Steve Jobs Wanted the First iPhone To Have a Permanent Back Button Like Android (bgr.com)

anderzole shares a report from BGR: Brian Merchant's new book, The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, provides a captivating and intriguing look at how the most revolutionary product of our time was designed and developed. Through a series of interviews with Apple engineers and designers who played an integral role in the iPhone's creation and development, Merchant maps out how the iPhone came to be after more than two years of non-stop work at breakneck speed. One of the more interesting revelations from the book is that the iPhone design Apple unveiled in January of 2007 might have looked vastly different if Steve Jobs had his way. According to Imran Chaudhri, a veteran Apple designer who spent 19 years working on Apple's elite Human Interface Team, Steve Jobs wanted the original iPhone to have a back button in addition to a home button. Believe it or not, the original iPhone could have very well looked like a modern-day Android device. "The touch-based phone, which was originally supposed to be nothing but screen, was going to need at least one button," Merchant writes. "We all know it well today -- the Home button. But Steve Jobs wanted it to have two; he felt they'd need a back button for navigation. Chaudhri argued that it was all about generating trust and predictability. One button that does the same thing every time you press it: it shows you your stuff. 'Again, that came down to a trust issue,' Chaudhri says, 'that people could trust the device to do what they wanted it to do. Part of the problem with other phones was the features were buried in menus, they were too complex.' A back button could complicate matters too, he told Jobs. 'I won that argument,' Chaudhri says."

Comments

Do one thing?

[Vylen]

Except the Home button now does multiple things depending on if you long-press, double or even triple click it?

Re:Do one thing?

[ckatko]

Call me an old fart, but I absolutely hate that about mobile interfaces.

How am I supposed to know that a menu needs to be swiped, then double pressed then held. At least with desktop UI's you can hover the mouse over a button and get a caption.

I had my Samsung S5 for over a year before I realized that the drop down top bar with the wifi/location/etc buttons can actually be HELD and it'll go into a sub-menu for configuration. Whereas just pushing the button turns them on/off.

And, furthermore, the second you utilize TIME in your clicks, you're now forcing time to be a component in their usage. I can press as many radio buttons on my car radio as I want... as fast as I want. I don't have to press one button, and then HOLD IT to have it move radio station. I don't have to watch for the "Context" to change.

If you ask me (and nobody is), user interfaces have gone ass-backwards and keep getting worse. When I had a flip phone, I could send text messages on the FULL KEYBOARD without even looking at the phone. I knew people who could hold conversations AND send text messages like some sort of dual-core human savant. Now, I have to freaking type texts with my fingers pressing ON THE SCREEN that I'm also supposed to be reading from. (Enjoy playing a game where 1/4th to 1/3rd the screen area is your fingers.) Moreover, there's no haptic feedback. So much so that "haptic feedback" is some new age buzzword research field for what we used to already have... a freaking audible/feelable CLICK when you depress a button, and ridges so you can place your fingers in the right place.

Stare at your keyboard right now. Notice the bumps on the F and J keys? They're notches so you can place your hands... the same place... every time. And they work so well you probably never even noticed them.

Meanwhile, how many times have you tried typing manual keys (or god forbid a PASSWORD with special characters) on your phone, and looked down and realized you slightly missed a key and hit a completely different letter as if you're hands are made of fat, unwieldy sausages.

Re:Do one thing?

[Known Nutter]

My hands are are made of fat, unwieldy sausages, you insensitive clod!

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm.... fat unwieldy sausages .... *drool*

Re:Do one thing?

[exomondo]

How am I supposed to know that a menu needs to be swiped, then double pressed then held.

What menu operates like that?

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed which is why I now read every iOS manual. There are too many functions to all be intuitive these days.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pretentious UX designers know best

Re: Do one thing?

[rmdingler]

Nah. That's like employing a cheat code in a game.

Call me wierd. Been called worse. I like discovering a new function after having a phone for awhile... an easter egg hunt for the big kids.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pretentious UX designers know best

Whatever happened to user customization? Sometimes new devices take the one size fits all motto a bit too seriously. Have a default interface and then maybe have the options to configure it via a short series of questions. For instance, there may be whole sets of options you don't really care about and likely never will...

One example that comes to mind, am I likely to walk, or take a bus/etc for mapping? No, then hide that stuff and assume I'm driving.

Another that comes to mind is the instant access to the camera? Just no. If I want to use my camera I'll unlock my phone. I'm not that into pictures.

Yet another that comes to mind is airplane mode and the ability to turn the ringer down. Some people don't need this, and may use those features unintentionally, just making things a pain.

On windows you have microsoft do the bonehead move of thinking i want more advertisements/telemetry/crap running at start. Don't waste my time turning it all off. They have user questions at startup, but they don't see to support that type of user very well.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clutter Clutter clutter! all Clutter. There should only ever be 1 button on the screen at one time!

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's way more than that.

It now does different things depending on state (whether the phone is locked or not), where you are in the phone, which model of phone it is, and of course how many times you click it. And I think the button on the iPhone 7 is even pressure sensitive, so that's something to look forward to as well.

It's part of the way Apple's lost its way since Jobs died. The iPhone that Steve Jobs made had a Home button that did one thing and only one thing. Here's a small list of things the Home button does today:

1. Single click when unlocked: Bring you to the Home screen
2. Single click when locked: Bring you to the PIN screen
3. Hold but don't click while locked: Unlock but remain on the lock screen. (As I recall this is only really useful if you have notifications set to only display when unlocked and don't want to dismiss them.)
4. Double-click when locked: Brings up Apple Pay.
5. Double-click when unlocked: Brings up the task switcher.
6. Double-tap (that is, do not click the button, just rest your finger on it twice) while unlocked: pushes the screen down to make reaching the top easier (only on 6/7 models). While locked this does nothing.
7. Press and hold: Activate Siri (whether locked or unlocked, certain Siri functions only work if the phone is unlocked)
8. Hold without clicking while an app requests TouchID authentication: authenticate with TouchID
9. Triple-click: activate an accessibility feature, assuming you have it enabled

And those are the ones I'm personally aware of. I can't wait to discover ones I don't know about because I'm pretty sure there are other weird combos of pressing versus touching with clicks and holding variation to activate various features.

Post-Jobs iOS is an amazing mess of features that are impossible to discover on your own. It's a great example of how one of the things Jobs was good at was saying "no" to ensure that the user experience remained as easy as possible.

Re:Do one thing?

[swillden]

I had my Samsung S5 for over a year before I realized that the drop down top bar with the wifi/location/etc buttons can actually be HELD and it'll go into a sub-menu for configuration.

In the stock Android version, you don't long-press. Instead, there's a bar and below that a section which is a separate "button" which you tap to get into the settings for that. There's a "pulldown" arrow in that section that clues you into the fact that you can tap there to get into other stuff.

IMNSHO, most of what Samsung does to the Android UI damages it, rather than improving it. The stock UI also has its share of non-obvious controls, but I don't think there are nearly as many. An example from Nougat (and O) is that long-pressing the "recent apps" button starts a split-screen session.

Re:Do one thing?

[MangoCats]

This, from the company that brought you the one button mouse, that you can click three ways.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple has some of the most unintuitive design choices I've ever seen. One of worst is the method to delete apps from iOS (this may have changed since the iPhone 4S era, I don't know). To delete an app, you must hold your finger on the screen until the app icons start shaking. You can then select one to delete.

God forbid they have a menu in Settings that lets you delete an app. (Oh, there's already a menu for apps in Settings. You just can't delete them from there for some reason.) Android may be menu-heavy at times, but there's some logic to it.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a Moto Z Play and this physical keyboard https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keyboard-mod-a-physical-keyboard-for-the-moto-z#/

Re:Do one thing?

[just another AC]

What menu operates like that?

The exaggeration menu.

It's a language setting under the "trying to make a point" menu, next to YELLING and expletives.

Re:Do one thing?

[darkain]

These problems exist on MacOS too. I was recently handed a MacBook for compatibility testing of a web site with Safari. Only problem? How the FUCK do I launch Safari? It wasnt in the launch bar at the bottom. Literally had to go to another machine just to Google how to do it, because there is apparently no way to just have a simply listing of all available installed applications to launch from the main OS UI. It is inside of Finder apparently, under some Applications menu inside of there. This honestly reminded me of all the bullshit in Windows 3.1 that was needed to get simple things done.

Re:Do one thing?

[drinkypoo]

And, furthermore, the second you utilize TIME in your clicks, you're now forcing time to be a component in their usage. I can press as many radio buttons on my car radio as I want... as fast as I want. I don't have to press one button, and then HOLD IT to have it move radio station. I don't have to watch for the "Context" to change.

That's kind of a horrible example, because on old car stereos you would pull the button to set a preset, and on most car stereos of today you hold the button to set a preset, while you simply touch it to select one. If you hold the button down too long, you'll reset your preset.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Despite common misconception, their UI isn't superior. It's just what the cool kids happen to be using

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

How am I supposed to know that a menu needs to be swiped, then double pressed then held. At least with desktop UI's you can hover the mouse over a button and get a caption.

This is precisely why Google is getting rid of long press, double-tap, etc. Or rather, not getting rid of them so much as making other UI paths/options available for doing whatever it is you want to do, and just leaving them there as shortcuts for power users.

Apple is going in the opposite direction, such as with their 3D tap system that rarely ever makes any sense.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that but latest samsung galaxy s8+ (best in test currently) do away with all front buttons and have 3 fixed buttons on bottom of screen always doing the same actions. Some sanity returns. People should be able to remember 3 buttons!

