App Developer Who Hates iOS 7 Points Out A Big Design Crime Apple Committed

[Youbetternot]

You know you did something bad when a app developer tells you your software is shit. App developer Jared Sinclair loves apple, but he hates iOS7.

Good picture by Lyons

App developer Jared Sinclair loves Apple, but he really does not like its new operating system, iOS 7. He finds parts of its design "unjustifiable." Sinclair has worked on apps like Whisper and Riposte.

As Sinclair rightfully points out, the only way for a touch screen work well is to make it completely obvious which parts of the screen you're supposed to touch.

 

 Jared Sinclair, "Color alone simply cannot be the way to identify a button. You don’t touch a color. You touch an area," Sinclair writes. "To activate a button, you must touch a spot inside of its boundary. Text floating in the middle of vast whitespace doesn’t define a boundary. Only borders define boundaries." 

source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/app-developer-hates-ios-7-135500622.html

[megadarkwood]

Damn, son!

[naca1227]

I think he's being difficult for the sake of being difficult

[stevv]

I don't see the problem for power users.  I have used iOS7 briefly and didn't notice that it "wasn't a button".  This does make icon design more important.  

 

Problem with no button border is also lack of visual indicator that button is depressed if finger blocks icon.  Even more frustrating when lag or delay present.  Though this can be resolved in different ways.

 

Time to enter the "floating text" world.  MS is also doing that too....  

[Poofu]

i've been using ios 7 for a while now and im having no problems with pressing a button tis is is just wining because he couldn't have it the way he wanted

[MzCatieB]

my partner is moving to Android because of IOS7 

[Ultimate_PIMP]

What an idiot.

ios7 is obviously better than ios6.

 

I think he's being difficult for the sake of being difficult

 

^

[EricX2]

OK, he says you cannot tell where the buttons are because there are no borders? If that is true how do text hyperlinks work? They are text with no defined border that we still figure out how to click. Most humans have the ability to distinguish things based on various criteria. Color is in fact one of those criteria we can distinguish.

[Torand]

Not trying to start a flame war or anything here, but can't you apply his logic to the soft key's in android? Like the Nexus for example?

 

Windows phone I think has the ring's 'borders' around the buttons.

 

 

 

Borders are really not necessary. If there is an icon, you click it. Like said above, hyperlinks. They are a prime example of where the user has been taught to click things that are of a contrasting or relevant colour and conform to a general teaching and structure of fundamental principals devised and put into practice on how to interface with our devices.

 

A UI can me as conformed and strategically laid out as much as you like. But if it doesn't make clear sense, if someone who hasn't used that software or a mobile device before cannot use that device, for even simple functionality, then the UI has failed its intended purpose and therefor is useless.

 

I can say, with no bias, that my Mum gets on really well with her HTC One Mini (technologically impaired as she is), My grandparents love their iPads (my granddad being a programmer and loving technology) and neither have problems with the UI on either OS. They are designed correctly and with common sense, intuition and instinct. Backed with research, to make a device that is easy and intuitive to use so they will sell well to the general public/end consumer and fullfill their intended purpose efficiently and, possibly, creatively. 

 

You may bitch and whine about the UI on paper, but the simple fact is it works. It fills it's intended usage and presents well, arguably in terms of colour scheme in iOS 7, although I like its non-skeuomorphism design, (it could have better icons for a start, which I will be doing once a jailbreak is released) it was still a successful design and implementation from a usage standpoint. It certainly has it's flaws as with all OS's, but of all of them, this really seems to be irrelevant. 

[Kirihuna]

The ONLY problem I would see with this is if the button were TOO CLOSE together.

 

But even then, the screen is great on picking up what you meant to hit. My thumb hits like two or three keys sometimes, still picks up the right key.

[LAwLz]

Wow why are people so defensive? He has a point, buttons with boarders are a far better indicator of where you can and can't touch. The example in the OP is kind of bad, and here is a better one:

How do we know that “John” and “Appleseed” are editable? They’re not blue. They’re black, borderless, and floating some inscrutable distance from one another and from the other elements above and below them. How do we know that they are separate text fields, and not one big multiline text view? Is “Company” editable? If so, where does it’s tappable region end and the “add phone” area begin? Likewise, what about the empty region between “add phone” and “add email”? Are the cell separator lines defining a tappable boundary around the “add email” row? You’d be forgiven for assuming so, since those lines create the impression of a tall tappable row, but you’d be wrong.
I imagine that folks might argue that web page links are examples of buttons made solely from colored text. Aren’t people already familiar enough with links on the web that using the same paradigm on iOS is a simple change?

