Just because someone might be in a minority doesn't make them wrong. And just because most people might care about something, doesn't make that something inconsequential or worthless just because of that.
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The problem with iOS 7 and iOS 8: bad design
- Thread starter El Tuga
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Just because someone might be in a minority doesn't make them wrong. And just because most people might care about something, doesn't make that something inconsequential or worthless just because of that.
It is the primary activity on forums like this, sadly...
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Amazing. I don't agree with a single word you wrote here.This recent buzz on the Internet, exponentially reinforced by Marco Arment's recent article Apple has lost the functional high ground, is that Apple has lately reduced their famous attention to detail which may have put their it just works moto at risk. In particular, the latest iOS and OS X releases are seen as somewhat buggy. I believe that that is not the main issue, at least with iOS. The real issue is that iOS 7 is poorly designed (and iOS 8 hasnt changed that).
Let me start by saying that the first time i saw an iPhone I fell in love with it immediately. The same has obviously happened to many people around the world, which explains the huge success of the iPhone (and iPhone like smartphones).
The reason for this is iOS (or the original iPhone OS) was magic. Every time I pressed a button, scrolled a list or even just looked at a beautiful iOS screen, it felt like magic. That magic illusion comes from both great engineering and great design (and also good taste). My passion for iOS was such that it led me to learn software development and create an app myself, currently available on the App Store.
Well, I believe that magic was lost in iOS 7 and 8. Not only because of the bugs but mostly due to the inferior experience caused by weak, uninspired designed. You may say that design quality is subjective, and good taste even more. Is it really? Than go back in time and compare Windows 3.1 with Mac OS! If someone thinks Windows is better designed, I rest my case.
Anyway for the sake go argument, let me just pick one of the several severe design problems in iOS 7/8:
The text, borderless button. In fact buttons were not redesigned. They were simply removed and replaced by text or a chevron. These are not buttons anymore, just text links to an action. Apart from looking ugly (like 90s html links) these borderless buttons have a few other design problems.
First, they do not invite touch. If you read Apples development guidelines (at least up to iOS 6), they rightfully say that a button has to have a minimum area of 40x40 points, because thats the size of a fingertip. If you see anything smaller than that your instinct will tell you thats to narrow for you to touch it, and you loose at least some of the will to do it. Honestly, text does not invite touch (even click with a more precise mouse is debatable). So thats plain bad design.
Second. Graphically, text poses some problems to a well designed screen or app. Lets say that you have to put some longer than usual text in a button (you may not even be aware of that, but it may happen an app is available in non-English language countries). Than iOS will truncate it or reduce its size. If you have a left button with a regular size text, and a right button with reduced size text, you know what will happen. Since there are no borders or anything to give a a similar size to the buttons other than text, this buttons will seem misaligned and tour screen will look like garbage.
Third, buttons will be confused with other text in your apps, even if you tell the user that text of one color is a button and of another color is not, thats too much thinking required. And again, text of different sizes on the same screen, without any visual contours, just looks confusing and really bad.
Fourth, a mobile OS has to be intuitive. If you have lots of text in a screen (some that you can tap, some not), that will be confusing, specially since apple now usually gives the same background color (usually white) to toolbars and content.
This is just one of what I consider to be a large number of design problems that plague iOS8/9, and Im not a professional UI designer, would love to hear from them on this.
Unfortunately I could go on and on I still hope that Apple takes iOS to the drawing board again and redesigns it completely. With the loads of cash that Apple has, it would not be difficult to hire the best designers out there and make iOS jaw dropping again!! Just look as apps lake Paper from 53, Clear, even Yahoo news Digest. and an endless list of outstanding design Apps
IOS redesign was necessary and very welcomed in my opinion.
I love the way iOS is today.
It was admittedly slightly more responsive before redesign, because it has a very simple interface. But it's not 2007 anymore.
You are not a designer but you can criticize the work of very talented designers that work for Apple. Interesting.
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There are a lot of "sane persons" that just prefer the new design, like me.
I think the old setting page is just....... old.
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It is the same music at every single change Apple made.
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Debated by who? A hundred (not even close to that number) of geeks on a forum ?
If Apple would have kept a design similar to iOS 6 in 7 and 8, the same number of people would be here to complain about how old and stain looking iOS is.
Yosemite is very similar to iOS 7/8 , design wise.
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And who are you to decide that Apple can't design iOS right?
Do you feel more talented than Ive and his team?
Lol
These people think their opinions should trump the majority. Apple just had the biggest corporate quarter in US history. People are speaking with their wallets. And what their saying is ios 7 and 8 are just fine. There was no mass exodus of people leaving the iPhone when iOS 7 or 8 was released.