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what you get with system owners having a clue and giving a rats ass to details, which is sorely lacking everywhere.

Re:Do one thing?

[Xenna]

"And, furthermore, the second you utilize TIME in your clicks, you're now forcing time to be a component in their usage. I can press as many radio buttons on my car radio as I want... as fast as I want. I don't have to press one button, and then HOLD IT to have it move radio station. I don't have to watch for the "Context" to change."

Mmm, I've had quite a few car radio's (when they still had physical buttons), where pushing the button changed the channel, while press+hold stored the current channel under the button.

When that first appeared I thought it a big improvement.

(I'm not happy with the current touch screen UI radio's I have in my cars, for many reasons, ine of them that I don't seem to be able to reliably store station presets)

Re:Do one thing?

[arglebargle_xiv]

Wow, looks like Apple have taken the design features of the GNXT text editor and turned it into a phone UI.

Re:Do one thing?

[Vrekais]

What I'd give for a reasonably priced Android phone with a slide out Qwerty keyboard. When every phone advertising it's stunning screen size and resolution but then gives up half the screen for the keyboard seems a bit ridiculous. I'd really like to be able to type in landscape mode on my phone without basically not being able to see anything too.

Re:Do one thing?

[gl4ss]

What menu operates like that?

well. a couple. take current s6 firmware for example. draw down from the top and you see quicklink options that you can long press or quick press. if you want to see more of them you can drag down on any of them and you'll see more icons. do a long press on the wifi icon and you're taken to wifi actions. inside which you can do long presses to get more.

in the notifications area under those before mentioned icons if you drag a notification left or right and you can set settings for that kind of notification(there is no visual identification to do this). if you drag further it clears that notification. no indication about it either.

ios isn't as bad but it sure is drag from every corner does different thing too. and the sw way of telling app developers to add a back button at left up corner kind of sucks. hard to reach.

and I really would like the home and back buttons to be just fucking real buttons instead of capacitive areas.

Re:Do one thing?

[TheRaven64]

How the FUCK do I launch Safari?

Option 1: Go to the Finder, hit the 'Applications' icon in the side bar, double-click on Safari (this is how you've launched applications on every Mac since 1984 - how many other operating systems can say that for any GUI?).

Option 2: Use spotlight by either hitting the shortcut keys (command-space) or by clicking on the search icon at the top right of the screen. Type 'Safari' (it will probably autocomplete after 'Sa'). Hit enter. This mechanism is relatively new and has only been the same for about 10 years.

Re:Do one thing?

[Dr. Evil]

The swipes, short swipes, swipes from the top, left, right, side, corner, taps, gestures, long-presses, double-taps, tap presses, or whatever secret knocking code needed to activate a feature with no menu or visual indication of the capability is horrible.

Throw on the visual restrictions of the narrow phone displays preventing well-organized data, and the clunky size of everything so that it can be touched...

The awfulness has been translated badly into other user interfaces and now I'd kill for a keyboard, or even a Blackberry scrollwheel with a menu.

We're not old, we're just used to actually doing things with computers.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe there some combo involving the home and power button to take a screenshot too iirc. Something like hold one down and press the other. Very intuitive I'm sure /sarcasm

Re:Do one thing?

[MoogMan]

Intuitive really doesn't exist in the computing world. It's all about familiarity.

How are you meant to know that moving the plastic thing with a wheel corresponds to moving pixels on a screen? Or caressing the touchpad on your laptop. You only know about the F/J keys because you were told (in some way).

The Mac and PC HIDs are sufficiently different enough that PC people really struggle with Mac keyboard/Mouse shortcuts and use (and vice-versa).

Re:Do one thing?

[Dr. Evil]

I forgot the obvious rotate, shake, flip over, force-click, force-click-hold, pinch, drag, press and drag... any others?

Re:Do one thing?

[stephanruby]

I can press as many radio buttons on my car radio as I want... as fast as I want. I don't have to press one button, and then HOLD IT to have it move radio station.

Chris,
You better sit down because I am about to blow your mind.

Your car radio works like that too for resetting a station to the current one. "Not mine! My car is 30 years old, I still have the original radio. It has mechanical buttons" you say. Well, if that's the case, that's a hard press, not a long press.

And that little black triangle next to your fuel gauge icon, it's an arrow to remind you which side of the car is your gas door. And that fuel cap, there is actually fuel cap holder built into the gas door flap (in addition to the plastic tether that may, or may not be there anymore). Mine works by screwing the cap to the flap of the door.

Also in Android, if you long press an autocomplete suggestion, it will allow you to delete it from your auto-complete dictionary. And you know that weird arrow next to an auto-complete suggestion for Google on the right side, not the auto-complete from the keyboard, but the auto-complete from the search box, go ahead press one of them on your phone, or click it on your desktop, and see what happens.

And assuming you've upgraded your S5 to an S6 or above, note that 'Samsung pay' will work at a payment terminal even if that payment terminal doesn't support Android pay, Apple Pay, or NFC. In addition to NFC, the Samsung phone can mimic the magnetic strip of a credit card reader (I kid you not!) as long as the magnetic reader is not deeply embedded in the device. And of course, it does it more securely than your normal magnetic card because it generates a one-time credit card number for each transaction (which your plastic card doesn't).

Stay tuned. Next week, I will blow your mind again by teaching you all about the function of the plastic tray below your fridge and the reason you should clean it once in a while.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have an iPhone, so I can't tell how easy is to get the information on what these keys do, but to be honest, what did you expect? That clicking once while locked also brought you to the home screen? Did you expected that the double click while locked brought you to the task switcher? Some of those seem pretty sensible to me...

Re:Do one thing?

[jellomizer]

However most Computer users and especially for Mac users with the traditional 1 button mouse, the clicking of the home button is rather intuitive.
Single click. Has the core action. Double click has the extended action. The hold click gives you a bunch of options.
So with a standard windows interface a single click on a file will select it.
A double Click on the file will open it.
A right click (or a left click hold On a mac) will open the additional options for the file.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bluetooth keyboard.. about,$11 ...also requires experiments... I found how to screen capture just recently. CntrlC,App switching,CntrlV, Tab, Enter... my phone works like an old-time PC!

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to get the keyboard App that closes the screenvirtual kbd when physical key is hit.
Kbd also,takes a photo.. v handy.

Re:Do one thing?

[parkinglot777]

Here is a few more things about iPhone home button...

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Option 3) Use "Launch Control" which does indeed provide a listing of all applications installed on the machine like the GP was looking for.

Re:Do one thing?

[Mr. Slippery]

They are awkward but there are phone cases with slide-out Bluetooth keyboards for some phones. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=phon...

Re:Do one thing?

[Carewolf]

These problems exist on MacOS too. I was recently handed a MacBook for compatibility testing of a web site with Safari. Only problem? How the FUCK do I launch Safari? It wasnt in the launch bar at the bottom. Literally had to go to another machine just to Google how to do it, because there is apparently no way to just have a simply listing of all available installed applications to launch from the main OS UI. It is inside of Finder apparently, under some Applications menu inside of there. This honestly reminded me of all the bullshit in Windows 3.1 that was needed to get simple things done.

It is the same with everything on macOS, nothing just works, everything has some complicate arcane enchantment you have to utter to get it to do anything at all. And still they market it as simple to use, so people think THEY are the stupid ones. Notice how over 50% of the howto computer books in bookstores are on how to use Apple product, despite being less than 5% of the market?

Re:Do one thing?

[Robert Goatse]

So true. If the application isn't in the bottom launch bar, it takes forever to find how to launch the darn thing. Forget about installing something. Is it on the Desktop, the Launcher, or the Applications directory? I'm a Mac fan, but it does make it hard to do simple things.

Re: Do one thing?

[Merk42]

Whatever happened to user customization?

For instance, there may be whole sets of options you don't really care about and likely never will...

Slashdot, ladies and gentlemen. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re:Do one thing?

[apoc.famine]

Option 4) Use any of the above options to open a terminal, run your *nix search command of choice, find where Safari lives, and launch it from the command line.

I was recently handed a MacBook for compatibility testing of a web site with Safari. Only problem? How the FUCK do I launch Safari?

At least the GP seems qualified to do compatibility testing.....

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

It used to be. But recent versions of OSX have gotten pretty bad. I think 10.5 was when most of that happened.

Apple changed when Steve got cancer and started worrying about his legacy. Up until recent times the Mac UI was usually better.

Well except for those stupid one button mouses.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sites like Paypal and eBay are practically unusable on a smartphone.

You click a textbox. The keyboard immediately takes up half the screen. Android zooms in a little on the textbox so you can see what you're typing. That's helpful, I guess.

THEN that stupid useless webpage header explodes to fill the other half of the screen, completely obscuring the textbox. Oh, and also any of the other controls that follow in the form. Android 4 used to have a Next button for form navigation but damned if I can get it to display in Android 5.

I don't know about you but I wonder if these idiots ever test anything or just have a greenlight to push anything they want to production.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're using the old-style Mac keyboards that had the bumps on D and K. It may have made sense logically (your middle fingers are the longest), but man, were those awkward.

Re:Do one thing?

[Rob Y.]

MacOS seems like it's designed for people that want to be taught how to use their computers. Stuff is easy enough to do once you've been shown how. But a lot is not easily discoverable by simply poking around. It's like they assume their users are computer phobic.

