Apple Event on 15 September 2020 Announcements

[John F]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I think only widgets updated for iOS 14 or iPadOS 14 can go on top of the widget area. I’ve not been able to get older pre-14 widgets to go on top. They seem to be relegated to the bottom. I guess it is an Apple thing. I have gotten a weather app widget updated for iOS 14 to go on top though. That app is Weather Radar and definitely not an Apple app. See attached screen capture. The pre-14 widget for Kasa app can’t be moved to the top though.

....

Who makes Weather Radar? Searching the app store, I don't see an app called Weather Radar; I do see a lot of similarly named apps.

Could you provide a screen capture for IOS of the Today screen with the widget on top? (I gave this screen the wrong name previously).

Thanks for the help.

[John F]

Originally Posted by OtinG

That is another Apple thing. Why leave something alone that works when we can add steps and annoy customers. I noticed that they added steps in some of their apps. I hate that. It isn’t like the extra steps add more features or options. They have a real usability design deficiency in that company! Makes me want to roll up a newspaper and smack Tim Apple on the nose and yell, “Stop that!”

And don't get me started on I just want to use the phone. I just updated for my elderly mother, and now I have to put up with this delayed crap of "setup Siri", "setup wallet", ...
Popping up when she goes to use the phone and confusing her.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by John F

So I go to use Apple pay, and they've changed the interaction. The screen comes up with a little animation and text that says double tap (or maybe it was double click) towards the right side of the screen. I'm double tapping away on the screen, all over the place, and nothing is happening. I'm start to put my phone away, and the bagger tells me I need to double press the power button.

Ugh, yes. Oftentimes, they can be quite vague.

At least iOS isn’t as plain and flat as it used to be after the iOS 7 modern UI. Figuring out what’s “clickable” and what’s not was a major pain.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by John F

Who makes Weather Radar? Searching the app store, I don't see an app called Weather Radar; I do see a lot of similarly named apps.

Could you provide a screen capture for IOS of the Today screen with the widget on top? (I gave this screen the wrong name previously).

Thanks for the help.

I think it is made by NOAA, the US gov’t agency. I’ve had that app on my iPads for years but never put it on my iPhone XR. I searched for it and found a couple apps, one claiming to be a widget. See attached. I installed both on my iPhone XR, but no widget seems to be available for either. A widget was available for the app on my iPad though. So maybe they are only supporting the iPad with their widget. Or maybe there is an iOS 14 bug. It is the NOAA app that says widget. See attached screen captures. Once downloaded you have to run the app once before the widget will appear. After running the app, I was able to load the widget and place it on top of the Today Screen, see attached screen capture.

The problem with weather apps is that many of them used to be free but have now gone Pro which means you have to pay now for the features. And I’ve got two Pro WX apps that stopped supporting some of their features opting to make us pay extra for those now as add-ons. Seems to me that if I paid for those features I should still get them. That is the old bait switch routine. I wish Apple would get on their case about that, but they don’t seem to care...

...

[John F]

So to sum it up, for iOS, there is no way to get a non-Apple widget to the top of the today screen if there is an Apple widget on the today screen.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by John F

So to sum it up, for iOS, there is no way to get a non-Apple widget to the top of the today screen if there is an Apple widget on the today screen.

See my updated post above. I changed what I originally wrote after doing more testing. I did get the non-Apple wx widget on top. But I think that is a newly updated widget for iOS 14. I think pre-14 widgets might not be placeable on top though. They can’t be placed on top in iPadOS 14. It has nothing to do with being an Apple widget, it has to be upated especially for iOS 14.

[OtinG]

Here is another screen capture clearly showing a non-Apple widget from the NOAA Weather Radar app above an Apple widget (News).

[John F]

My confusion between old and new widgets... There is a plus sign at the top left, that is for the new widgets. There is a "Customize" at the bottom, this is for the old widgets.

If you want the weather widget OtinG is referring to, it is called "Weather Widget", subtitle "NOAA Radar Hurricane Tracker" and "Impala Studios".

Other new non-Apple widgets (on my phone): Sound Hound, Citymapper.

