
Steve Jobs wanted the original iPhone to have a back button a'la Android - BishopD
http://bgr.com/2017/06/19/iphone-history-steve-jobs-home-button/
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1123581321
Interesting point that lack of back button contributes to iOS apps being
better. I realize there are many reasons why that's the case, but I certainly
have not had to extricate myself from sub-menus to the extent I have in
(highly-rated!) Play store apps.

I went from iOS to Android and back again and really miss the back button, but
I'm finding myself mostly wanting to use it to close apps, which of course the
home button does. It would be nice to have a software accessibility back
button to float in the bottom right of the screen similar to the accessibility
home button that would close open menus etc before exiting if possible.

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w33ble
Swiping right from the left edge is the defacto way to go back on iOS. I
realize not all apps implement it, but the good ones seem to. It's the thing I
miss most every time I use Android, especially in the browser. Having to reach
all the way down to that back button is more work, and its harder to do with
one hand.

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erikpukinskis
I think Apple made the right call here for novice users. The back button on
Android is useful, but it's very mysterious. You use it by kind of mashing it
and hoping it does what you want, and then finding another route if that
doesn't work. That's fine for power users, but it really adds stress for
novice users. Novice users tend to have low lying fear that they will mess
something up, and they need to understand things before they do them. Back
button can never be understood, even by advanced users, because every app
implements it differently.

There's nothing preventing every app on iOS from implementing a back button,
but they have to label it, and it has to stay in-app. This forces power users
to do the work to navigate around app boundaries, which can feel clunky, but
it makes the interaction model much more compressible so it fits in more
brains.

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pawadu
The back button on Android takes you back [1]. How can that confuse you?

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[1] unless the developer has intentionally broken this convention, in which
case I suggest you uninstall the app immediately.

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thomastjeffery
> The back button ... takes you back. How can that confuse you?

Because "back" is ambiguous, and changes meaning often. It's also _never_
explicitly defined.

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pawadu
You go from X to Y. Then you go back.

How can that be ambiguous?

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thomastjeffery
Where did you come from?