Android seems to be taking its lead from Apple in that respect. Interestingly, earlier versions of Android made much more use on long-pressing as a kind of 'right-click' to find out what options are available. I hate that they've moved away from that approach, but then again, the masses seem to love their Apple stuff, so maybe it works well for the target audience.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Traditionally, mice had three buttons. Apple's one-button broke the tradition just as surely as Windows' two-button.

And the center button is supposed to paste, goddammit.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I suppose that's way more intuitive than clicking on something with the word "internet" in it's name.

Re:Do one thing?

[TheRaven64]

Clicking where? In the default install, it's in the dock, so you click there. He's in a system where for some reason that icon has been removed. That's the equivalent of a Windows machine where the Edge shortcut has been removed from the start menu and desktop. How do you launch Edge on such a system?

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

You never launch Edge, it is terrible.

Push the start button and start typing "Internet Explorer", or push win+R and type iexplore.

Unfortunately both of those options are obscure, as one is a keyboard shortcut, and the other requires you to know that you can type at the prompt-less Start menu. Windows really needs to call attention to that capability, as it is actually the easiest way to do things.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. In the fleet of 112 macs I oversee across four buildings and two continents (US/India) the buttons are extremely intuitive. Everyone agrees that they instantly know what to do with a one-button mouse.

Start Mac
Log on to corporate parts ordering site
Scroll down to the listing for mice
"Click" on the standard two-button PC mouse.
"Click" on the submit button.
When the new mouse arrives, throw the one-button monstrosity away.

Very intuitive.

Re:Do one thing?

[TheFakeTimCook]

These problems exist on MacOS too. I was recently handed a MacBook for compatibility testing of a web site with Safari. Only problem? How the FUCK do I launch Safari? It wasnt in the launch bar at the bottom. Literally had to go to another machine just to Google how to do it, because there is apparently no way to just have a simply listing of all available installed applications to launch from the main OS UI. It is inside of Finder apparently, under some Applications menu inside of there. This honestly reminded me of all the bullshit in Windows 3.1 that was needed to get simple things done.

Most Mac users think of the Finder AS the "Main OS UI". Not sure where you were; but since you can't (generally) Quit Finder, you had to stumble on it eventually. And just like nearly every other filesystem in the past 30 years or so, you can find the Applications (including Safari) on the Boot Volume under a Folder called... (Wait for it)... Applications.

There are several other ways to get to Applications; but that's the most "universal" one, and should be readily discoverable to anyone who has used any GUI OS.

Re:Do one thing?

[AuMatar]

The auto complete thing depends on keyboard. Its a common way of doing it, but there's 0 enforcement. Keyboards on Android don't even share dictionaries, so there's no way they could enforce it.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPhone 3 with iOS v3 in 2010 had home button double- and triple-click functions. Steve Jobs was still in charge back then.

Re: Do one thing?

[TheFakeTimCook]

It used to be. But recent versions of OSX have gotten pretty bad. I think 10.5 was when most of that happened.

Apple changed when Steve got cancer and started worrying about his legacy. Up until recent times the Mac UI was usually better.

Well except for those stupid one button mouses.

The "stupid" one-button mice went away long before OS X. So, time to put that meme to rest, shall we?

Re:Do one thing?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Click on Spotlight. Start typing name of Application.

See? That wasn't hard...

Re:Do one thing?

[thebullshitpatrol]

This seems like a VERY conditioned bias IMO.

How does it not make sense that all of your applications are literally self contained packages (folders, quite literally) in a folder called Applications? The only proprietary knowledge here is knowing that the file explorer is called Finder.

I will admit that the "correct" way of doing a lot of things isn't immediately obvious. For instance, cmd+space is how you are supposed to touch applications that aren't in the dock, and it works 10x better than start menu search.

The whole program files/start menu construct is a MESS when you actually consider all of the things going on behind the scenes. It would make much more sense for there to be a "Programs" folder that transparently shows the user everything on the system. If shit like DLLs and configuration files can't be stuck inside of it like a folder, stick it in Program Data and registry.

Re:Do one thing?

[thebullshitpatrol]

> Notice how over 50% of the howto computer books in bookstores are on how to use Apple product, despite being less than 5% of the market?

Perhaps this is because Windows machines are widespread appliances and are on every desk and in every school, and the layman, who wants to use Mac at home and thinks all new things require instruction manuals, is much more likely to be buying a Mac guide than a Windows guide?

Re:Do one thing?

[thebullshitpatrol]

>is it in Program Files, Program Files (x86), or App Data? Why isn't this thing in the start menu? where are the configuration files for this app? where is the actual executable for this thing that launches on boot?

Is it in my dock? > have I learned how cmd+space works? > Is it in my applications folder? > I do not yet have this application on my computer.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking kidding me? Jesus Christ and this gets modded insightful. Apple has multiple ways to list all of your apps. The most is 2 clicks away.

The fact you don't know how a Mac works doesn't mean it's UX is inferior. It just means you don't know how to use it. Finding apps installed on a Mac is not hard or unintuitive.

Re:Do one thing?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Intuitive really doesn't exist in the computing world. It's all about familiarity.

How are you meant to know that moving the plastic thing with a wheel corresponds to moving pixels on a screen? Or caressing the touchpad on your laptop. You only know about the F/J keys because you were told (in some way).

The Mac and PC HIDs are sufficiently different enough that PC people really struggle with Mac keyboard/Mouse shortcuts and use (and vice-versa).

Actually, the hardest thing to get used to going back and forth between Windows and macOS is to remember CONTROL-C/X/V/Z vs. COMMAND-C/X/V/Z, depending on which system you are using at any one time.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would probably look for firefox or chrome.

Re:Do one thing?

[Falos]

On OSX there are actually several launchers, panes, feeds, spaces, etc that will list shit.

By "several" I mean "lol did you have separate teams that just didn't communicate their overlap? or have you been needlessly reinventing your GUI (who doesn't, right?) while redundantly keeping the old one?"

And I have deliberately omitted the word "intuitive" from my first sentence. Your only provision is the dock. If you're lucky, your build shows currently-accessible file partitions on the desktop, which leads to baby's first Finder window. At that point, as a bare minimum, you can abandon the user to Figure It Out now that a file browser's going. If you lack mentioned luck, all you have is the dock.

That old review of "Super Mario Bros's first ten seconds" comes to mind. The video perhaps deepthroats a little much, but it does stand as a good example of how to actually Obvious.

Anyone who thinks navigation of OSX is obvious in the first-exposure scenario isn't really the type who should be discussing GUI psychology to begin with. Hold on, please stop drafting your knotted-panties kneejerk Apple rant, this is hardly an OSX problem. We're here because mobile apps (any platform) are shitty about it too. And web browsers. And Windows 8. And 10.

What's obvious is the source of the problem is higher up and management really needs to stop listening to their sales pitches. Hiring people to shuffle things around (eventually in a circle) every other year is wrong on several levels. And you can still have your trendy icon panes, your mysterious three-overlapping-dots and your wavy-ribbon-flag, your precious temple puzzles, if they're redundant with a Real Fucking Menu Tree with Real Fucking Commands.

Re:Do one thing?

[Hognoxious]

# Oooooh hokey cokey cokey ...

Re:Do one thing?

[stephanruby]

I was talking about the new standard Android keyboard.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

why the fuck would anyone WANT to launch Edge, it's bad enough the times it's forced on you.
though wanting to launch Safari is worse.

Re:Do one thing?

[Rob Y.]

I didn't say that there weren't some technological advantages to the Mac. Their app packaging is one of them - I've used 'wine skins' to generate a single .zip file that contains an entire runnable version of my WIN32 app and all the WINE stuff it takes to run it on a Mac - very nice.

But I find the Mac UI a struggle. Some of it is the 'dumbing down' of the UI. Some of it is stuff they came up with in 1983 and think it's just great as it is (the one-button mouse - the baffling 'switch between 2 window sizes' instead of a true Maximize).

I'll admit - I've rarely used a Mac. But I've hated it every time I did...

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that silly thing they had in ubuntu (might still have, but I went elsewhere) where you had to type the name of the program you were looking for every. single. time that you wanted to open it? Yeah, cause that's so much easier than scanning through a menu with categorisation, and makes it so much easier to find, say, that program you installed to do x sometime last year, what was it called again, I'll know it when I see it... oh wait.

Re:Do one thing?

[exomondo]

So the made up, convoluted mobile platform that doesn't actually exist is less efficient than the desktop paradigm...wow, what a revelation. Let's just invent things to complain about!

Re:Do one thing?

[darkain]

This is actually the best point, if you shorten it. In Windows, there is a very obvious "START" button (now just an orb though), and without knowing it being called "Internet Explorer", you can literally just type in "internet" in the search box, the box that is literally the closest item to said orb button itself when clicked. With absolutely zero instruction but a little tech savvyness, this would be something someone could figure out on their own.

Re:Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet this was not new when the first iPhone appeared (this technique is used in many, many ways i.e. "joystick" menu features for displays during that age). And still, it is not intuitive, only to the more technical oriented people who've experienced input features like that. So, adding another button would still have been way, way more intuitive for regular users. I for sure know the biggest share of people I know with iPhones are using only the single press of the home screen.

Re:Do one thing?

[OffTheWallSoccer]

my Samsung S5 for over a year before I realized that the drop down top bar with the wifi/location/etc buttons can actually be HELD and it'll go into a sub-menu for configuration. Whereas just pushing the button turns them on/off.

Wow, thanks for the tip! Wish I'd have known that a couple years ago.

I appreciate how many phone features are simple, but can't stand how the features are so non-obvious or otherwise poorly communicated to phone users.

Re:Do one thing?

