[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:46:05 -0500, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:

> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:op.v8l5cqtfeav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>>
>> You may hate  to hear it, but the company that usually gets this right  
>> is
>> Apple :)  My  palm phone had an LED that flashed telling me "hey I have  
>> a
>> signal  still!"  My iPhone which is on and working gives me no  
>> indication
>> until I  try to use it that it is still on and connected.  Which is
>> exactly the  time I need to know.  Who fucking cares if it lost a signal
>> while sitting  on the table not being used?
>>
>
> There are certain *elements* of some apple designs that I think are good
> (although I think saying apple "usually" gets it right is WAAAAY off the
> mark). For example, like I said somewhere else recently, the swiping  
> would
> have been a great idea to aid novices if it had been an optional  
> *addition*
> to an interface that was actually practical.

I read that post.  I don't think you used it enough.  The swiping *is not*  
the only interface to the photos.  You can scroll rapidly through a list  
of "albums" (using swiping, but it has a "throw and catch" feel to it,  
unlike swiping individual photos), or the thumbnails of an album (or all  
photos), and while in the single-photo view, tapping once on the screen  
brings up left and right buttons so you can quickly advance or go back  
through photos (including holding down the button to have it go through  
extremely fast).  I think there are plenty of practical ways to look at  
photos, you just didn't see them all.  (BTW, tapping the screen to bring  
up "more interface" is a very common iOS idiom)

On the iPad, it the albums view has a gimmicky feature where you can  
"explode" the album to quickly see the thumbnails for it with a pinch-zoom  
move.

The only issue I have with it is that iTunes' interface is completely  
useless when it comes to selecting photos to load.  On my PC, I have all  
my photos organized into folders named after the date they were taken.  So  
in iTunes, in order to let's say, load photos from the last 2 years on my  
iPad, I have to go through and check every *single* folder that I want to  
copy.  And better yet, there's no way to select a *range* of folders.  I  
don't know how it is on mac, maybe it has better integration with iPhoto.   
But it's utterly useless on the PC unless your entire photo catalog fits  
on your device (not the case for me).

For that reason, I haven't done much with the photo app on my iPad.

FWIW, I have not always been an apple fan.  My first real apple product  
was my iPhone, purchased in 2010.  Now I have a macbook, and I have to say  
I'm very impressed with it (it does have a quad-core i7, so that may be a  
good reason).  So maybe it's just post-iPhone apple I'm more impressed  
with :)

>
> It's not that I think *all* elements of *all* their designs are bad: I  
> just
> think they have an outright addiction to taking minimalism and "treat the
> user like an idiot" waaaay too far. They treat those things like Java  
> treats
> OO, and to similarly disasterous results. (At least, that's the problem I
> have with apple's *designs*. As far as the way they run their business, I
> think they're evil to the point of making MS look like the EFF.)

I'm not so much impressed by the minimalistic interface as I am to the  
attention to details.  For example, on my iPhone, it comes with a set of  
headphones with a remote + mic inline on the earbuds.  This has a  
4-contact plug.  A standard headphone jack has 3 contacts.  What impressed  
me about iPhone is that it remembers the volume level I set when it's  
plugged into a 3 contact jack (which I use at work w/ speakers) vs. a 4  
contact jack (which I use exclusively with my headphones).  That's also  
separate from the volume level of the phone when not plugged into anything.

Things like that are not "main features", but they are why apple stuff  
just seems to "work" without you noticing how helpful it's being.

And yeah, there are some details that I wish weren't minimalized (editing  
remembered wifi settings would be nice).

> But then sometimes Apple's design people are just *completely* off their
> fucking rockers: Turn off an iPod? Hold "up" for five seconds! Jesus  
> shit,
> that came from *apple*?!? The alleged king of good "intuitive" design?  
> Just
> how much acid *had* Jobs been dropping?

Yeah, I think it's generally considered bad form to give one button  
multiple uses.  A symbolic label would have helped here :)

-Steve