iOS 13 Beta Discussion Thread

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by rfog

Mouse support in iOS 13 is like a finger support. Extra mouse buttons can be mapped to extra functionality like simulate a home button press but not specifically a standard right click.

If you click and press in an area, it acts as in finger: long press or longer press to remove applications.

Said that, iOS 13 has a lot more long press custom menus that work with fingers as well.

The problem with Apple is they have no clue about how to create workable and usable accessibility features. I applaud their determination and desire to help, but they need to actually bring in some folks with accessibility issues and spend a lot of time watching them try to operate iOS devices. Then discuss with those people some possible solutions and use them to test those solutions. I have pretty bad arthritis in my hands, and I can tell you that Apple's multi-finger interface is a royal PITA to use, and so it selecting text. Some of those gestures are basically too painful or difficult to use. I find that working on a laptop is so much easier, faster, less painful, and hugely more productive when doing anything other than what I will call browsing and surfing types of iPhone/iPad operations. It is a friggin' joke to try to edit RAW images in Lightroom CC for iPad compared to how easy it is on my MBP. It is a lesson in frustration and futility to try to create a spreadsheet on an iOS device. Even simple editing of spreadsheets is a PITA. So if they want to compete with MS Surfaces, they better consider giving us full mouse capability.

One of the best things I encountered in my years in the software industry was when I worked for IBM. We had a very nice usability lab in which we brought in volunteers to test out our software. We put them in the lab and then observed them trying to complete certain tasks we asked them to do. No IBMers were in the room with them, but a bunch of us were sitting behind a one way mirror watching them and using a lot of remote operated cameras to observe them and their computers. We had a person who talked with them via an intercom to prod them with questions or answer their questions and we recorded everything in notes and video. Our usability lab folks were great. I got to sit in on these usability tests on occasion, I was amazed at how much we learned. The software and hardware developers could learn where issues were, and even the Publications people could learn where the documentation was lacking or too confusing or even incorrect. Hopefully Apple has a usability lab system, but if they do they certainly need to learn how to better use it. As the prices for iOS devices skyrocket, more customers are going to demand better usability rather than the standard Apple way of telling us what we want and need.

[rfog]

I think they do the same... with internal people only due secrecy.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by rfog

I think they do the same... with internal people only due secrecy.

If so, they are doing it wrong. For decades we had Jobs telling us what we wanted. He based that on business models rather than what we actually wanted. I see little difference today. Any usability testing they do either gets ignored or they just simply have no clue how to actually do those tests.

[rfog]

Originally Posted by OtinG

If so, they are doing it wrong. For decades we had Jobs telling us what we wanted. He based that on business models rather than what we actually wanted. I see little difference today. Any usability testing they do either gets ignored or they just simply have no clue how to actually do those tests.

I know, I know. But they are learning. Slow and painfully but learning.

[purplepeacock186]

Originally Posted by OtinG

This article named "iOS 13 Will Let You Silence Unknown Callers to Help Combat Pesky Calls" is good news. (Title says it all...)



It is about friggin' time we got this!

This is really good since most spam calls never leave messages. With the elections returning next year, that might change though. I currently have a Contact named "Ignore" which has hundreds of numbers from unwanted callers. I then blocked "Ignore" from receiving calls therein. I also assigned a faint chime as the default call ring for any unknown callers. If this new feature actually works, I can get rid of most of the "Ignore" contact's numbers. However, I do think I'll keep that blocked contact as a place to put repeat offenders numbers.

Well, I think this might be very useful for us, or at least for me. The feature will make us avoid picking up those annoying calls. I personally still get 2-3 daily calls from those spammers. I usually look up the numbers on some online complain board websites like http://whycall.me. I never answer those calls, but the ringings really annoy me. I think this feature will be quite helpful.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by OtinG

If so, they are doing it wrong. For decades we had Jobs telling us what we wanted. He based that on business models rather than what we actually wanted. I see little difference today. Any usability testing they do either gets ignored or they just simply have no clue how to actually do those tests.

