[drewprops]

Oooooo!!!! NIFTY!!!!!!!


...

[psmith2.0]

7.1 is the stupidest, most half-baked, idiotic and "why" version of any Apple OS I've ever used. I shit you not.

They mucked up and idioticized every aspect that somehow survived that first wave with 7.0.

My battery is a joke now. It just drops, with nothing happening, now. Thanks, guys.

[Chinney]

I finally updated from iOS 6 to 7 on my iPad 2 when the security glitch more or less forced me to do this 3-4 weeks ago. So far I have run the last version of 7.0.x and now 7.1. I did not run 7.0.x long enough to really evaluate it separately, so what I have to say applies to my impressions of both 7.0 and 7.1.

On the positive side, I did not notice any performance hit at all - if anything it is very much the other way around (though battery life does seem to have suffered). Also, I got used to the look and feel of the new UI fairly quickly, and found it fairly visually appealing.

On the negative side, I find that I quite miss skeuomorphism. It was easier on the eyes for long term use and provided better visual cues. I find the current UI more difficult, and ultimately less pleasant to use, even if it is bright and shiny.

So, overall, I would say to Apple: "nice effort on iOS 7 but 'back to the drawing board' for iOS 8".

[Chinney]

Two things that I really dislike in iOS 7 - and that are not really in the realm of lack of skeuomorphism - are the lack of an easy visual cue for multiple email threads in Mail (now just a small ">>" instead of a big number) and the new method of searching in a web page.

On the skeuomorphic side, I miss just about everything, but I miss the old Notes and the old Address Book the most from the perspective of daily usage.

[Wrao]

I think the thing that bugs me the most about the killing off of skeuomorphic graphics is that the way Apple did it -- it was almost as if they were literally responding to forum trolls. Plenty of the old apps, the worst you could really say about them was that they weren't photogenic. That is to say, screenshots had a tendency to look kind of garish or kitsch. But in actual usage they were tight, reliable, performant and typically full featured(at least 'enough') Now we have apps that look better in screenshots for the most part, and animations that look neat the first couple of times you see them, but everything feels precarious suddenly. Instead of a tightly wound reliable monolithic slab of the future that previous iPhones and iPads had, iOS 7(and 7.1) makes it feel like the device is constantly 'thinking', constantly fretting, constantly trying to keep up. Like you can see the little magic gnomes actually toiling away inside it. For every cool bit that works well there are 10 other things you can point to that simply don't work that well or only work well in somewhat idealized conditions, and even then in idealized conditions just about everything in this OS is liable to seize up a bit or chirp and hiccup a bit or just otherwise be inconsistent. I never really used Android too much in its 2.3 era, but this is how I always imagined it based on user reports; just an OS that was always a beat behind the user.

And ffs yes, I miss the old notes and address book immensely. The new ones are both crap.

[Wrao]

Also, the podcasts app is bad. grumble grumble.

[psmith2.0]

The Podcasts app has been bad from the moment it was released...flaky, unreliable, erratic, hard to control, 110% counter-intuitive, buggy, crashed, lost/jumbled content, a silly-ass interface (both pre- and post- reel-to-reel), etc.

I'm convinced, more than ever, some third-grader in the Bay Area won a contest and got to secretly design and build an Apple iOS app, this was the result and Apple just never got around to replacing it with something legit/real.

Much like the shift key idiocy in 7.1, I truly can't think of another reason how things like this make it through the vetting/testing procedures. Nobody inside Apple (or among all their beta testers out in the world) goes "whoa...this is backwards and borderline unusable...I'm not signing off on this nonsense. It's embarrassing, and we can do better. Fix it!"



I'm getting a little irritated at Apple lately. No, not because they haven't come out with a TV or iWatch or other "analysts say they need to, so they should!" products (don't even get me started on that particular line of idiocy). I'm bugged simply by the fact that their QC and legendary attention to detail, user experience and ease-of-use seems to have slipped down on their list of priorities.