[SivDotnet]

This is one of the things Apple and now MS who copy them don't get. It may be cool and trendy to be minimalistic but its no good if you have no way of working out how it works.

When I was a kid, I used to babysit for my Mum's employer and they were relatively well off and had what seemed to me then a totally exotic Bang & Olufsen Hi-Fi. The first time I was there, they said I could use the Hi-Fi. So when the little ones were tucked up, I decided to give the super B & O turntable a go to see how it sounded.

I put the record on the turntable and then looked for how I could get the needle to go across to the record??? In those days (early 1970's) your average Pioneer or JVC that I had access to, had a lever somewhere near the needle arm that you pressed and it would lift the arm and drop it on the first track.

I was stumped, I spent the whole evening trying to find a manual (there were no smartphones or Google then) and was extremely frustrated by the time they got back. I was even more frustrated when they said you just pick the arm up and drop it near the track you want..... AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!

To me if something is so minimalistic that you can't figure it out then it fails completely and is just an in-crowd clique thing

That was exactly how I felt the first time I used Windows 8, designers gone mad

Re:Do one thing?

[RespekMyAthorati]

And that fuel cap, there is actually fuel cap holder built into the gas door flap

Holy crap! I had no idea.
Thanks.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple still only sells one-button mice. But they have a touch-sensitive surface that lets you use them as a multi-button mouse in the most stupid, inconvenient, and unintuitive way possible. Luckily you can plug a normal mouse into your Mac and it will work as you expect, but that mouse won't be made by Apple.

Re:Do one thing?

[SandWyrm]

Option 5) Press the F4 button (or the rocket ship on a default dock install) to bring up LaunchPad. Watch all of your apps appear in an iOS-like grid view. Pick Safari.

Option 6) Drag your applications folder to the dock, then right-click and set it to a grid view. You now have the best possible way to launch any app, short of pinning it to the dock.

Option 7) Hold CMD-Space to start Siri. Say "Start Safari".

Re:Do one thing?

[SandWyrm]

It is the same with everything on macOS, nothing just works, everything has some complicate arcane enchantment you have to utter to get it to do anything at all. And still they market it as simple to use, so people think THEY are the stupid ones. Notice how over 50% of the howto computer books in bookstores are on how to use Apple product, despite being less than 5% of the market?

Oh please. Compare MacOS's single, and very simple "System Preferences" panel to Windows' multiple separate (and inconsistently designed) control panels. Every setting in MacOS is 2-3 clicks away. But in Windows 10 it's a challenge just to find the proper network settings panel. Or the buried panel that controls your firewall and other security settings that Microsoft doesn't want you to turn off.

It's equal parts crappy design and overly-complex options. It's easier, for instance, to install a 3rd-Party Xbox 360 wireless adapter on MacOS than it is on Windows, the OS it was actually designed to work with.

MacOS: Download a free driver. Play Games. Works better with Steam than "native" Mac Joysticks.

Win10:
1) Find the Device Manager (Good luck for most normal folks).
2) Find the "Unknown Device" (usually amongst many) that represents the adapter.
3) Right-click on said "Unknown Device", and "Install Driver".
4) Tell Windows you'll find the driver yourself.
5) Navigate though a huge list of built-in drivers until you find the "Xbox 360 Wireless Controller".
6) Click through the warnings that Windows throws up.
7) Play games.

Re:Do one thing?

[SandWyrm]

MacOS seems like it's designed for people that want to be taught how to use their computers. Stuff is easy enough to do once you've been shown how. But a lot is not easily discoverable by simply poking around. It's like they assume their users are computer phobic.

>

It's a design philosophy. The essentials are easy to figure out for a new user. As they become more advanced though, they'll discover great features like being able to preview any file by tapping the space bar. A time-saver like no other.

I switched from being a hard-core PC user, to a mostly Mac user, about 10 years ago. I've never had any problem quickly figuring out how to do 95% of what I need to do on MacOS. Nor do I have to constantly fix, tweak, workaround, and reinstall the OS, as I've had to do hundreds of times in Windows over the years.

Hell, I spend more time keeping the kids' Win7 gaming PC running than I do managing my 3 Macs. Which means that instead of thinking about the OS all the time, I can just get my work done.

Re:Do one thing?

[SandWyrm]

If you've rarely used a Mac, then you haven't had time to discover it properly. You're expecting it to be as complex as a Windows PC, and it just isn't. Part of your problem is a Windows-Learned lack of trust in the OS to do its job properly.

Plus, it seems that you haven't touched a Mac in years. There are 3 buttons in the upper-left hand corner of the window. The red one closes, the yellow one minimizes, and the green one toggles the app to full-screen. If you want to "maximize", double-click the title bar (or Alt-click the green button). The window will expand, *keeping the same aspect ratio*, to fill as much of the screen as it can. This is useful when you need to also work with a file window or the desktop (where plugged-in drives appear). But you can also just drag out the right edge of the window to fill the screen if you want, and the OS will remember that the next time you start the app. If you want all of your windows out of the way for a moment, hit F11. To get them back, hit F11 again.

Re: Do one thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol such troll.

Drivers in Windows normally have an installer that takes care of everything for you.

There's very few instances (usually overriding an automatic driver choice because a defunct manufacturer used a common chipset used in other devices that MIGHT work)

I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

The lack of a back button is the reason I'll never buy an iPhone. Just one button is a waste of space.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[CodeArtisan]

The lack of a back button is the reason I'll never buy an iPhone. Just one button is a waste of space.

They eventually gave in and added "back button" as an arrow at the top left of the screen. Still not as usable, though.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[saccade.com]

+1. In every iPhone app, you have to hunt around for the "Done" or "Cancel" or "Close" or whatever. Best of all, Android's "back" works across apps; so if an app launches the browser to show you something, tapping Back returns you to the original app. Sorry Chaudhri, Steve Jobs was correct.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

The presence of back button was the first off-putting sign in Andorid for me. it has to be a the whole shebang if you a proving navigation or just a single - return to known good state (start) position button. Palm had the former, iPhone the later. Android feels unfinished with just a back. I've always hated phones that have separate back, cancel and call disconnet buttons (Nokia). The Bosh/Siemens design was much better where there was no cancel button and no back button and no call disconnect button - they were all one button. There was a separate 4 position joystick. I never found the need when I decide to cancel an operation to go back one step, I intend to cancel the whole operation anyway. And the 4 postion joystick always gave the possibility for full navigation.

Re: I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I cuss every time I have to help an iPhone user work their shitty ads product. I never use them and know my way around any apple product better than 90% of Apple's user base. Shitty UI design from the ground up in all apple products. Designed only for 5 year olds and not a single power user.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[darkain]

Coming from an Android world, this honestly confused the shit out of me on iOS when I needed to beta test an app. It had an option to launch Apple Maps from within it for navigation, and I've yet to figure out how the fuck to get back to the app I was in without going all the way back to the home screen an re-launching it. How the hell is that supposed to be a "good" user experience!?

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Cmdln Daco]

Back when I had an iPod Touch, you could double-click the Home button and it would bring up a row of icons for the Apps you had recently run. You could go back to re-run an App quickly with that trick.

Of course, eventually the Home button on my iPod Touch got flaky, because it was a physical button and moisture could get into it. So even single clicking became difficult. Double-clicking reliably became very difficult.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Cmdln Daco]

Android has a back button to 'go back' one stage.

It also has a Home button, to do what you're wanting- return to known good state (start).

Do you know anything at all about Android??

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[tlhIngan]

Android has a back button to 'go back' one stage.

It also has a Home button, to do what you're wanting- return to known good state (start).

Do you know anything at all about Android??

That was the theory, but everyone realized the Android back button was fraught with issues. Sometimes pushing it brought you all the way to the first screen of the app, and if you hit it again, it quit the app. Sometimes it brought you back just one screen, other times it brought you out of the multi-screen process you were in and back to the main screen.

It was an unpredictable mess. And it still is today - I can download a PDF and it opens in a PDF view that looks like a separate app, but isn't. If i hit the back button, it brings me back to the previous screen I was looking at, which is confusing because the PDF appeared to open like a new tab or app, and if I want to switch between what I was reading (before the PDF reader rudely interrupted me) it closes the PDF view.

And then what happens if you hit it in the middle of a game? Do you abort the current level and go back to the main menu? Or be wrong and bring up a pause menu (and what does back do now - back to main menu, or back to game?)

That's been the problem plaguing Android's back button - you're not quite sure where it would take you back. Granted, these days is a lot better than before, but ambiguity still remains.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[TheRaven64]

If it launched the other app correctly, then there will be a back thing, including the name of the app that you'll go back to, at the top left of the screen.

Re: I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

Up the top left will be a link to the previous app you navigated from

https://i.imgur.com/n0YyoaW.jpg

or for example, if the link was to a website that opens an app but you still want to navigate to the website you can tap up the top right and go directly to the link.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

+1. In every iPhone app, you have to hunt around for the "Done" or "Cancel" or "Close" or whatever. Best of all, Android's "back" works across apps; so if an app launches the browser to show you something, tapping Back returns you to the original app. Sorry Chaudhri, Steve Jobs was correct.

It is good for user point of view. because you can exploit bugs related to back button in many game apps. :D

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[snookiex]

Well, at least you don't come from the Maemo world, where all applications have a close button and there's a systray! I'm barely able to get used to the Android way. Don't ask me about iPhone's!

Re: I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not unpredictable. You learn exactly what it will do for each app and that is exactly what it does.