I think your complaint is more that Apple doesn't do things the way you think they should be done, rather than they don't do usability testing. They have had extensive usability test labs for a long time. Different people have different ideas on how they think things should work and what works best.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I think your complaint is more that Apple doesn't do things the way you think they should be done, rather than they don't do usability testing. They have had extensive usability test labs for a long time. Different people have different ideas on how they think things should work and what works best.

And I respectfully disagree...

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by OtinG

And I respectfully disagree...

You disagree that they have usability labs and have had them for a long time?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You disagree that they have usability labs and have had them for a long time?

No I disagree with the highly opinionated first part of your statement. I have no problem believing Apple has usability labs, however I don't think they use them to the full potential. Or perhaps management overrules them and goes with whatever thing they want, which probably happened a lot with Jobs. He had a good business sense, but a lousy understanding of usability.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by OtinG

No I disagree with the highly opinionated first part of your statement. I have no problem believing Apple has usability labs, however I don't think they use them to the full potential. Or perhaps management overrules them and goes with whatever thing they want, which probably happened a lot with Jobs. He had a good business sense, but a lousy understanding of usability.

Well, it sure sounds to me like your gripe is that Apple doesn't do things the way you personally think they should.

Apple has been doing UI testing and had usability labs for a long, long time. Since you don't like the way they do things, you hypothesize that it must be because Jobs overruled the usability labs for business reasons. So, unless you actually have some sort of evidence that Jobs did overrule the usability labs for business reasons, the most likely explanation is that the Apple UI is the way it is because of the usability test and it's just not the way you would have done it.

For what it's worth, a lot of the Apple UI dates back to the early days of the Mac, I recently threw away an Apple UI guide from 1990, back when I first started programming Macs. Much of it was still applicable. The design decision to go with a one button mouse drives a lot of the UI decisions.

That's ok. There are a number of aspects of the Apple UI that I would change myself, but a lot of that is that I've gotten use to doing it one way, and want to keep doing it that way.

[tomsem]

Voice Control is something of a game changer for accessibility (and on macOS as well). That’s probably the biggest change, but there are probably dozens of other enhancements to previously existing accessibility features. It has its own Settings category where before it was buried in General Settings.

SwiftUI will make it much easier for app developers to make their apps accessible.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Well, it sure sounds to me like your gripe is that Apple doesn't do things the way you personally think they should.

Apple has been doing UI testing and had usability labs for a long, long time. Since you don't like the way they do things, you hypothesize that it must be because Jobs overruled the usability labs for business reasons. So, unless you actually have some sort of evidence that Jobs did overrule the usability labs for business reasons, the most likely explanation is that the Apple UI is the way it is because of the usability test and it's just not the way you would have done it.

For what it's worth, a lot of the Apple UI dates back to the early days of the Mac, I recently threw away an Apple UI guide from 1990, back when I first started programming Macs. Much of it was still applicable. The design decision to go with a one button mouse drives a lot of the UI decisions.

That's ok. There are a number of aspects of the Apple UI that I would change myself, but a lot of that is that I've gotten use to doing it one way, and want to keep doing it that way.

I'm not going to keep arguing with you. We both have our opinions, and in this case they vary greatly. My actual gripe is that Apple's user interface for iOS often fails to work appropriately and/or efficiently, and it leaves a lot to be desired as far as accessibility goes. I'm not discussing Mac UI here, so I'm not sure why you are discussing that. This thread is to cover iOS 13 Beta and related discussions, not Mac OS X. FWIW, I really don't have much issue with the Mac user interface, other than a few nit picks here and there.

[rfog]

I need to agree that iOS interface is not as usable as it used to be. Too many options and too many ways to do things that are not natural as they used to be.