They're releasing some things, software-wise (and I'm long on record on how the OS and software trumps any hardware specs or cool design/appearances) that I don't think they would've at earlier points. I just don't.

Certain experiences, tasks or pursuits are no longer as enjoyable or reliable because of some of these jackwad releases of late.

That - and not some nebulous, obsessed-over spec-whore numbers (processor types/speed, graphics chips, etc.) that most people don't give two damns about - results in true, real-life degradation of performance and usability.

I think they need to step back and re-assess some things, in how they're going about the software side of it all. Not everything. Some stuff is really great and solid as a rock, and is never any trouble. But putting their longtime hardware guy, (seemingly) spur of the moment, in charge of designing everything - when maybe those two worlds are meant to be a little bit separate? - might not be the ideal approach. Or, if it is, maybe he needs more software-centric designers around him to downvote him when needed. Stupidity abounds throughout iOS 7. And, now, 7.1.

I, peronally, don't think being able to design breathtaking hardware automatically translates over to the software. There's some crossover, sure. But I think, fundamentally, they are two completely different disciplines and pursuits. And I've not bitched as much about Apple software as I have since iOS 7 came into the world. And I've not even done it on appearance grounds (I don't mind the look, overall...the brighter colors, the "flatness", etc. all look quite nice to me), but on true usability and "WTF?!" concerns. Of which there are many. And iOS 7.1 - in addition to not fixing/addressing some of the obvious, glaring issues - went and inexplicably created a few more of its own. And some are just so boneheaded, I can't figure out how they got approved. I guess, as with Steve, most there at Infinite Loop just can't bring themselves to do anything but glad-hand and say "yes" to Jony Ive, lest they find themselves on the shit train out of town (or, at the very least, off the project)?

There's obviously something going on. I can forgive/overlook legit growing pains and expected stumbles/missteps. But there's stuff through iOS 7 that you know damn well should not be present.

So, yeah...I get a little fed up with this stuff.

[drewprops]

Does the iTunes app resume responsibility of handling podcasts if you delete the Podcasts app?


...

[psmith2.0]

That wasn't the case before. I don't know if that's changed.

I don't mind a standalone podcast app at all. I'd just like it to work well and make some sense.

[Bryson]

Just killing time waiting for Overcast....

[Wrao]

I listen to a fair amount of podcasts, but hadn't really used the podcasts app much until recently(I tend to listen on and off over periods of months) and didn't realize just how bad it was. Off the top of my head: As best as I can tell there is no way to easily jump from "I have one episode in my library and want to jump to the store page for other episodes". That should be one click. But even once you get to the store page, there's no easy way to view information about the podcast. This was also a problem in iTunes somewhat but there at least _was_ a way to view the information, so instead almost all the titles are truncated in some way as are the descriptions. With some podcasts this effectively makes it a crapshoot on what episode you're getting. There also is sort of 'two' different lists of any given podcast. Because you typically have to search for the podcast(even if you already have an episode or two) you wind up on the search page for something that has a (generally) specific enough name that all the results are basically just that podcast, but because it is a search page it is less useful than the actual podcast homepage, but because you have to get to the one to get to the other anyway it winds up feeling like just two different lists for the same thing(and both have limited/useless information).

It works well enough for playback and all but it's about as poorly designed from a where everything should be standpoint as I've ever seen an app, and that's not even to mention perhaps the biggest problem... why does it even exist in the first place? iTunes was more than capable and sure maybe iTunes wasn't ideal either, but it only needed a few tweaks. Make it a standalone if you're actually going to improve it. As it sits, the standalone feels like they just yanked that component out of iTunes without any further decision making or designing.

..


and the icon is bad.

[Wrao]

Also, since I'm kind of frustrated with Apple lately. Not to derail the thread too much but OS X Safari feels like it's falling behind in a big way too. It is generally pretty solid and all but I keep encountering sites that it just kind of doesn't work with very well. The most common culprit will be buttons that have hover-over functions that don't show up or that don't click properly when they do. But also some basic rendering errors on live updating sites(sports box scores and the likes) and even some basic formatting errors in terms of margins and the likes.