Most users only have a handful of apps that they regularly use and quickly learn how to navigate them, including how the back button is implemented.

Re:I always cursed Jobs for this too..

[Anonymous Coward]

so, you've never seen an Android phone then? cos I've been using Android since 1.2 and I've never encountered the back button doing anything but moving back to the previous screen on a push...

Yes, and then they improved

[SuperKendall]

The iPhobd at first was going to have a keyboard also, and probably lots of other useless crap.

But as the article states, they realized it added too much complexity - which I find is true even today when I use an Android device. It seems like back rarely does what you expect.

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhobd at first was going to have a keyboard also, and probably lots of other useless crap.

But as the article states, they realized it added too much complexity - which I find is true even today when I use an Android device. It seems like back rarely does what you expect.

The iphone is useless because it doesn't have a physical keyboard. Who wants to bet these retards get rid of the 3.5mm jack next?
Oh well......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AUa8bkfOrQ

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhobd

Luckily for you, now has a decongestant button!

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

Many current and former Apple employees have said the iPhone was never going to have a keyboard. It's a crappy rumor that has hung around a long time because fandroids and facePalm idiots think they can keep spreading it and gullible people will keep buying it.

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

having used both, but my first exposure being on Android phones, I swear loudly when I try to use an iPhone, and the one button does whatever, but not what I expect it to do.

A "back" button doing just that, and only that, no matter what? How quaint.

Oh, and at least Samsung Touch keyboard kind of works sort of intuitively... hold a top-row letter down long enough, and you can pick the positional number (e.g., holding the 'e' key will get you to the '3'). Holding the '.' gets a submenu of common grammatical characters to use, etc.

Sorry, I'll stick with Android, even if for now it's still bastardized by Samsung Touch.

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience was with Firefox OS, which only has the home button, just like the Mac phone, er, Eye phone or Apple phone, whatever it's called.

Long press on home button does bring a "task switcher", that's the one less discoverable feature.

When an "app" needs to provide back navigation, e.g. a settings sub-menu, an arrow ("less than" arrow) is drawn on the very top left of the screen. Doesn't that make it easier? Where's the arrow in Windows Vista, Windows 98, Firefox, Chrome, Gnome 2, Gnome 3 etc.

Real desktop applications don't all have a "back" button, and those with a "back" button have it greyed out when there is nothing to "back" into. So I think not having a universally available back button is decent, when you have no prior expectation at least.

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Waccoon]

It seems like back rarely does what you expect.

Yeah, because clever script kiddies keep breaking it (like on just about every Javascript-heavy web page). It's not the button itself that's the problem.

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[AmiMoJo]

The back button on Android is one of the greatest UI innovations this century, because it does exactly what you would expect: it goes back to the previous screen. Doesn't matter if that screen was another app, it goes back to it. And it forces app developers to design with the ability to go back always available, meaning you can easily back out of anything with one tap.

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[jez9999]

The iPhobd at first was going to have a keyboard also, and probably lots of other useless crap.

Yeah, I can't see one reason why you'd want a physical keyboard!

Re:Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can't see one reason why we should listen to the opinions of a cum guzzler like you!

Re: Yes, and then they improved

[Anonymous Coward]

The back button is in the top left...

Except when it's not... (Browser is the obvious one) and can look vastly different (doesn't look like a button, considering how small the status bar is. Also why would i look there? Apps i use never put content there otherwise)

Stagnation of the iPhone pushed me to Android

[SensitiveMale]

and he's 100% correct. That back button is nice.

Re: Stagnation of the iPhone pushed me to Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too. The "innovation" of Android has guaranteed I'll go back. There are so many ways to do things on my S7 that now two apps feel like they are running on the same device. It's a sexy phone, but a hot mess.

Re: Stagnation of the iPhone pushed me to Android

[Cmdln Daco]

What does 'sexy phone' even mean? Are you implying that anybody else should only handle your phone with rubber gloves on?

Re: Stagnation of the iPhone pushed me to Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the Galaxy S7's still had a 3.5mm audio jack, so...

If it had a back button

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't have bought it. Thy sensible navigation other than the home button that I have experienced was on the Palm Veer/Pre 3 where there was a dedicated gesture area (back, forth, home, task switch, close task) . Android device were off-putting because they had a back button. A nice design is either a home button or the whole nav stack.

Re:If it had a back button

[oneiros27]

I miss WebOS's swipe left.

In iOS, if enter Safari & open a web page, then another one, then you click the 'share' icon, you have to use different methods to go back for each step

To exit the sharing, it's a 'cancel' button at the bottom of the screen. To close a given web page, it's click the 'tabs' icon, then the 'x' in the upper left corner of the tab in question. To exit the app, you click the 'home' button.

In WebOS, you just kept swiping left. (although, that would also go 'back' in navigation). If you wanted to quickly go back, you tap the gesture area, and then you see a stack of cards that you swipe up to throw away. (one for each 'tab' that was open).

You didn't have to go searching through the screen trying to figure out how to get out of a preferences screen for each given application. (if they even have one, and you don't have to go through the 'settings' app to configure it).

Well, there you go

[reboot246]

Apple users just can't handle more than one button. Hell, even an Apple mouse has only one button. Two buttons would leave Apple users curled up on the floor crying their eyes out. "Decisions! Decisions! I just can't deal with decisions right now!"

Re:Well, there you go

[nine-times]

FYI, the reason Apple stuck with a one-button mouse is to discourage relying on context menus. Reportedly, Jobs hated context menus because they hid functionality in unpredictable ways, i.e. it's often hard to know exactly what will be in a context menu when you right-click on a particular object, until you right-click and see what pops up.

Also, they kind of gave up on that a while ago. Apple mice have had a virtual second button for years.

Sorry, I know you're just making a joke, but I just thought I'd throw in a little info in case anyone didn't know.

Re:Well, there you go

[Doogie5526]

I also sit with people like my parents and see them double-click on everything. When I say "left click" on something it always takes two tries to get it right. I guess it's all about who you're designing it for because I'm glad 3-button mice have been the norm since scroll wheels became popular.

Re:Well, there you go

[fustakrakich]

Jobs hated context menus because they hid functionality in unpredictable ways

Yeah, like Ctrl-Click...

Re:Well, there you go

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Ctrl-Click is something you could never learn about, and *still* use any Mac software that followed the UI Guidelines. Unlike Windows software which commonly (especially in the Win95-2K days) hid functionality *only* in a context menu that you could *only* reach by right clicking on the correct part of the screen.

Re:Well, there you go

[Cmdln Daco]

Yeah, like Ctrl-Click...

Early Mac keyboards didn't even have a control button on them.

Picture of Mac Plus Keyboard

I remember what a weird arcane experience it was the first time I used a Mac.

Re:Well, there you go

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Jobs wore black every day to avoid having to decide what to wear on that day. That is the trouble with the young whippersnappers without culture and upbringing. Hire some Jeeves to lay out the trousers, belt, undershirt, shirt, jacket, hat, socks and the walking stick on the bed while you take a bath belting out Sonny Boy. Except for some minor dispute involving a smoking jacket from the French Riviera there is never a problem of having to decide what to wear.

Re:Well, there you go

[jedidiah]

> Also, they kind of gave up on that a while ago. Apple mice have had a virtual second button for years.

No, not really. It's much like the single user zero security underpinnings of Microsoft. They tried to move on by they remain mired in their own past and can't really get away from it. People are too used to doing things the old way.

Re:Well, there you go

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you used an Apple mouse in the last 10 years? It may look like it doesn't have more than one button, but it actually has left and right logical buttons (depending on where you click on the surface ) , horizontal and vertical scroll, swipe left and right, and "center button push" on the virtual scroll.

Much of that is not enabled by default, but it's just a mouse click away in the settings.

Re:Well, there you go

[squiggleslash]

They still don't (or do, depending on your perspective) - the command ("Splat") key (also seen on the Mac Plus keyboard) is the equivalent of Ctrl for Macs. And is the same key if you're using a USB or Bluetooth keyboard, just with the label changed.

Re:Well, there you go

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely hope this is a joke and you really understand why he and many others do this.

Re:Well, there you go

[cyberchondriac]

I never understood his thinking. I don't find context menu's counter-intuitive at all, in fact just the opposite --well, at least, on Windows. Since the main menu bar on a Mac (old Macs anyway) is application/context sensitive and changes depending on which app is open/ has focus, I guess in a way it fulfilled the function of a context menu. Still, a one button mouse feels completely alien to me.
I've used a personal iPhone for the past several years, it would be nice sometimes to have a back button, it seems less awkward than the "back" or "done" arrow at the top left. (My tablets are always Android).

Re:Well, there you go

[nine-times]

I don't find context menu's counter-intuitive at all, in fact just the opposite --well, at least, on Windows.

When you've been doing something a particular way for a long enough time, it'll end up feeling intuitive, almost no matter what. But anyway, the objection wasn't exactly "It's not intuitive", but rather "it makes functionality hidden and unpredictable". It's less of a problem when there are a set of conventions around what's in context menus, and you know the conventions, and developers follow those conventions, which is the case often enough these days.

I think it might help to go into a fairly concrete example, because I don't think it's easy to understand otherwise:

Imagine you have a document open in an imaginary hypothetical word processor. You right-click on some text, and you get some options to copy/paste the text, along with some options for font and paragraph styling. You get some options for spell-checking and grammar-checking, and maybe another couple of things. Over time, you get used to these options, and you know those what's where. But now you right-click on an embedded image, and surprise!, you get totally different options. Admittedly, it's not that surprising, since it's pretty close to how Word works, and you're familiar with that. These options have to do with size and positioning, options on how text should wrap around the image. Maybe you can add a caption. So now you memorize all of those options.