I agree. Can you see which parts are clickable just by looking at this image? I can't. He is not saying that becomes hard to hit buttons like some people here seem to think, he is saying it is hard to see which parts are interactive and which aren't.

[Langdon]

Is this really a problem? It probably only bothers people with OCD.

[Torand]

Wow why are people so defensive? He has a point, buttons with boarders are a far better indicator of where you can and can't touch. The example in the OP is kind of bad, and here is a better one:

I agree. Can you see which parts are clickable just by looking at this image? I can't. He is not saying that becomes hard to hit buttons like some people here seem to think, he is saying it is hard to see which parts are interactive and which aren't.

 

Valid point.

 

I'm not trying to be defensive. It just seemed nit picky, more wanting attention.

 

I'm just strong in my opinion, tis' all.

[Yoinkerman]

It's really poor development.  Like the god awful search functionality in windows 8.

 

Is this really a problem? It probably only bothers people with OCD.

[atrash]

LAwLz, on 28 Oct 2013 - 02:49 AM, said:

Wow why are people so defensive? He has a point, buttons with boarders are a far better indicator of where you can and can't touch. The example in the OP is kind of bad, and here is a better one:

I agree. Can you see which parts are clickable just by looking at this image? I can't. He is not saying that becomes hard to hit buttons like some people here seem to think, he is saying it is hard to see which parts are interactive and which aren't.

 

That image there looks just like my WP8 contact profile. Haha

[stevv]

That image there looks just like my WP8 contact profile. Haha

 

Looks like Jony ran out of ideas... 

[HaZardousLP]

I don't like iOS 7 but this isn't the reason for it... What about the increased battery drain, Android-esque design etc?

[Lyons]

I was using my girlfriend's iPhone 5 the other day which runs iOS7, and coming from someone who uses Paranoid Android on a GS3, iOS7 is an absolute design mess. There is no design consistency throughout the OS and apps, and the overall operation is hindered by poorly placed buttons. It's like they chucked the iOS6 design with WP and Android in a blender and this thing got shat out. Jony Ive is a master of industrial design, but his first go at GUI design is a huge fuck up.

 

- Some icons are flat, some are gradiented, some are glossy, some are round, some are square.

 

- It lacks indicative features that let you know which text fields are editable (as seen above)

 

- text is a mismatch of sizes and weight

 

- the animations are slow and unnecessary

 

- the excessive use of white backgrounds uses a lot of battery and strains the eyes more

 

- some APPLE MADE apps still have the iOS<6 skuemorphic design

 

- some apps are completely flat, others are filled with gradients

 

- transparency on the home screen/status drawer/settings switcher/other app elements conflicts with the flat design

 

- keyboard has no visual representation of prediction of selectable corrections, just changes your word

 

- back button in apps is the top left corner, the furthest reach for your thumb

 

- can't select default apps like Chrome for the browser and Google Maps for mapping, both of which A LOT of people use

 

- no way to tell were an app is if it's on the second page of a folder

 

Quick pic to try to demonstrate some silly design elements:

 

 

Edit, A Verge video on iOS7:

 

 

It summarises iOS7 fairly well, and points out some of the issues I wrote about. Warning; buzzwords ahoy.

 

Edit 2:

 

The phone STILL uses Yahoo search for Siri and Safari and as far as I know you can't change it. Fucking useless.

[jrfox87]

The phone STILL uses Yahoo search for Siri and Safari and as far as I know you can't change it. Fucking useless.

Actually by default Siri seems to use Bing, although you can tell it to specifically use Google or Yahoo instead. Safari by default uses Google for searches, just as it always has, and there is also an option in settings to change that to Bing or Yahoo instead.

[Lyons]

Actually by default Siri seems to use Bing, although you can tell it to specifically use Google or Yahoo instead. Safari by default uses Google for searches, just as it always has, and there is also an option in settings to change that to Bing or Yahoo instead.

 

Maybe in Canada, but on Australian iPhones it defaults to Yahoo. They really need to work on Siri, Google Now is far better and hasn't even been around as long.

[LifesCompanion]

eh he's being a little bitch IMO 

(Not that I've had time to use iOS7 - I'm an Android lover) 

[jrfox87]

Maybe in Canada, but on Australian iPhones it defaults to Yahoo. They really need to work on Siri, Google Now is far better and hasn't even been around as long.

Is Siri also more limited in Australia than here in North America?

Google Now will likely always have an edge over Siri because it's so much more than just a voice command system.