
The Burden of iOS - mthwl
http://thew.me/writing/the-burden-of-ios
======
frogpelt
With no offense intended to the author, this post is 500 words of
unsubstantiated generalities. Not that it's terribly written. It's just looks
more like a preface to an article that contains the actual substance.

The author makes this statement: "...that focus on instruction...has become
something of a burden. iOS is pinned down by its early interface decisions..."
and doesn't offer one example to back up the claim.

We've heard the 'Apple design is too skeuomorphic' for years now and I just
don't see how writing another generic article about it is noteworthy enough to
make it the top of HN.

Yet, here I am commenting on it.

 _EDIT:_ And another thing! If Apple changed their design philosophy to a less
skeuomorphic, more trendy, metro, flat style they would simply be accused of
copying Google and Microsoft. Lose, lose.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
You're witnessing the evolution of a group-think! It starts off innocently
enough, with people stating their opinion on various things, then a couple of
opinions become common and coalesce into one, until it is "reality". Then
others build off of that truth and the process repeats itself until we have a
complete narrative about something that is built upon nothing more than a
series of speculative opinions. The internet and social networking in
particular are big drivers of group-think; how can you possibly have an
opposing opinion when the most retweeted bloggers have established a narrative
that contradicts your own?

Here's a speculative opinion of my own that goes against well-established
facts as presented in this article: Apple does skeumorphic because Steve Jobs
liked it. And when given a choice between designs, he favored the more
skeumorphic ones. Designers noticed this and went into that direction. The
design community, being overwhelmingly Apple fans, but also liking the flat
trend, needed to create a narrative for when Apple was behind the times in
design, hence this article.

~~~
yardie
I truly believe there is some sort of industrial designer's cabal that decides
what color schemes will be used that year. Just by looking at the devices in
my home I know which year they were designed based on the bezel alone. 2002:
white, 2005: gunmetal, 2006-7: piano black, 2009: flat black.

Even in computer GUI design we from the early OSX, XP Luna, candyland overdose
to the extremely understated ICS and Windows 8 2D rectangles. I'm not a far of
the flat trend but I'm not that hung up on skeumorphisms either. And I still
don't understand how Mathias Duarte went from the truly, awesome interface in
WebOS to this bland design in Holo. Put them next to each other and you wonder
if he was just phoning it in when he got to Google.

------
thomholwerda
The author has clearly never seen a PalmOS device. Outdated now, sure, but
they were a massive hit, and everyone - still - knows the platform. Put in its
correct perspective - i.e., computers were less ubiquitous during its heyday -
the Palm Pilot and its successors were a massive hit. It's a clear case of
revisionist history to say that the iPhone is the "first comprehensively
successful attempt to create a mass-market, consumer-friendly, always-on,
pocketable touch screen computer".

~~~
dpark
> _Put in its correct perspective - i.e., computers were less ubiquitous
> during its heyday_

Now this is some historical revisionism. Palm's "heyday" was the late 1990s
through the early 2000s. Computers were already extremely ubiquitous at that
time. Laptops weren't quite as common, but the dream of "a computer on every
desk and in every home" had long-since been achieved in developed nations.

> _the Palm Pilot and its successors were a massive hit._

Relative to what came before it, but not what came after. Palm's PDAs were
very much still a niche market when smartphones came along and made them
irrelevant. In 2003-2004, PDAs (across all brands) sold about 2.6 million
units[1]. This was probably the peak, but I can't confirm that. Three years
later the iPhone launched and Apple sold 6.1 million units of the 1st
generation[2]. Just last _quarter_ they sold 47.8 million iPhones[3].

> _It's a clear case of revisionist history to say that the iPhone is the
> "first comprehensively successful attempt to create a mass-market, consumer-
> friendly, always-on, pocketable touch screen computer"._

No, it's clear that the iPhone's sales absolutely dwarf those of Palm.
Relatively speaking, Palm was not a "successful attempt to create a mass-
market ... touch screen computer". Even current BlackBerry sales absolutely
dwarf Palm's best-ever sales rates[4].

[1] <http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9004592>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(original)>

[3] [http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/01/23Apple-Reports-
Reco...](http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/01/23Apple-Reports-Record-
Results.html)

[4] [http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/research-in-
motion-r...](http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/research-in-motion-
reports-year-end-and-fourth-quarter-results-for-fiscal-2012-nasdaq-
rimm-1638090.htm)

