With regard to “why do I have to exit messages to scroll through a list of my contacts”: are you aware that you can start a new message and either start typing in the “To” field or tap the + button to bring up your list of contacts? Is there something else you’re looking for?
I agree with your general point on the increasing lack of discoverability, but this feature, in fairness to Apple, is "hidden" behind basically the only graphical icon in the Messages app, on the main screen, of a pen on paper, practically screaming to be touched, and once touched, jumps to an email-composer-esq screen with a "to:" text box with the cursor flashing in it.
I have to say, I am a bit surprised I never touched it. It truly is the only icon there, I dunno what I could have thought it meant, but I guess it never occurred to me that it would bring up contacts.
For what it's worth, you also don't need to do that if you've ever had a conversation with them (since deleting your message history), since you can use the conversation search field in the app's home screen - though some users may not know that scrolling up from the initial view of a scrolling list in iOS sometimes reveals a search field. And this also works with non-contacts and group conversations: you couldn't just change the home screen to be a contact list, you'd have to combine them with those other two types of conversation, which sounds more likely to cause confusion than the current setup.
See, and that does work and I know about that feature somewhere, but there's no indication where that works. So if I know it works in one place, it doesn't occur to me that it might work somewhere else.
Yeah, my math was bad, too early in the morning (that was pre-coffee). Anyhow, they have way more than 10 million customers (likely more than 100 million too).
I was disappointed to see that this was really a list of things that haven’t really worked out well for the author.
As someone who’s having a hard time gaining lots of new users for my service[1], I was really looking forward to some actual lessons in what’s worked. I checked out the Case Studies, but the content wasn’t anything new or particularly relevant to the scrappy startup situation. I think the most useful content on Grow/Hack right now is this post with actual lessons learned in growth hacking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603640
The lessons of what not to do is just as useful as figuring out what to do. Because you might try out things that won't work, rather than trying new ideas that nobody knows work.
> Imagine if Android’s Gmail app made you click the trash to save something. We would certainly see complaining blog posts and snarky tweets all over the place. So why does Instapaper get a free pass?
I’m not sure that we would. There are some great designers working on Android apps, but I don’t get the feeling that the UIs get the same critical eye, especially because there is less consistency throughout Android.
Marco should probably have the Archive box and the trash icon in the main list view instead of the trash icon that does both. However, I get the feeling that he doesn’t care as much about the polish of Instapaper as some people do. Last year I sent him an email with a list of adjustments to bring Instapaper in line with how iOS apps should behave (e.g. table view cells should fade out with the back-navigation transition instead of after it), but months later, most of the issues aren’t fixed. It’s the little things that really show polish and he doesn’t seem to be responsive to fixing the little things.
Yes, but when it comes to suggestions about standard UI features, I’d be surprised if he disagreed. Apple sets a fairly clear precedent for how standard iOS UIs should work, and whether or not it’s in the Human Interface Guidelines, going against the standard Apple sets feels sloppy.
I would find it more likely that, even though (IIRC) the guy handling Instapaper’s support said he would pass it off to Marco, he simply didn’t see my suggestions or ever do anything with them.
I think you can maybe even make the argument that it doesn't matter if he agrees, if he's going against the HIG or even established standards then he's wrong about it.
This is definitely not true. Many of the best UI ideas coming out of iOS go against "established standards".
This is assuming the stuff is intentional, of course. If it's unintentional, it may simply be a low priority. Whether the UITableViewCell is de-selected during or after the animation is a pretty subtle and innocuous ui artifact that could nevertheless require deep changes under the hood to fix. If I was Marco, I'd weigh the impact of leaving it how it is, with the work required to change it, and probably end up leaving it until next time I reworked that area of my code. One man operations require tradeoffs pretty much all the time.
You can always use Pocket if you can't handle the occasional not-very rough edges this results in.
I doubt this will ever be fixed by Apple because this issue affects so few people. The overwhelming majority of iOS devices in active use can run at least iOS 4.3[1], and I’d guess that the users that don’t upgrade to the latest iOS version are the same ones that don’t update all their apps through iTunes. I’m guessing that the number of users who update their apps through iTunes but don’t update their device (or can’t update their device) to the latest iOS is very small.
I wasn’t particularly thrilled that I was forced to drop support for iOS 3, but looking at the number of active users of my app[2] that were running the current version, I saw that none of them were on iOS 3. This was probably the right time for Apple to drop support for < iOS 4.3.
[1] I don’t have stats to back this up, but seeing that iPhone 3GS is the lowest hardware to support iOS 4.3, and they’ve sold way more devices since then than original iPhone and iPhone 3G, I think it’s fair to assume that the vast majority of iOS devices in use can run iOS 4.3 or later.
