

The iPhone is the worst... - GICodeWarrior
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/10/22/the-iphone-is-the-worst/

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w1ntermute
_iOS notifications are as disruptive as notifications on a mobile device can
possibly be. A box pops up in the middle of the display, interrupts whatever
might be taking place at the time, and prevents the user from doing anything
else with the device until one of two things happens — the user must either
interact with the notification (dismiss it or open the related app) or turn
the display off and back on._

I've never used an iPhone before, so I had no idea this was the case. This
seems like a fatal design flaw. How can you just interrupt the user like that?

Edit: after reading about it a little online, it appears that the iPhone
doesn't have an LED light that blinks when you have a SMS, email, missed call,
etc. - do you really have to turn on the screen just to see if there's
anything new?

~~~
AndrewDucker
I believe that notifications is one are where Android does it better.

You have a bar at the top (where the clock and signal strength is), and any
sms or emails or any other notifications appear at the top. You can then drag
this bar down to see more details, and selecting (for instance) the sms
notifications will then open the sms app.

~~~
w1ntermute
Yeah, I have an Android phone and love the notification system, which is why
I'm so astonished by the way iOS handles it. I frequently leave notifications
to be dealt with later, so the idea that you have to either deal with or
ignore a notification as soon as it's received seems absurd. Even my old Razr
showed a notification for new SMSes rather than requiring me to immediately
deal with it.

~~~
rimantas
For some applications you can configure notifications and turn
"sounds","alerts","badges" on or off. Messages does not have this config
option for some reason :(

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glhaynes
_Then, it’s ridiculous that there is no way to close an app without saving its
state. The iPhone is easily the worst when it comes to clutter in the app
manager, and the solution would be all too simple. How about a long-tap on the
home button to close an app, fellas?_

If you're worrying about "clutter in the app manager", you're using your
iPhone wrong.

~~~
ugh
A little pointer that might help people who are confused by the “app manager”
and think it’s cluttered: think of it as merely showing you the apps you
recently used because it’s just that. It’s not an app manager. Nobody would
complain about a cluttered “Recently used” list on a desktop OS.

~~~
tomerico
Almost correct. The main problem to me is that GPS apps still run in the
background when you close them, and they KILL the battery life. So every time
I want to exit my GPS, I have to close it, double tap, press and hold the icon
and close it.

~~~
ugh
I tend to think of this as a “bug” in the OS and I think that it’s very much
Apple’s task to come up with a solution. You shouldn’t have to do that.

~~~
glhaynes
Seems like perfect new rejection criteria: "Your app will be rejected if it
continues to use location services in the background without making the
battery life implications clear to the user and showing an option to easily
turn this function off."

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PCheese
_I also can’t add words, so the only way to get iOS to remember an unknown
word is to add it to the address book_

That is false, and this should be a good tip if you were unaware of the
technique. Just add the words in Settings : General : Keyboard : Edit User
Dictionary… No need to add them to the address book.

~~~
zacharye
That's only the case if you have certain international keyboards enabled,
which is why many people don't know about it and why it wasn't mentioned in
the article.

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thought_alarm
I disagree about YouTube; I love watching video on my iPad. I have no opinion
of widgets. And he's completely wrong about multitasking; as an iOS developer
and iOS user I think the iPhone's approach to multitasking is marvellous.

Other than that, it's all true (although, my mom seems to think that the
iPhone auto-correct is great).

I think everyone should own an iOS device. I think the iPhone generally
represents the highest-quality hardware and software that's currently
available and I often recommend it to people, but it still does not come close
to replacing my Blackberry as an email and messaging device, for exactly the
reasons he mentioned.

~~~
slantyyz
My personal view is that the three most interesting phone GUIs are iOS, WebOS
and Windows Thingamajiggy 7.

They take slightly different, yet opinionated approaches to the smartphone use
case. I'm probably going to get flamed for it, but Android's UI to me seems to
be lacking a concrete "design opinion", so to speak.

~~~
LordLandon
I'll _always_ take functionality over design. I don't care how many rounded
corners a notification has, but I do care about it not demanding my immediate
attention, and waiting in line like everything else.

If apple designed the most beautiful volume control menu that you've ever
seen, would you give it up for hardware volume buttons?

~~~
slantyyz
Not sure we're talking about the same thing. Don't hardware buttons require
design too?

I was probably unclear, but I meant design of the user experience, not
interface chrome.

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brown9-2
Can someone explain more about "iPuke"? I'm curious about this as a
prospective first-time iPhone owner.

~~~
tjarratt
I've used several iOS devices heavily in the past two years and I'm not even
certain what he's talking about. At no point have any of my devices become
unusable due to notifications. If you can create a scenario where a dozen or
more notifications pop up at once, and all vie for your attention, then you
have my admiration, because that would be an awful bug.

Unless you frequently schedule alarms to go off when your friends are going to
be SMSing you and create twitter notifications, and you miss several calls at
the same time, this is unlikely to be an issue.

I suppose there is a small chance that Apple's push notification servers could
bug out and delude your device with notifications, but everything I've read
and seen about their architecture (from the perspective of a 3rd party app
developer) indicates that this is designed to be impossible. Notifications
(because they are disruptive) should not be able to render your device
inoperable.

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geekam
I just can't seem to make up my mind. Android Vs iPhone Vs Palm

~~~
th0ma5
I'm not an authority but in my mind, Iphone == Wowness and simple magic,
Android == Open hacking and Google cloud, and Palm == getting things done with
a proven organizational tool.

Now all of those things you can probably do with each of the others, and I'm
sure one could dispute each as well, but advice is only good to pass along,
and not often of much practical use (perhaps, heh bastardized wilde quote)

~~~
Qz
Might want to update your mind, your information is outdated.

~~~
th0ma5
Okay, iPhone is hard to use from a IxD perspective? Android isn't really open?
BB is the new Pre? Advice sucks, in general, and so does making phone choices
for others! :D