I recognize a lot of that is web developer responsibility but fairly consistently every time a site is frustrating me on Safari it works flawlessly on Chrome. Adblock too, kind of hit or miss with Safari, works flawlessly in Chrome. (and I recognize too that extensions can create problems for some sites and all but still) This surprises me too because Chrome and Safari are both webkit, I'd assume similar enough overall capability between them, but just about every time I'm annoyed and switch to Chrome for a minute, it works perfectly fine.

On its own, it's not really worth pointing out but it follows a similar pattern(perceived, biased perhaps) to many other deficiencies in Apple software across the board where it's all 'pretty good/great at first glance' but 'ehhh' once you look a little closer.

[Dorian Gray]

Some of your complaints about Safari on OS X may arise from Safari’s ‘click-to-Flash’ feature, which can greatly extend battery life.

I’m also often disappointed by Apple software – though I still think in general it’s noticeably better than Google or Adobe software, for example – but I don’t actually find iOS awful to use. I can’t understand why pscates2.0 is so annoyed by the keyboard shift key in iOS 7.1, given than it was iOS 7.0 that made the shift status hard to read. Version 7.1 merely ‘fixed’ it without actually fixing it. (Actually, maybe that’s a good reason: making the same mistake twice is worse than making it in the first instance.)

Many of my pet peeves were fixed in iOS 7.1. It’s heading in the right direction.

[Wrao]

Has Apple started to integrate predictive scheduling into notifications center? I know Google Now has done things like this for a while but I have never heard anything about Apple incorporating it. This morning my notification center told me that it would take approximately 11 minutes to drive to (two towns over) and I can't figure out why it would shuttle that information to me. It wasn't in my calendar, it wasn't in my maps, I hadn't been talking about it recently. The only thing is, I _was_ going to make that drive, it's a drive I make 4 or 5x a week to go to my gym. Did Notification Center/Siri assume I was going to make the drive and pre-emptively give me the drive time based on my (fairly routine) schedule? Has anyone heard anything about this or experienced anything similar? This is the first time I have seen that pop up that I can remember(I actually don't use NC that often)

[Chinney]

After a bit more time now with iOS 7, I realize better now why the move towards flat, minimalist simplicity strikes me as wrongheaded, at least from an iPad user's perspective. Flat, minimalist simplicity works perfectly for the iPad itself, from a physical device perspective - it was a big step in a larger vision in getting the device 'out of the way'. Apple deserves a lot of credit for that.

But what was nicely not minimalist - and in my view need not be and should not be minimalist - was the what the device 'got out of the way" to show the user. What was incredible about the iPad - and I remember this from the first time I saw it - was the incredible richness of what the simple flat device displayed. It was anything but simple and flat - and that is an important part of what made it so attractive. I really liked the designs, textures, and visual cues of the earlier iOS versions.

The way that iOS 7 looks and works demonstrates that Apple no longer understands what makes its devices attractive, at least from my perspective.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by Chinney The way that iOS 7 looks and works demonstrates that Apple no longer understands what makes its devices attractive, at least from my perspective.

That’s a big claim, but I think there’s a hint of truth to it – even though I personally like iOS 7, on balance.

I think Steve Jobs had a truly uncanny knack of knowing what people wanted. He understood high design, certainly, but that also means he understood its limitations.

[drewprops]

Originally Posted by Chinney But what was nicely not minimalist - and in my view need not be and should not be minimalist - was the what the device 'got out of the way" to show the user. What was incredible about the iPad - and I remember this from the first time I saw it - was the incredible richness of what the simple flat device displayed. It was anything but simple and flat - and that is an important part of what made it so attractive. I really liked the designs, textures, and visual cues of the earlier iOS versions.

A very nice observation.

I find the flatness of the UI works well for my phone, in a way that I never expected; it's quite clean and I'm adjusting to many of the apps.

On the other hand I've been holding off updating the iPad because I've heard many criticisms of the look and feel on the larger screen.

Should I maintain the device at the older state?



...