For example the new Playing "tab" like in Apple Music Application. It cost me a lot to discover how to maximize it and so and then I forgot and start touching here and there until I remember. Or the tiny "back" button in the top left corner, or the new two press power button to do things. It is the f*cking power button!!!!! And so and so and so and so...

In old times, you see an iPhone interface and you knew hot to use it intuitively. Not anymore.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I'm not going to keep arguing with you. We both have our opinions, and in this case they vary greatly. My actual gripe is that Apple's user interface for iOS often fails to work appropriately and/or efficiently, and it leaves a lot to be desired as far as accessibility goes. I'm not discussing Mac UI here, so I'm not sure why you are discussing that. This thread is to cover iOS 13 Beta and related discussions, not Mac OS X. FWIW, I really don't have much issue with the Mac user interface, other than a few nit picks here and there.

I discuss it because it shows how far back Apple's UI lab goes. I would be pretty surprised if many here have actually used or seen the iOS 13 Beta other than through news stories. Apple explicitly say to wait for the public Beta unless you are actively developing towards it. Personally, I'm waiting for the public beta even though I have plenty of devices that I can put it on. Pretty hard to accurately discuss something you haven't actively used.


As far as how good the current iPhone/iPad UI is goes, I think it's a lot more intuitive than you think. My 89 year old father who was totally computer illiterate was able to learn how to use his iPad and iPhone while he was never able to figure out how to use the Android phone that he had for a couple of years. That's pretty good.

[OtinG]

Just a very few examples out of dozens:

Placing a cursor within text to make an edit. Tap the screen where you want to insert a cursor position. Quite often if it does insert a cursor, major fail, and more often it will not be where you wanted it. So now you have to either long press on the cursor, which often doesn't work, or long press on Space Bar, which is anything but intuitive. Then finally make your edit.

Selecting text with a finger. Select text by first long pressing the screen where the word is located. Repeat as necessary because it may or may not work. Now drag one or both of the dots to expand the selection. But wait, if you slightly go up hill of down hill the darn selection takes off at light speed and you wind up with several lines of text being selected, and you only wanted to select a few words on one line.

Selecting one or more words of text and replacing them with a paste operation. Repeat the steps above to select the text you want to replace with the paste operation. If the keyboard is not actively displayed, then you get a popup menu with the Copy, Look Up, and Share options. "Where TH is the Paste option?", you ask! Now you have to tap the darn screen to display the keyboard, and the result is you just unselected your text. Now you have to long press on the screen to bring up a popup menu with the Select, Select All, Paste, and Insert Drawing options. Select the Select option, drag one or both of the dots to expand the selection, and hope your old finger is stable enough not to cause the selection point to shoot upwards or downwards at warp speed. If successful, you get another popup menu this time with Cut, Copy, Paste, BIU, and Look Up options. Tap the Paste option. Wow, I could have cooked supper in that amount of time! WTH!!!!

And when you are in certain apps or visiting certain websites, the insertion point can be right below some text formatting options like Bold, Italics, etc. For example, this web forum via Safari. If the selected text is too close to the web page's formatting options, then the popup menu blocks your ability to choose those formatting option. So now you have to deselect the text and enter unwanted line breaks to move the text down a few lines, reselect and apply formatting, then remove the extra lines.

I could keep going for hours. The old saying "I didn't think this all the way through" comes to mind where it appears that Apple programmers and designers fail to think all the way through the UI. It often looks and feels like a hodge podge of steps cobbled together just to make it work.

BTW, try out the Kindle app in iOS. Want to select a passage of text? Just press the first word and drag your finger. Simple as that! Then you get a usable popup menu and quickly move on with reading. Apple should really look at how some of the app developers have made editing much easier than Apple has.

And one more thing, all the clunky editing garbage make an app like Numbers nearly impossible to use on an iPad/iPhone, at least as far as creating and editing spreadsheet. You could design the Space Shuttle in less time. Okay slight exaggeration, but it is extremely tedious using an iOS device compared to a Mac.