just me speculating on why Apple has deciding not to implement those two features on the iPhone. I think that will always be a iPad only feature. They may find some work arounds to incorporate quick task to send an email while browsing the web, but to have those apps side by side, I highly doubt it.

 

[neil74]

But you swipe down to access notifications and control center in android?

Correct but easy to change this via a launcher which you cannot do on iOS. For example using Nova I have swipe down from anywhere to bring down the notification shade (the notification shade also includes the control centre) I also have other double tap and pinch gestures which are great too.

I agree re the incremental bit too, I do wonder though how much influence Jonny Ive has had and if his obsession over the aesthetics has influenced the customisation and usability e.g. Not having more albums visible at a time in apple music because it would not be a consistent with the look and feel of the OS overall.

Overall though I think that there has been a lot of things on iOS over recent years that are just odd and would not have got past SJ. Biggest example I always come back to is it took them pretty much 4 years from releasing the plus sized iPhone to adding a one-handed keyboard option. Given the attention to detail apple is famous for I was amazed by that.

 

[Shirasaki]

For me, there are 3 main downsides using the iOS:

1. No split screen on iPhone. Why I can’t use two apps at the same time? This can be very useful when multitasking.. imagine you have Safari on the upper side and Mail on the lower side of the screen. We already have big screens, why this feature is iPad only?! Android phones can do this for years..

2. Still no picture in picture. Let’s say you’re watching a video in Safari or Facebook, and you’re multitasking using other app. Why video can’t play in the background? Again, Android can do this..

3. Redesigned incoming phone call. The screen is the same as in 2007.. you’re recording a video or play online games and this nasty window interrupts your activity.. and the bad side is that you can’t hide it.. answer or reject the call.. very user friendly!

While I am looking forward to a redesign of phone app, I don’t think multitasking will come on iPhone. The reason is simple: screen is way too small, resulting very terrible experience. I doubt Samsung users use their split screen feature very often, given otherwise very cramped app area. PIP can hope, but doubt it. Again, usability issue here.
Speaking of the phone app, why on earth Steve Jobs think a phone call should cover the f entire screen? I can say this is yet another worst design by Apple of all the time, only surpassed by horrendous and destructive volume HUD design. Thank the f god HUD goes away big in iOS 13.