[PB PM]

I honestly don't even notice the difference between using it on my iPad and my iPhone (besides the fact that that there is tons of wasted UI space on the iPad, but that has always been the case). If I had to go back to iOS 6 I would miss some of the major improvements.

[Wrao]

Text input on my iPad Mini is really bad even with 7.1, it's worse with some apps (Facebook being the worst) than others (Safari being a better one) but it's bad throughout, and again like just about every instance of iOS 7 lag, it's maddeningly inconsistent to where you can sort of expect during the course of typing it will seize up and stutter but you can't predict if it'll happen during the first sentence, the first word or later(or multiple times). Just feels like the system is choking itself to death and has to scramble to make resources available. Which, you know, given that text input is a pretty basic thing, is pretty sad. Especially when iOS 6 was butter for text input(And scrolling, and app changing, and multitouch gestures...etc...etc.)

[PB PM]

7.1.1 released today. Just downloading it now.

[addison]

I've been having a really annoying bug that makes the phone freeze on the lock screen. Way more annoying than the random restarts. Hope this fixes it.

[Wrao]

I know we're closing in on iOS 8 already but I wanted to vent about another iOS 7 piece of utter idiocy for a minute(because it's frustrating me and I have no other outlet lol) The volume controls. If you set the side buttons to change volume then every time you adjust it a pop-up for volume appears with little dots indicating what the volume level is set to. Not terribly different from iOS 6 and prior, but in iOS 7 they changed the behavior just enough to make it truly awful. Firstly they changed the opacity to where it's more opaque now, and although it has a tiny bit of translucency it still effectively blocks whatever is on the screen, it may also be a little larger(I forget exactly but I suspect so because I never felt like stuff was being blocked this much before)

But the worst part is how it stays on the screen for as many as 3 seconds. I mean 3 seconds?! Although functions still perform in the background when the pop-up appears because it blocks so much of the screen you essentially lose control of your phone for 3 seconds every time you press the button. How utterly, utterly, moronic is that?

I just can't even conceive of how anyone could possibly think that it is a good idea. The only justification I can come up with is that lag time lets you know exactly how high or low your volume is set so that you can have some mental input to know how much higher or lower you can still go. Fair enough, I disagree with this justification strongly, but I understand maybe some users would like it, still, you could have no pop-up at all and still be doing better than this, but 3 seconds is still a lifetime to take for such a task particularly when the most common usage of the volume control is likely to be when you click on a video link that is too loud or too quiet. Vine, for instance, videos are only 6 seconds long so you are likely to miss almost the whole thing (in terms of where the punchline and setup lies) if it just so happens to need a volume adjustment. Or the vid can be spoiled entirely because you'll still hear the punchline but won't be able to see the visual component due to being blocked by the big ol' pop-up.

Other video sources are only marginally better based on length and topic but it's majorly distracting for any video.

But this still doesn't really address how moronic it is. Because even if you can take that justification and run with it -- that users need to know where their volume control is set, this line of reasoning completely falls apart when you *disable* the side buttons for volume and instead use the slide-up control center volume slider. Firstly because it's a slider, which, purports to have much finer grain resolution than icons, but to really underscore just how clueless whoever designed this stuff is, the slider has momentum built into its movement. So it's simultaneously harder-than-it-should-be to get the precise volume value you want while also throwing the whole "Users want to know what their precise volume value is, hence the 3 second lag on the volume pop-up" justification.

I'd bet that if it immediately disappeared that'd be jarring too and worth complaining about. The basic premise isn't wrong so much, it should linger for a beat and then fade away, but it really is a question of a few milliseconds making all the difference in the world and Apple just doesn't seem to have the brain for that type of thinking anymore, or if they do, it's being seriously suppressed because this stuff is not exceptional, shades of equally 'could be good if it was more meticulously refined, but is effectively ruined for being clumsy' design elements are everywhere in iOS 7 (and in pieces of many of their first party apps) and it emphatically did not used to be this way.