------
saturdaysaint
I really hope this is the year we realize that debating about skeutomorphism
is a waste of time. Whatever its merits, I'd like to hear about a single case
where an anti-skeutomorphic design was elemental in disrupting a market
leader. I've been using a prime example, Ableton Live, for the better part of
a decade, and while it's done well, it hasn't exactly left highly
skeutomorphic competitors like Reason in the dust or enabled stunning
usability breakthroughs. If skeutomorphism is not actually that important in
the market, then let's just acknowledge that we're talking about personal
taste more than anything.

~~~
malandrew
Relevant:
[http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=506636+517178+/...](http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=506636+517178+/usr/local/www/db/text/1999/freebsd-
hackers/19991003.freebsd-hackers)

------
blueprint
It would be great if this article provided some examples of outdated UI
elements so that we can have a discussion of alternatives.

The camera UI, for example, has been updated in iOS 6. Holdovers from years
ago might include the UINavigationBars and the status bar but they've also
been subtly updated and themselves don't seem too outdated. Any good examples?

------
mthwl
Author here. Thanks for the feedback.

I didn't intend this to be a comprehensive argument, just wanted to draw some
connection between the environment that iOS launched into and (what feels
like) a lot of recent criticism of its design and behavior. Not specifically
skuemorphism (which I realize isn't really worth debating in a vacuum, maybe I
shouldn't even have used that word), but just instructive design in general
(single-screen apps, limits on configurability, etc). Anything that can be
seen as prioritizing teaching the user through interface decisions.

And, I completely agree that the market for new smartphone users is still
huge. Point being that iOS now has to manage that market alongside the market
for existing smartphones users (which it help create/grow).

That said, probably should have included some specific examples of what I was
talking about.

Thanks again.

------
gdubs
My dad is a baby boomer, and hasn't touched a computer for over fifteen years.
I just sent my parents my old iPhone and he hasn't put it down. Within an hour
of unboxing it, he was facetiming, looking stuff up online, listening to
podcasts... There are still a _lot_ of new users out there.

------
cvursache
It's an interesting claim to say that iOS has aged poorly. I tend to agree
that the use of skeumorphic design does make the standard apps look a bit out-
of-date, but is that really a problem? How many powerusers are really bothered
by this? If you don't like the Podcast app, just get Downcast. If you don't
like Calendar, just get Fantastical. And using your claim that skeumorphism
helps smartphone newcomers adopt the platform more easily, isn't the current
situation a sort of a win-win for the iOS ecosystem? Newcomers get an easy
entry and more versatile users can enjoy the great results of third-party
developers.

~~~
lucian1900
It would be much less of a problem if iOS allowed one to actually replace
stock apps with new ones. There's no way to make GMail my default mail app,
Chrome my default browser, etc.

Lack of intents is also a serious problem, apps have to specifically support
sharing to each source.

A related issue is the lack of system accounts. One has to log in to each app
separately, even if many of them use the same account.

~~~
richardwhiuk
On the other hand Android allows nonsensical sharing options - there's no way
to launch the email app, you have launch a ACTION_SEND_MULTIPLE which will
launch Skype, or GMail or Mail or various IM apps.

~~~
ConstantineXVI
And why should the developer have to care if I want to send something via
Gmail, Skype, or carrier pigeon? As long as Android abstracts the data
properly within the Intent, the target app should be irrelevant.

~~~
jsight
That's true, but the Android approach for accomplishing it is kind of
horrible. For one, far too many apps respond to message types that don't
really make sense to me. I don't know that this problem is avoidable with
freedom, but the lists of available apps for any particular action are often
long and very confusing.

I have witnessed this confusion with users, and it really hurts the platform
in a lot of cases, IMO.

I can select one to be the default "always", but this doesn't work well
either. If there are five applications that can receive a particular intent,
my selection of "always" will be lost every single time that ANY of those five
applications are updated. So, in practice, my "Always" selection typically
only lasts a couple of weeks.

There HAS to be a better way.

------
auggierose
There are two arguments in this article: 1) skeumorphic design, 2) does teach
the user how to use the hardware

Both 1) and 2) are pretty OK in my opinion.

------
austinl
This blog post should be titled "Skeumorphism is Holding Back iOS UI". At
least that way readers could see the clear lack of evidence.

There may be a growing anti-skeumorphic trend on the Internet, but I could
reasonably imagine most iPhone users either being okay with skeumorphism, or
frankly, not caring at all.

~~~
dean
Agree. Most iPhone users don't care at all. This non-issue sounds to me like a
designer who has gotten tired of the look of iOS. Which is fine, but don't
make it sound like a technical issue with the platform.

------
roc
The author's big miss, IMO, is discarding the number of design choices that
may appear to be aimed at helping new users, but also simplify mobile use-
cases (big tap targets, one clear way to get from A to B) and prevent the
accumulation of detritus and the effects user self-sabotage, that tend to
accumulate on PCs and Android devices.

iOS remaining large problems (no 'services', no way to change defaults,
awkward inter-app workflows) are unrelated to 'teachability' of the core
interface, as they're almost all concerns that only crop up for power-users or
normal users who are months or years into their new device.

And they're solvable even if Apple clings to the big candy-like buttons, no
widgets, skeumorphic app design, etc. So that bit is neither here nor there.

------
fleitz
There's nothing wrong with skeuomorphism when it informs the user, the problem
is when the skeuomorphism imposes limitations and lack of clarity.

For example, on iOS the dialer is fine, the podcast app sucks.

------
nextstep
How is iOS less modern than it's competitors? This article lacked examples.

