It's like teaching people the power button will turn power on or off, unless the clock is within five minutes to the hour, in which case your power button will activate an ear piercing siren noise...
The home screen UI follows a pretty simple principle: When you open an app from the home screen, pressing Home takes you back to the page and folder that you were looking at. (Search is an exception.)
Why is this a good design?
When you accidentally press the Home button, it's very easy to correct your mistake. Just tap the app again. No need to find the folder again.
When you open a folder and tap the wrong app, it's very easy to correct your mistake. Just press Home and then tap on the correct app. No need to find the folder again.
When you're working with related apps, this reduces the amount of work required to switch between them. For example, I have a "News" folder with a bunch of the news apps (Hourly News, Reeder, etc.) that I check on a regular basis. I can easily open the News folder, open Hourly News, play the news, press Home, then open Reeder. This would be more tedious if home screen folders closed automatically.
It prevents the Home button from being disorienting. You can immediately recognize where you are. Same page, same folder open. (It sounds like you're asking for "same page, no folder open" which doesn't sound clearly better or less confusing.)
The home screen UI follows a pretty simple principle: When you open an app from the home screen, pressing Home takes you back to the page and folder that you were looking at. (Search is an exception.)
Why is this a good design?
When you accidentally press the Home button, it's very easy to correct your mistake. Just tap the app again. No need to find the folder again.
<span style="line-height:1.231;">When you open a folder and tap the wrong app, it's very easy to correct your mistake. Just press Home and then tap on the correct app. No need to find the folder again.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.231;">When you're working with related apps, this reduces the amount of work required to switch between them. For example, I have a "News" folder with a bunch of the news apps (Hourly News, Reeder, etc.) that I check on a regular basis. I can easily open the News folder, open Hourly News, play the news, press Home, then open Reeder. This would be more tedious if home screen folders closed automatically.</span>
<span style="line-height:1.231;">It prevents the Home button from being disorienting. You can immediately recognize where you are. Same page, same folder open. (It sounds like you're asking for "same page, no folder open" which doesn't sound clearly better or less confusing.)</span>
Well, yeah. That's how it works for folders, too. Newsstand is a folder. Think of it as such and it makes sense. It operates like a folder in that it drops down within the Springboard, it can't be put into a folder (can't nest folders), and no content outside it is accessible without closing it.
Whether Newsstand SHOULD be a folder is another argument, though. I'm of the belief that Newsstand (and iTunes U) should be merged with iBooks as simply a category therein. iTunes U would have its same background of darker, richer wood, and Newsstand would be given a background of metal shelving, similar to, you know, an actual newsstand. I like this idea, but hey.
You people and your "skeumorphism". Fake wood, geez. It should all be on a background of sterile white. That is design!
I don't get why you would type an 'n' instead of using the space bar and then complain that the system doesn't pick up on your code to have certain 'n's replaced with spaces.
Because it's a virtual keyboard that is supposed to obsolete physical keyboards. Since the virtual keyboard does not provide the ability to touch type, it might as well run some heuristics in order to identify potential typos, such as people occasionally touching N or M rather than space. This problem annoys me as well, because I find it unproductive to look at the keyboard as I type, especially if I have one or more fingers covering it. Ideally one shouldn't even have to look at the keyboard; the software should be able to recognize what we want to type based on the relative position of our taps, by comparing what could possibly be there in a QWERTY keyboard to what makes sense in the context of the word that we're typing.
Why so dismissive? I think this would be a great idea on a family iPad. Each family member has their own user, their own apps and their own customisations. If one account gets corrupted or, God forbid, infected by malware, you login to the admin user and delete the account. Each account would also be able to sync with it's own iTunes library/Apple ID.
Why so dismissive? I think this would be a great idea on a family iPad. Each family member has their own user, their own apps and their own customisations.
The idea is to have your own device. You'll notice Android doesn't even do this. Wonder why.
If one account gets corrupted or, God forbid, infected by malware…
Except that won't be happening… at all. And if it did, the entire device would be compromised.
Why so dismissive? I think this would be a great idea on a family iPad. Each family member has their own user, their own apps and their own customisations. If one account gets corrupted or, God forbid, infected by malware, you login to the admin user and delete the account. Each account would also be able to sync with it's own iTunes library/Apple ID.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
The idea is to have your own device. You'll notice Android doesn't even do this. Wonder why.
Tallest, Android does offer multi-user support so no need to wonder about it. I meant to set this up on a Nexus7 last evening but got side-tracked.
and I hope never and to forget that all complexity !
-
When some people speak about how much to go back to folder (or newstand) is usability nightmare, I _DO_ hope we will see NEVER the coming back of "multi user" complexity.
It doesn't have to be complex. See the link in the preceding post. Personally I think it would be a great convenience to a lot of iPad users who could put a wall between their children's apps and such and those meant for the adult in the house. So Apple might not sell a few multiple iPads to a single household. Overall I think it would actually increase sales, being more attractive to families on a budget with multiple potential users.