I gave an old iPod Touch 2nd gen to a relative and was super annoyed that a 2 year old device doesn't have Skype anymore. I'm pretty sure it had at some point but since the device is stuck on iOS 4.2.1 I can't find the old Skype versions on AppStore anymore.
The problem that Apple is avoiding though is having a bad experience because you have an outdated OS - this occurs on the desktop with OSX as well. Because older OS won't handle newer software gracefully they just "Force" the upgrade. Not saying I agree with it, but that's the assumed policy.
While [1] may be true, many people never upgrade their iOS.
My stats are such that 8% of my users are using < iOS 4.3, and of that 8% slice almost 3/4 (or 6% of my total users) _could_ update to something newer, but they're happily running old iOSes.
If I were to cut them off, would that magically make them upgrade? I don't think so. They'd just be bummed that their apps stopped working.
"If I were to cut them off, would that magically make them upgrade? I don't think so. They'd just be bummed that their apps stopped working."
Remember, the problem listed will only take effect if:
* Their iTunes has downloaded the latest version, and
* They have to restore their device from a backup
Doing an update to your app to remove iOS3 compat won't remove it from folks' devices, iTunes won't push it to their device, and it won't magically stop working. Seems like such a small thing to worry about, especially given all the cool things in iOS4 and above...
It's worth remembering that many, many people experienced horrible performance problems on the iPhone3G under iOS4.
It's entirely possible that your 8% of users avoiding 4.3 despite its availability aren't tech-newbs, but are making a conscious effort to not update their OS.
In which case nothing short of "finally decided to get a new phone" is going to get them to upgrade.
I don’t think that would magically make them upgrade either, although they might be willing to do so since the only thing we can do is not upgrade our apps to support them.
Obviously this will vary from app to app, but I’m surprised that you have such a high number of users with an older version of iOS. Is that across all of your apps/games?
I can collaborate that data somewhat - across the US apps I have access to stats for (a sizeable number of users) I see a similar figure (~6.5%) running iOS 4.3 and lower.
However, only 0.7% of devices are iPhone 3G and lower, so the majority of users I see running <4.3 are not updating out of choice.
This is all anecdotal, though - figures will vary dramatically across apps/demographics/etc.
What time period are these stats from? Last week, last month, last year? I have <4% of my users on anything < iOS 5. I only have 1.3% using < 4.3 over the last month.
Has that number changed much over time? The iPhone 3 hasn't been for sale for over 2 years at this point, so I'm curious if you're seeing the number go down at all.
Not everybody can afford a new iPhone and buying one second hand is a way for people who can't afford a new one to get one. It is entirely possible that those number stay right around where they are at because of 2nd hand users.
What are you referring to when you say the iPhone 3? I'm assuming a typo but not sure if you meant the iPhone 4 (on sale for 2 years) or the iPhone 3GS (on sale for 3 years and oldest version to support iOS 4.3 and up).
Just reading between the lines on your post: don't think that iOS < 4.3 implies iOS 3. I think you'll find a much higher per centage of iOS 4.2.1 users. This the latest version supported by iPhone 3G.
egb more or less addressed this but I thought I'd make it explicit.
4.2.1 is indeed the largest piece (exactly 50%) of my users that are on iOS less than 4.3, with other versions sprinkled in. And as it happens, looking by device, 87% of my <4.3 users are on 3G devices.
I recently redesigned the pages promoting the website[1], the iOS app[2], and the Mac app[3], in an effort to make it clear what Iron Money is and how it helps you manage your personal finances. I’m looking for any suggestions in how the copy, screenshots, or overall design can be improved. Thanks!
I definitely think this kind of service will become standard over the next few years. To the point where one day we'll say "how did we manage without it?". The next generation will say "so you logged onto EACH bank account individually?! How did you keep track?"
I think currently the main issues stopping swathes of customers signing up to such a service is the unknown trust & reliability factors.
Your copy really has to hammer these two points home and these issues have to be the centre of your business.
I think currently your site layout feels a little like a blog and it also has no brand identity yet.
If you do some comparisons between Mint.com and your homepage. Not to copy them but to see how they convey trust etc.
Top half of their page hits you with "FREE" & "EASY" while the second half is mostly a giant padlock & a list of security features. Do a bit of surfing to companies websites that have a trusted reputation & see what key words they are using.
Thanks for your feedback! This is definitely something I overlooked and should add to the homepage, probably as part of the first header or as its own section at the very top.
CanJS, the MVVM part of DoneJS, is currently coming up to its third major/breaking version. I think that’s a pretty good track record for us/Bitovi.