But now you want to change the transparency of the image and rotate it. Those options don't show up when you right-click on the image. Hmmm... You ask someone more familiar with the app, and he says, "Oh, right! So for those options, you have to right-click on the border around the image, and go into the "filters and transformations" menu. You didn't notice that there was a border around the image until he said that, but yeah, it's there. The border is faint and only shows up when you're hovering over the image, but it's there. You right-click and find totally different image-related options.

Now you want to reformat a table a bit. You want to distribute the width of the columns evenly among all the columns. Ok, so you right-click on the table, and get options for formatting that cell. You ask your friend, "How do I resize columns?" and he shows you that you can right-click on the top cell of each column, and resize that individual column. It kind of makes sense, but you wouldn't have guessed that you'd get different options depending on what cell you click on. Also, you're a little annoyed because it still won't let you distribute the width evenly. You'll have to do the math of figuring out the total width of the table, dividing it by the number of columns (taking the border size into account), and then manually resizing each column.

You go back to your friend and say, "Thanks for showing me how to resize columns, but isn't there an easier way to distribute the table width among all the columns?" He then shows you that if you select the entire table, you can then right-click on any cell, and it will give you a different context menu for resizing and formatting the entire table. There's an option for distributing the column width in that menu.

So now let's take a step back and talk about what's going on in this example. "Context menus" are so called because they change based on context. Which options show up change based on the application you're using. They might change based on the object that you're right-clicking on. Which options show up might change based on what objects are currently selected (e.g. right-clicking on a cell in a table might give a different menu if the table is selected than if no selection is made). The menu options might change if you right-click on a different location in the same object. Worse, the different areas in an object that will give different options might be poorly delineated, meaning if you click here on an object, you might get different options than if you click over there

Re:Well, there you go

[TheFakeTimCook]

They still don't (or do, depending on your perspective) - the command ("Splat") key (also seen on the Mac Plus keyboard) is the equivalent of Ctrl for Macs. And is the same key if you're using a USB or Bluetooth keyboard, just with the label changed.

Wrong.

Although several Command-Key Keyboard Shortcuts got translated to Control-Key Keyboard Shortcuts when Microsoft stole them from macOS, the Mac has always recognized the Command and Control Keys separately.

Re:Well, there you go

[cyberchondriac]

I just look at it as a "most commonly used" quick list of menu items. If what you want isn't there, then sure, you have to go to the full menu and dig, but more often than not, what you're looking to do will be there.
There are far worse inconsistencies... the current split between Control Panel and Settings in Win10 for example, that seems evident of really poor GUI project management.

Re:Well, there you go

[TheFakeTimCook]

PERFECT example!

And I believe the Apple Human Interface Guidelines state that Contextual Menus (which have existed in MacOS since System 8.1, IIRC) should contain ONLY Items that are accessible in other places. However, (or course) Apple themselves breaks that "rule" whenever it is convenient, like in the Finder, where Right-Clicking on a Document Icon will give you a Contextual Menu that includes "Open WIth...". I haven't scoured the Finder's Menu Bar; but I'm pretty sure that command doesn't exist up there.

Re:Well, there you go

[nine-times]

"Open With" does appear under "File" in the menu at the top of the screen, when Finder is active. There may be some other example of Apple breaking their own rules, though.

Re:Well, there you go

[nine-times]

I just look at it as a "most commonly used" quick list of menu items. If what you want isn't there, then sure, you have to go to the full menu and dig, but more often than not, what you're looking to do will be there.

Yes, I think that's the intention. I think it really helps to think about the issue in terms of how all this was developing in the 80s and 90s. Early on in personal computing, a lot of people had trouble understanding even things that you might find brain-dead simple. It took people a little while to understand the mouse, and it wasn't uncommon to run into computer novices who had a hard time keeping track of the difference between left-click and right-click. GUIs were often far less refined, and much more rough and slapped together. I think you need to understand the issue specifically in that context.

So it's not that Jobs didn't like that there was a menu of "most commonly used" items, he just thought that menus should be consistent and predictable. To give an alternate example, there was a version of Microsoft Office, where they had the bright idea to automatically hide menu items. For example, if you never used mail merge, it would eventually disappear from the menus. Some people liked the idea, since there were a lot of obscure features you probably weren't going to use, and it got those menu items out of the way.

It ended up being a bit of a disaster, though. All menu items were subject to the culling, even something as basic as "File" > "Save as...". If you didn't use thaat menu item for a month, it would disappear. Granted, you didn't have to be very clever to find it again. There was a little arrow at the bottom of each menu, and if you clicked it, it would expand to show all the items. Still, it confused the hell out of a lot of people to have their menu items vanish, and it became much more difficult to find a menu item if you didn't already know where it was.

That's just one example of how it can be confusing and frustrating when a UI is volatile (i.e. the opposite of "stable") and some controls are hidden.

Re:Well, there you go

[TheFakeTimCook]

"Open With" does appear under "File" in the menu at the top of the screen, when Finder is active. There may be some other example of Apple breaking their own rules, though.

Sorry. I was at work, away from my Mac.

Thanks for the correction.

And yes, there are other examples; but I've already embarrassed myself once today, thank you!

Re:Well, there you go

[rpstrong]

This has also been true for Microsoft's Windows interface standards for I-don't-know-how-long. More specifically, anything that you can do with a mouse has to be doable from the keyboard. The right click context menus are generally items pulled from the app's main menu system, accessible via the "Alt-" key combinations.

And yes, I've seen my share of mouse-centric apps - especially in Excel - which violate those standards. But that is a fault in the apps, not the OS.

Re:Well, there you go

[TheFakeTimCook]

This has also been true for Microsoft's Windows interface standards for I-don't-know-how-long. More specifically, anything that you can do with a mouse has to be doable from the keyboard. The right click context menus are generally items pulled from the app's main menu system, accessible via the "Alt-" key combinations.

And yes, I've seen my share of mouse-centric apps - especially in Excel - which violate those standards. But that is a fault in the apps, not the OS.

I agree about the "App vs. OS" violation-thing.

Not to turn this into an OS-War (at all!); but I always liked the fact that OS X/macOS even has a "Keyboard Shortcut EDITOR", where you can define and bind keystrokes either App or System-Wide, to Menu Commands. I'm surprised that Windows has never really copied that Mac feature. Just like I've always been surprised that Apple has never copied the Windows Audio "Mixer". That's really quite nice to have once in awhile.

Re:Well, there you go

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I have, and those mice are awful. You're better off leaving it as a single-button mouse because any other configuration is simply an exercise in frustration.

Luckily, you can plug in a $10 normal mouse with real physical buttons and scroll wheel and it work just like it should.

Windows Phone

[DogDude]

Windows Phone has always had one. It's super useful. It's also used for showing all currently open applications, too. Much better UI than iOS.

Re:Windows Phone

[Doogie5526]

Any idea if Windows Phone has the same implementation as Android? They used the back button to navigate inside the application as well as changing to the previous application...I never knew which it would do. Also, the back button doesn't do anything when your at the back of the "stack" and being a physical button there's no indicator. Browsers grey out the back button (or in the case of Firefox omit the forward button). But I believe Android moved from a physical button to a software button...not sure how much else has changed about it.

Re:Windows Phone

[DogDude]

I don't think it's the same. The back button on Windows Phone is universal, whether you're in an application or not. It's software or hardware, depending on the phone. If there's nowhere to go, then the phone just does a little vibrate thingy. If you hold it down, it shows you the currently open applications, and you can switch to them.

As a PTRL, I'd never buy one

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I can't speak for all People that Reflect Light, but iPhones seem to be more attractive the PTAL.

The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

Having used both Android and iPhone OS I can say that the user experience with Android is superior with regards to navigation. The home button on iOS has far too many functions right now - one click for home, double click for multitask switching, three times for something else, hold for Siri, etc. It tries to be too much at once, which totally complicates things (the irony!)

I fully expected in a future release there will be a dedicated back button and maybe more, similar to Android - Apple's current implementation of a "back" function at the top left of the screen feels like a total kludge - not something Apple-like at all.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Doogie5526]

I can't imagine Apple adding another physical button. Didn't Android ditch the physical button for a software button a few years ago? Looking online (in general and the Pixel specifically), it looks like the "home" button is software now as well. I would expect Apple to do that, if anything.

I haven't used an Android as a daily-driver in years, but I never liked the physical back button (I agree the IOS solution is a kludge). Reasons being is that "back" navigated both in the app and between apps and you didn't know if you were at the back of the stack, so I'd just mash on it. I can see those getting addressed by a software button.