[OtinG]

Apple made the widgets way more confusing than they should have. My guess is they were afraid mostly 3rd party, pre-iOS 14 widgets would be available at the time of release, so they wanted to provide a way to keep them on the Today View screen. Had they not done that, many customers would have screamed about all their 3rd party, pre-iOS 14 widgets having disappeared. It could have caused another class action lawsuit. So the morons at Apple came up with a typically kluge, confusing method to keep them.

I'm appalled that iOS and iPadOS, both of which should be intuitive and simple, have become so complicated and kluge that one has to spend hours after each new major release to research how to use it, and still we never come to a complete understanding of these OSes. A browse through the many forums wherein iOS and iPadOS are being discussed quickly reveals the huge amount of confusion among customers. "Is this a bug or is it the way they designed it" is a very common question.

[pwalker8]

As was pointed out long ago, with Apple things are either very easy, or almost impossible. Apple has a certain design philosophy and that's how they expect you to do things. Stinks if you prefer to do things differently, but it's not because iOS and iPadOS are not intuitive and simple, they do a lot of UI testing to make it intuitive and simple for the target audience, it's because you just want to do things a different way.

I've expressed my opinion about how Apple handles 3rd party (i.e. audible) audiobooks, but the way they handle audiobooks purchased from Apple is pretty nice. The issue isn't that the UI stinks, it's that Apple is pushing everything to iCloud. As long as you have internet connectivity and do things the Apple way, things work well. They are moving away from syncing things with your desktop because you are suppose to sync with iCloud. But you can't sync 3rd party audiobooks with iCloud. I suppose I should be glad they left a bare bones way of syncing 3rd party audiobooks via the desktop.

IOS 14 has a pretty good update for carplay.

[John F]

I guess, but I have to wonder...

For example, all the different Siri animation from version to version is really cool, and I guess they did a lot of testing. But whenever I go to pick it up and use Siri, I can't see the cool Siri animation at the bottom; I pick up the phone from the cradle, my hand covers the bottom of the screen.

[OtinG]

I disagree with the idea that Apple does extensive usability testing. There is no way anyone will ever convince me that the majority of iOS and iPadOS users think those OSes are simple to use because they are not. They have multiple ways of accomplishing tasks, are not very consistent, have an interface that is terribly glitchy to the touch, and more forums filled with pissed off and confused users than you can shake a stick at. It is a mess and it is getting worse.

Have you tried creating a stacked widget yet? If so, did you get tired of chasing the stack all over the damn screen in an attempt to drop another widget into it? I sure as hell did. And there are multitudes of other UI issues as well. Do you get frustrated that sometimes you have to swipe left to be able to delete an item, but other times you can do a long press and chose Delete? I do. iOS and iPadOS are like trying to learn a gillion secret handshakes. Simple my [alternate term for donkey]!

[leebase]

"Easy to use" is in the eye of the beholder, of course. What's the difficulty with audible books? There's an audible app. It doesn't sync with iCloud, but it syncs with Amazon's services. Whether I'm listening on an iPhone or an Android table, the Audbile app does well.

One thing that doesn't, for unknown reasons, is Alexa. If I listen to an audible book via Alexa, the rest of my devices don't sync.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I disagree with the idea that Apple does extensive usability testing. There is no way anyone will ever convince me that the majority of iOS and iPadOS users think those OSes are simple to use because they are not. They have multiple ways of accomplishing tasks, are not very consistent, have an interface that is terribly glitchy to the touch, and more forums filled with pissed off and confused users than you can shake a stick at. It is a mess and it is getting worse.

Have you tried creating a stacked widget yet? If so, did you get tired of chasing the stack all over the damn screen in an attempt to drop another widget into it? I sure as hell did. And there are multitudes of other UI issues as well. Do you get frustrated that sometimes you have to swipe left to be able to delete an item, but other times you can do a long press and chose Delete? I do. iOS and iPadOS are like trying to learn a gillion secret handshakes. Simple my [alternate term for donkey]!

Oh, come now. Apple has an extensive UI lab. Apple does a lot of user testing. That's a documented fact. You might not like how it works, but that doesn't imply it wasn't tested. IOS 14, like most of the previous IOS releases, went through one of most extensive beta programs in the world.

Yes, I understand you don't like how stacked widgets works. I don't use stacked widgets so I don't care one way or the other. I'm just saying that claiming it wasn't tested is rather obviously not true.

[John F]

So I went to look at my calendar today, and it has changed also. I guess they didn't catch it in their last "usability testing".