People did vote with their wallet, but CDM's point is that all opinions should be valued negative and positive, majority and minority, to which I agree.
It's much more sensational to write a sarcastic diatribe on why IOS 8 is junk, than a simple sentence on how much IOS 8 is liked.
Coding is debatable (they introduced so many new functionalities), but animations are just much more used than in the past, so users aren't accustomed.
Sometimes things like that are right. Many times in history of the world something that has been the norm for ages was finally challenged by minority and ended up leading to a big change in the end. I'm certainly not equating anything like that to something here, but merely demonstrating that a majority not caring about something or even actually liking something doesn't actually make it good or right just because of that. One isn't really connected to the other.
Yes you're right with that. History is filled with examples of the majority being ignorant and morally in the wrong. But we're talkin about cell phones. There is no right or wrong. Apple looks at the bottom line. If I hated ios 7 and 8 like these guys I would move on. I wouldn't expect them to change just for me.
I don't think most are expecting that or hating it as much as a few might. For many others they are still happy with iOS and iOS devices overall, but do have some issues here and there and/or believe that some hints can be improvemed or done differently.
You're right, some people have no clue or taste
that's why they buy android phones, they're much cheaper
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But getting a fortune 500 company to change the firmware of mass produced electronic item, because a minority or small number of people want a change is a long shot at best. Doesn't make the minority wrong or thing inconsequential, just unlikely to be changed because they want it changed.
Obviously this is not always the case 100%, as with all things software and hardware. Skeumorphism is a good example of what is likely not to be changed in the near future that a minority seem to want back.
It is very difficult to get skewmorphism right, but apple did it with flying colours. That's why I loved the original iOS, it felt like magic!!
It is much easier to do flat design right, but apple made a mess of it. A mobile UI based on text is not "clean", is not "simple" or "minimalist" , it simply does not work!!
An that's what makes me mad. If Ive had done nothing (iOS wise), he would have done a better service to us users. But his ego would not allow it, he had to call iOS his own...if only he had kept some of the excellent guidelines that were so well set before his time, iOS would not look so bad.
Quite likely, unfortunately, but, at the same time, it also doesn't mean it's less worthy of being brought up and discussed just because of that.
I agree with OP.
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
-Steve Jobs
"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
-Steve Jobs
Design question
So, do I have to be a five star chef to tell you that a meal tasted bad?
So, do I have to be a five star chef to tell you that a meal tasted bad?
If you were a 5 star chef and you criticized another 5 star chef, then you would be taken seriously, otherwise, your opinion is just that....
Do you realize that iOS 7 has been criticized by experts? The initial system font in iOS 7 was considered an amateurish mistake.
But in this case as in the various opinions of iOS i get to vote with my wallet. Don't like a 5 star chefs meal? Don't go back to the restaurant; it's not a matter of having an opinion. Don't like iOS, vote with your dollars and get the competition.
That's a way to go about it, but not the only way. None really being any better or worse or right or wrong than the others.
True. I'm not an expert reviewer writing a treatise on iOS. I'm an end user looking for a mobile device. It doesn't matter to me what OTHER opinions are; my opinion is the only one that counts in this.
Certainly true on some level, yet we are all here reading and commenting on a lot of different opinions, and even if we think we don't really care about them, even simply reading them does have some impact somewhere, sometimes more and other times less.
Experts are humans, just like you and me, and have their own likes/dislikes as much as anyone else. And what they write is just an OPINION.. Hell even the so called experts amongst themselves have disagreements over any iOS platform they chose to critique... Remember the so-called experts who said iPad and iPhones would bomb?
If you follow 17guy posts above, he makes a very good point.. your opinion is the only one that matters - TO YOU. The best way to criticise is to vote with your wallet....
In theory voting with your wallet is an idea that has something to it, but in practice with large companies that will not even notice you being gone, it only ends up affecting you and no one else really. Basically meaning your criticism wasn't even heard, and you ended up changing something that you were mostly fine with except for a few things here and there, all basically for nothing. Of course it's different for someone who truly dislikes something and isn't fine with it at all or for the most part, but that's a much much smaller sub-group that is even less significant that the still insignificant larger group that doesn't like just a few or some things, and even in their case voting with their wallet only changes something for them and doesn't do anything as far as their critism being heard.
What you are saying then is that the alternative is to come here and whinge OR whinge in as many places you can? How will that change anything?
Practically nothing we as individuals would be able to do would really result in much change with respect to any of this, so aiming for that is rather pointless any way you go about it. But at least by coming to places like this you are heard on some level. It's at least more than essentially doing nothing or what effectively amounts to nothing (voting with your wallet).