I think Android got it right by having navigation at the bottom and can see IOS moving that way, too. It made sense in 2007 when the phone was small enough and it mirrored navigation on a desktop computer. Now phones are too big (Reachability is a hack)...but I can see if them not making big changes now.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Anonymous Coward]

I completely disagree. I've been impressed with some of the Samsung and Motorola phones hardware. But every time I try to use one, I have no idea where most of the features and functions are. I think the Android UI are collectively terrible. Something as simple as finding the apps can take multiple taps. Keep in mind, I'm extremely technology literate by any objective measure. I've designed and implemented user interfaces for a variety of control systems. I've trained end-users in how to use technically advanced systems. If it's hard for me to 'find stuff', then it's surely difficult for a large portion of the potential user base. Contrast that with iOS. My 90+ grandmother struggled to do anything with PC/laptops that she was shown repeatedly how to operate. We got her an iPad, and she used it almost everyday for hours with relatively few questions. I've had an iPhone since gen. 1 and the simplicity of the iOS UI has been consistent enough for my kids to have grown up using it from age 2. Again, contrast that with Android devices we've had access to, and all off us struggle to find basic functions. The Android back button is a perfect example. It's context-sensitive, but without any visual clue as to what the context is. Sometimes it's back in an app, sometimes it's back to a different app, sometimes it's back to the previous screen, sometimes it's back to the app selection screen, and occasionally it's even back to the home screen. All without any indication about which one is going to happen when you push the button. Maybe if I used it everyday for a few weeks, I'd get used to where everything is, but there is no such learning curve with iPhone/iOS.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone does have a back button. It's the entire screen. Swipe across from the left edge of the screen.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

Ah yes, "discovery". And inconsistent at that.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

I didn't actually realize they were referring to a physical button - I was actually thinking the "soft" buttons (triangle, circle and square at the bottom of many Android devices, which I prefer over Apple's implementation). I agree that a physical button (any physical button, even the iPhone's) is an inferior experience on a touch device. In my view, Android got this navigation behaviour right, whereas Apple desperately wants to "keep it simple" at the actual cost of simplicity by making it a "Jack of all trades".

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Stormwatch]

I think the Android UI are collectively terrible. Something as simple as finding the apps can take multiple taps.

Android: press the "application drawer" icon. It's all there, sorted alphabetically.

iOS: no need for that silly drawer complicating things, all applications are already on the main screen. I mean, somewhere in one of multiple screens. Without any sort of automatic organization. Possibly tucked away inside a folder.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Cmdln Daco]

The icons in the 'application drawer' on Android are only in alphabetical order if you deliberately tell it to sort them. I like them unsorted, actually, because that means they are sorted by 'install order' instead.

You need to deliberately tell it to sort the icons in the 'application drawer' from time to time, because it's not a directive to 'sort the icons from this point on', it's a one-time operation. After sorting them, the new icons again pile in at the end of the order.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[jaklode]

No. The app drawer in normal Android is always sorted alphabetically, and can't be changed. You must be talking about some weird vendor thing.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Anonymous Coward]

The app drawer in Android is part of the launcher, which can be replaced by the user. Different launchers have different behavior, including how they decide to sort apps in the app drawer.

The Google Now Launcher is the default on stock Android devices, with the Pixel Launcher being installed by default on the Pixel line of phones. Plenty of non-Google alternative launchers exist, including Nova Launcher, ZenUI Launcher (by ASUS), and even Arrow Launcher, made by Microsoft.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[cyberchondriac]

Holy crap I'm an idiot. I've had an iPhone since 2013 and I never knew that. *smacks head*. Seems intuitive enough, I can't believe I never tried it.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

Doesn't work very well, especially when you have a case on (which you MUST, if you want the darn expensive thing to retain any resell value). Either it does it half-way and snaps back, or doesn't register the wipe correctly at all (and depending on the actual UI displayed, might do something destructive).

Having a separate and easily accessible 'back' soft button at the bottom (like most Android devices have) is both simpler to activate, and more logical and obvious to use (doesn't require any 'discovery' at all, and no 'reaching' to the opposite of the screen to activate it).

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

I completely disagree. I've been impressed with some of the Samsung and Motorola phones hardware. But every time I try to use one, I have no idea where most of the features and functions are. I think the Android UI are collectively terrible. Something as simple as finding the apps can take multiple taps. Keep in mind, I'm extremely technology literate by any objective measure. I've designed and implemented user interfaces for a variety of control systems. I've trained end-users in how to use technically advanced systems. If it's hard for me to 'find stuff', then it's surely difficult for a large portion of the potential user base. Contrast that with iOS. My 90+ grandmother struggled to do anything with PC/laptops that she was shown repeatedly how to operate. We got her an iPad, and she used it almost everyday for hours with relatively few questions. I've had an iPhone since gen. 1 and the simplicity of the iOS UI has been consistent enough for my kids to have grown up using it from age 2. Again, contrast that with Android devices we've had access to, and all off us struggle to find basic functions. The Android back button is a perfect example. It's context-sensitive, but without any visual clue as to what the context is. Sometimes it's back in an app, sometimes it's back to a different app, sometimes it's back to the previous screen, sometimes it's back to the app selection screen, and occasionally it's even back to the home screen. All without any indication about which one is going to happen when you push the button. Maybe if I used it everyday for a few weeks, I'd get used to where everything is, but there is no such learning curve with iPhone/iOS.

That's why iOS' "kludgy" Back Button at the top left is apparently far superior to what Android does. In iOS the "button" says "Back to Safari", "Back to Mail", etc., so there is ZERO ambiguity as to what will happen when tapping it.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

The app drawer in Android is part of the launcher, which can be replaced by the user. Different launchers have different behavior, including how they decide to sort apps in the app drawer.

The Google Now Launcher is the default on stock Android devices, with the Pixel Launcher being installed by default on the Pixel line of phones. Plenty of non-Google alternative launchers exist, including Nova Launcher, ZenUI Launcher (by ASUS), and even Arrow Launcher, made by Microsoft.

No WONDER no one knows how to navigate in Android! It's nothing more than an inconsistent clusterfuck!

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

Doesn't work very well, especially when you have a case on (which you MUST, if you want the darn expensive thing to retain any resell value). Either it does it half-way and snaps back, or doesn't register the wipe correctly at all (and depending on the actual UI displayed, might do something destructive).

Having a separate and easily accessible 'back' soft button at the bottom (like most Android devices have) is both simpler to activate, and more logical and obvious to use (doesn't require any 'discovery' at all, and no 'reaching' to the opposite of the screen to activate it).

Except for that whole teaching about "There's no way to really know what that button will do at any one time" thing...

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

I've found the Android buttons to be consistent in their functionality across both the OS and apps. Back means "go back from where I am", and the other two, well, they have perfectly defined single functions (as opposed to Apple's multi-function-single-button on their multi-touch devices).

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Anonymous Coward]

Android users seem to figure it out. If people are too stupid to work it, they can always buy overhyped iWhatevers.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully expected in a future release there will be a dedicated back button and maybe more, similar to Android - Apple's current implementation of a "back" function at the top left of the screen feels like a total kludge - not something Apple-like at all.

I seriously doubt it. Apple won't do it because it would be admitting that they were wrong, and Apple's pride won't let them. So they'll stick with their horrible kludge, while proclaiming it's better, and the fanboys will eat it right up.

It's like the one-button mouse. Apple lost that one years ago, and they know it too. But they still won't make a proper multi-button mouse, instead releasing a kludge of a single button mouse with a touch sensitive surface to simulate a multi-button mouse. Sure, it sounds cool but it works like shit compared to actual physical buttons. But the fanboys eat it right up (while secretly slipping their Microsoft(tm) wireless mouse out of their pocket when they think no one is looking).

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

That's why iOS' "kludgy" Back Button at the top left is apparently far superior to what Android does. In iOS the "button" says "Back to Safari", "Back to Mail", etc., so there is ZERO ambiguity as to what will happen when tapping it.

... and totally unreachable using your thumb without stretching it... or using two hands (unless you want to risk dropping your slippery expensive iDevice). Yeah, FAR superior....

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

That's why iOS' "kludgy" Back Button at the top left is apparently far superior to what Android does. In iOS the "button" says "Back to Safari", "Back to Mail", etc., so there is ZERO ambiguity as to what will happen when tapping it.

... and totally unreachable using your thumb without stretching it... or using two hands (unless you want to risk dropping your slippery expensive iDevice). Yeah, FAR superior....

Why don't just complain about the font size and color while you're at it; since you apparently don't have any SUBSTANTIVE arguments to make.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

Sure thing. Whatever you say.

Just because you can't stand someone not having the exact same opinion as yourself, doesn't make you completely right - even I know that!

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

Sure thing. Whatever you say.

Just because you can't stand someone not having the exact same opinion as yourself, doesn't make you completely right - even I know that!

I was just saying that you were being picayune about the placement of the back "button", when it is the functionality that counts, at least more than whether you have to move your hand a few inches..

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

Right, because your own incessant replies weren't being picayune at all....

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

Right, because your own incessant replies weren't being picayune at all....

I was just repying to someone who kept arguing.

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

Boy, you just love being eristical, don't you!

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[TheFakeTimCook]

No, not particularly.

But thanks for the new word!

Re:The iPhone does miss such a button

[Sebby]

You're welcome!

Peace out.

One button? No. Zero buttons!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the Magic Mouse! No buttons! It can read my mind that's how it works.

It can read my subconscious too. That's why there's all that porn in my browser history. It's not me! It's the mouse!

volume (up/dn) are the most important buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

A back button could complicate matters too, he told Jobs.

Oh no! A back button would be too complex for my poor brain to comprehend. I'm glad they removed that horrendous complexity, so that I can use the phone whilst being brain-dead.

Seriously, the most important hardware buttons on the phone are the volume buttons, which double as zoom and other things in non-audio applications. Without them, use of the device would be far more annoying. I have no idea whether iPhones have these buttons, as I have only ever owned an Android. Removing them would be akin to taking the space and enter keys away on a PC keyboard, and demanding use of the mouse for that functionality. Sure, it would work, but it would be annoying as fuck.

Jobs wrong?

[manu0601]

I never though Steeve Jobs could admit being wrong. That story suggests he was less blunt that what I usually heard.