That's beside the fact it would fit right in with Cooks and Ive's declaration that it's not about the money anyway but instead the best possible user experience, right?
Comments
I'm a iOS developer and the engineers at apple really look at the reports.
http://techtips.salon.com/report-bug-iphone-3668.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shogun
This is a UI usability nightmare, I suggest.
It's like teaching people the power button will turn power on or off, unless the clock is within five minutes to the hour, in which case your power button will activate an ear piercing siren noise...
The home screen UI follows a pretty simple principle: When you open an app from the home screen, pressing Home takes you back to the page and folder that you were looking at. (Search is an exception.)
Why is this a good design?
When you accidentally press the Home button, it's very easy to correct your mistake. Just tap the app again. No need to find the folder again.
When you open a folder and tap the wrong app, it's very easy to correct your mistake. Just press Home and then tap on the correct app. No need to find the folder again.
When you're working with related apps, this reduces the amount of work required to switch between them. For example, I have a "News" folder with a bunch of the news apps (Hourly News, Reeder, etc.) that I check on a regular basis. I can easily open the News folder, open Hourly News, play the news, press Home, then open Reeder. This would be more tedious if home screen folders closed automatically.
It prevents the Home button from being disorienting. You can immediately recognize where you are. Same page, same folder open. (It sounds like you're asking for "same page, no folder open" which doesn't sound clearly better or less confusing.)
Great first post!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Well, yeah. That's how it works for folders, too. Newsstand is a folder. Think of it as such and it makes sense. It operates like a folder in that it drops down within the Springboard, it can't be put into a folder (can't nest folders), and no content outside it is accessible without closing it.
Whether Newsstand SHOULD be a folder is another argument, though. I'm of the belief that Newsstand (and iTunes U) should be merged with iBooks as simply a category therein. iTunes U would have its same background of darker, richer wood, and Newsstand would be given a background of metal shelving, similar to, you know, an actual newsstand. I like this idea, but hey.
You people and your "skeumorphism". Fake wood, geez. It should all be on a background of sterile white. That is design!
Because it's a virtual keyboard that is supposed to obsolete physical keyboards. Since the virtual keyboard does not provide the ability to touch type, it might as well run some heuristics in order to identify potential typos, such as people occasionally touching N or M rather than space. This problem annoys me as well, because I find it unproductive to look at the keyboard as I type, especially if I have one or more fingers covering it. Ideally one shouldn't even have to look at the keyboard; the software should be able to recognize what we want to type based on the relative position of our taps, by comparing what could possibly be there in a QWERTY keyboard to what makes sense in the context of the word that we're typing.
What complexity? All UNIX clones, Darwin (and thus, iOS) included, have a privilege system built into the kernel!
EDIT: IOS even borrows code from TrustedBSD to implement its sandbox!
Originally Posted by iSteelers
You people and your "skeumorphism". Fake wood, geez. It should all be on a background of sterile white. That is design!
White text. White drop shadow behind the text to make it stand out.
Originally Posted by appleempl
iOS needs webOS style multitasking.
No.
Er, I mean, why?
Why so dismissive? I think this would be a great idea on a family iPad. Each family member has their own user, their own apps and their own customisations. If one account gets corrupted or, God forbid, infected by malware, you login to the admin user and delete the account. Each account would also be able to sync with it's own iTunes library/Apple ID.
Originally Posted by daniel84
Why so dismissive? I think this would be a great idea on a family iPad. Each family member has their own user, their own apps and their own customisations.
The idea is to have your own device. You'll notice Android doesn't even do this. Wonder why.
If one account gets corrupted or, God forbid, infected by malware…
Except that won't be happening… at all. And if it did, the entire device would be compromised.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daniel84
Why so dismissive? I think this would be a great idea on a family iPad. Each family member has their own user, their own apps and their own customisations. If one account gets corrupted or, God forbid, infected by malware, you login to the admin user and delete the account. Each account would also be able to sync with it's own iTunes library/Apple ID.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
The idea is to have your own device. You'll notice Android doesn't even do this. Wonder why.
Tallest, Android does offer multi-user support so no need to wonder about it. I meant to set this up on a Nexus7 last evening but got side-tracked.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/21327/android-42-multiuser-support
Quote:
Originally Posted by oomu
"Any sign of multi-user log-in coming to iOS?"
in a .x version ? of course not.
and I hope never and to forget that all complexity !
-
When some people speak about how much to go back to folder (or newstand) is usability nightmare, I _DO_ hope we will see NEVER the coming back of "multi user" complexity.
It doesn't have to be complex. See the link in the preceding post. Personally I think it would be a great convenience to a lot of iPad users who could put a wall between their children's apps and such and those meant for the adult in the house. So Apple might not sell a few multiple iPads to a single household. Overall I think it would actually increase sales, being more attractive to families on a budget with multiple potential users.
That's beside the fact it would fit right in with Cooks and Ive's declaration that it's not about the money anyway but instead the best possible user experience, right?
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Tallest, Android does offer multi-user support so no need to wonder about it.
Huh. And that's fairly recent, too. Thanks!