I know it's a pretty small deal but it's the type of small deal that makes the difference between feeling like you are using the phone and feeling like the phone is in control, and those tiny details are the very things that used to separate Apple from the pack in ways that made the value proposition of getting an expensive iPhone much more palatable.

But this stuff is just so pathetic from them, and it's not even enough that there is no rhyme or reason or intelligent design behind any of it, it's also that in both cases there is a needless graphical flourish. The pop-up has a gentle (and time consuming) fade out effect while the slider has the aforementioned momentum effect.

Hopefully iOS 8 can address this, but I kind of doubt it. iOS 8 will, I'm betting, not be as substantial as iOS 7 and even if it is, I highly doubt they dismantle their precious zoomy, fadey, slidey effects too much.


(OS X's volume pop-up, aside from being better positioned on the screen, also fades in about 1 second, and it's nicely transparent, I wonder if they'll import the worthless iOS volume pop-up for 10.10)

[Jason]

I've not been a fan of ios7 at all. Tiny things about it bug me - they all add up when you're using it all the time.
I hate to say it but for all the smart looking icons and design, it was better before Ive and his team were involved.
ios 7 always seemed like they changed it simply for the sake of it. Ios 6 wasn't exactly awful.

[psmith2.0]

Hope iOS 8 is all about de-idiotizing iOS 7, and finding that happy medium between looks and usefulness. Some things were improved and done better, for sure. But a lot of other little things were dropped along the way and they've had plenty of time to take in feedback and observe real-world usage. I think iOS 8 will tighten up a lot of things.

[PB PM]

I wish Apple would spend more time getting the OS solid, rather than rushing out a new version every year.

[Dorian Gray]

I find iOS 7 very solid now (it wasn’t when it first came out), and I think you’re forgetting some of the improvements it introduced.

However, I agree with Wrao that there is a surprising clumsiness in Apple software. I just think that has always been the case (remember this volume control knob?) to some extent. Apple combines brilliance with frustrating amateurism, and always has, really.

One argument in defence of slowness in the UI, though, is that beginners or people who are not as comfortable with technology require much more time to examine and respond to UI elements. While the slow volume fade-out drives me nuts (as does the slow fade-out of the video controls after hitting play), anything faster may make non-tech people feel out of control.

A possible solution without introducing absurdly fine-grained setup controls: a single switch in settings for a Slow or Fast UI response. When set to Fast, everything speeds up in expectation of an advanced user like Wrao.

[Wrao]

It just seems so odd to me that even if that is their reasoning(Which could be the case, I honestly start to suspect it's just literally something that got overlooked, especially in comparison to how much better OS X handles this) that the other volume control operates under a different pretense with its momentum and fine grain resolution, that is to say, they reduced user control in the other one and I dunno, but I would bet the type of beginner user who would be comforted by the laggy volume key would be frustrated by the slippery volume slider.

But I mean, it's also 2014 and I recognize there are still billions of people out there who haven't used smartphones and all and that I likely overestimate how familiar people are with tech, it just seems a little odd Apple would be making decisions like this (for the most basic user's sake) on their 7th major release. Especially when so many other decisions in iOS 7 actually moved away from the basic user in favor of a more streamlined look and feel that cut out some of the implicit hints and simplifying measures. Like for me, this is only my second iPhone and third or fourth version of iOS and plenty of things that used to feel easy and familiar even without any real time spent learning how to use the device have felt borked ever since iOS 7. The new shift/caps lock key behavior, for instance, I *still* don't entirely have it 'down', and I'm liable to press it in error and/or be slowed down by having to remember which is which. I may be an advanced user of tech overall, but I'm newer to smartphones than you might assume and maybe I can still figure things out somewhat, but there is still a huge gulf in terms of the effortlessness iOS 6 had and the slowdowns iOS 7 has.

Ah well. Can only hope at this point that iOS 8 will keep refining it.

[Wrao]

Oh but on a lighter note, they updated the podcasts app recently and while there are still a couple of laughably moronic bits they also added and fixed a few things that had been bugging me for a long time making the app overall actually not a useless piece of c