Re:Jobs wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, by all accounts he was every bit as blunt as what you've probably heard. He was *also* willing to admit when he was wrong, and be convinced that someone else's ideas were better. He had vision, but wasn't blinded by it.

Re:Jobs wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that he was wrong. It's that Jobs had already seen and used smartphones and was going off of what he already knew.

I started working at Motorola in 2001 and we had smartphones in our labs (I was working on the base station infrastructure that was enabling the data rates that would be actually be needed). We worked with Apple a lot back in those PowerPC days; don't forget that Motorola built Apple's first (intentionally crippled) phone.

Steve Jobs had seen and used smartphones with back buttons, and he was perfectly ready to be convinced to remove the button.

Re:Jobs wrong?

[squiggleslash]

Nah, he's admitting being "right" (I'm making no judgement here on whether it is right, but to Jobs it was.) If I'm following the argument correctly, the conversation is something like:

Jobs: We need a back button.
Designer: But we're trying to make everything consistent and a back button wouldn't be *gives examples*
Jobs: Oh yeah, that. No back button!

The bit that's missing from the conversation above, as reported in the summary, is who gave the order for every user interface component to be consistent. Always. All the time.

I think it's pretty obvious who. Jobs rejected the back button before he knew the back button existed, he just needed to be reminded of that.

Biggest gripe

[Anonymous Coward]

Not having a dedicated back button (even if it were part of the touch screen) is what drives me crazy about the iPhone. I do think this was a mistake. The notion of "back" makes perfect sense. Even outside of Android's Intent-app-mixing UI. I want to go back to where I was. Imagine not having a back button on your browser!

Re:Biggest gripe

[TheFakeTimCook]

Not having a dedicated back button (even if it were part of the touch screen) is what drives me crazy about the iPhone. I do think this was a mistake. The notion of "back" makes perfect sense. Even outside of Android's Intent-app-mixing UI. I want to go back to where I was. Imagine not having a back button on your browser!

That's probably why iOS now has a Back Button.

But unlike Android's it has a consistent, and "Titled" behavior. Actually, there are two types of Back-Buttons in iOS. When down in a sub-view inside of an App, there is a " Level-Above" button at the top-left of the screen that let's you "pop-up" to the previous level in the same App. If you are already at the Top-Level in an App, iOS places a "Back to (previousAppName)" Button (more like a "Link"), again at the top-left of the screen.

So there you go: All the functionality you'd want in a Back Button, with none of the Ambiguity of Android's implementation.

Not true!

[Anonymous Coward]

The double-click on the single IOS button and the swipe to close a running app are NOT obvious. I had several iPhone users complain about how slow and sluggish their iPhone would run because they had no idea that they had tons of running programs open and if they did how they could close them.

Re:Not true!

[TheFakeTimCook]

The double-click on the single IOS button and the swipe to close a running app are NOT obvious. I had several iPhone users complain about how slow and sluggish their iPhone would run because they had no idea that they had tons of running programs open and if they did how they could close them.

If I understand correctly, "Suspended" Apps in iOS aren't REALLY running. They are "in stasis", with a "Poster Screen" the only thing actually consuming resources.

Most revolutionary product?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose time are you talking about? The wheel? Penicillin?

Poor old John Gruber

[Anonymous Coward]

He's going to have a hard time defending this one. He's spent years saying that the backup button "makes no sense" and that Steve Jobs was right to hate it. Don't worry, though - he'll find a way.

Our time?

[markdavis]

>"how the most revolutionary product of our time was designed and developed."

Oh what marketing-driven pompousness! Shall I barf now or later (or both)? In whose time? Mine? I can think of a zillion "revolutionary" products/inventions/technologies in MY time, none of which include the incremental step of the iPhone over the many PDAs and smart phones before it. Here are a few-

Unix, LED, computer mouse, GUI, MRI, GPS, Ethernet, ATM, Tesla Roadster/S/whichever, solar panel, pocket calculator, DNA sequencing machines, TiVo, so many things. Pick a first product from any of those and be amazed. Then add the internet- something you can't "buy" and isn't a product, but wow... THAT is "revolutionary."

Re:Our time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the world uses their phones for hours a day, they have a supercomputer and the internet on them at all times. Fuck you that is more revolutionary than a Tivo.

Re:Our time?

[markdavis]

90% of the world uses non-iPhone phones, 87% in the USA. I would hardly call an iPhone a supercomputer, and all smartphones have "the internet". And then you throw curse words at me? Brilliant.

Re:Our time?

[Cmdln Daco]

You threatened his bubble. It's perfectly understandable that he reacted with profanity.

My first mobile computing device had a 68xxx family processor in it, just like the one in the first generation Macintosh. It even (!!!) was designed by former Apple engineers. I refer to my trusty Palm III of course.

Re: Our time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the cursing. Before iphone all mobile ui was awkard and horribly limited, even touchbased screens were impossible. After iphone, even desktop is copying touch (not necessarily a good idea though). For better and worse UX happened, but is an immature field still.

Re: Our time?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original Iphone was very similar to the the Prada phone, The Prada phone was winning design awards months before Jobs debuted the Iphone.

Please don't respond with some qualitative argument on how the Prada phone may (or may not) have been slower and/or with an inferior browser -- the concept and design of the current smart phone paradigm was already proven by LG/Prada long before the Iphone appeared.

Re: Our time?

[jaklode]

Interesting, had not heard about the Prada phone before.

Re: Our time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the Prada was a very stylish featurephone. It was not a smartphone at all.

Re:Our time?

[EmagGeek]

Any modern aircraft, power distribution, or medical system is orders of magnitude more revolutionary than a fucking iPhone.

Re: Our time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the Prada was a smart phone -- it had applications.

I'm glad it doesn't

[Anonymous Coward]

The back button is the thing I hate most about my current Google Pixel phone. It's comically inconsistent. Sometimes it sends me backward to the previous app. Sometimes it sends me to the previous page in the current app that hasn't been used in days. Sometimes it sends me up one menu level. The only way you can know where it's going to take you is memorize the ways it's applied in every different program. It's a perfect example of "too simple" and it makes about as much sense as having a "universal back button" on a car. Does it drive you back to where you were five minutes ago? Does it drive directly backwards from your current spot? Press it and find out!

Android buttons are hardly better

[thsths]

I have to say that I like the recent set of Android buttons: back, home, tasks. Three icons, they look reasonably logical, and they are all useful.

But Android tried many permutations on the way there, and on phones with hardware buttons you often see the back button on the right. You may also have a menu, camera or search button, again included in a random permutation. They really should have come up with a more sensible way of organising the buttons than in a straight row.

Re:Android buttons are hardly better

[l20502]

Back, menu, home was better, long press the home button to open tasks, just like symbian, why dedicate an entire key to it.

The holy trinity

[Xenna]

Seemed like the perfect trio: Back, Home & Menu.

Unfortunately Android (apps) seems to be moving away from there as well...

Car radio as an example?

[thegarbz]

Have you tried long pressing a car radio button? I mean time has been a component of car radio interfaces since at least the 90s for storing channels. For me every button on the radio does something different related to time. Stand by be power down, mute Vs menu, station select Vs station search, store Vs retrieve. Call Vs enable voice activation.

Sure it hasn't always been that advance but the last car radio I used which didn't have time as a component relied on those mechanical levers to move the tuning mechanism.

So that's the idiot who nix'ed the back button

[Anonymous Coward]

One item removed from the litany of curses directed at the spirit of Steve Jobs. Still can't get through it in a day though.

It's as simple as a swipe

[Laser_iCE]

You just swipe from the left side of the screen to the right. It works great, I would rather that than lose screen real estate to a row of buttons or add another button to the phone. Fanboys will always be fanboys.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No buttons needed

[acoustix]

Just look at the BlackBerry 10 devices. Completely touchscreen, no buttons on the front of the device. Only power and volume buttons on the side. Swipe up to wake up the device or go back to the home screen.

I miss my Z10.

Re:No buttons needed

[Anonymous Coward]

clearly people took to that device like flies on shit.

iSheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you really blame him? iSheeps are not known for their intelligence. So yes, a back button or a menu would explode their brains.

Re:iSheep

[TheFakeTimCook]

Can you really blame him? iSheeps are not known for their intelligence. So yes, a back button or a menu would explode their brains.

Ya know, it really doesn't do you any favors to attempt to insult others' intelligence, while creating such unintelligent blunder like saying "iSheeps".

The plural of "sheep" is... "sheep".

Moron.

The really funny thing is...

[SuperKendall]

I typed that on a physical keyboard... hmm.

Re:The really funny thing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe you should start using on on-screen keyboard...

Back button is great for menus

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have menus 4 or more levels deep, then a back button is a serious time saver. Analysis like that is called "computer science." Removing usefulness like that is called "marketing." Telling yourself you made the best decision even when you didn't is called "management."

Re:Back button is great for menus

[Anonymous Coward]

It works well if the software consistently put a software (touch screen) button in some place you can repeatedly hit.

We can also whine there's no "undo" button on desktop and laptop keyboards. And if there were, then we could whine about the lack of a "redo" button.

Oh, now I understand

[drinkypoo]

I was boggling at some inexplicable moderation... but someone with modpoints has apparently become quite offended by me personally. Must still be on Slashdot. People get grumpy when you point out facts here.

"if Steve Jobs had his way"

[NoSalt]

Since when did Steve Jobs not have his way?

And, yes, I mean before he died.

Apple Home Button

[Richard Brandshaft]

I still use a Blackberry. It has--gasp--FIVE hardware buttons. It's not confusing at all.