alt Hacker NewsYeah, for a decade now it's been a UX disaster. It "works", because so many people are used to it, but look at a new user trying to navigate iOS, it's bonkers. Swiping from random directions achieves different things (and how would you even know you can?). The home button has like 11 different functions depending on how you press it and when.
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Something that I ended up loving about iOS was the relative simplicity it had compared to Android at the time I started using the iPhone in 2017. iOS 10 and 11 were great. People complained about things like all apps needing to be on the homescreen or not being able to place apps arbitrarily, but at the same time that "lack" of function is part of what made iOS easy to use and understand.
I find nowadays iOS is as complex as the Android I remember. I can navigate it just fine because I'm used to it but even my parents who've been using iPhones longer than me have found themselves getting lost in the OS with iOS 26 in particular.
> Swiping from random directions achieves different things
I haven't used iOS 27 yet, but from what I've seen it's going to get worse. We already have swiping down from the top left or top right bringing up different things, while swiping down anywhere else in the middle of the screen brings up search... unless you're swiping down at the bottom of the screen, then it's Reachability. From what I understand, iOS 27 will also bring swiping down from the Dynamic Island to trigger Siri. So that's 3 different behaviors from a swipe down from somewhere on the top of a <3" wide screen, with no real way to know what's going on intuitively.
1. Ive been using apple iphone since 2010 and i jave an iphone air right now. I still dont know how/why/when i seem to accidentally call the AI thing where the side of my acreen go all all funny. Ive never done it intentionally and i dont know how but every so often i trigger it.
2. Can apple ‘regress’ the camera app so the it is easy to use. The interface is a disaster of mixed inputs and over loaded widgets. Theres so many modes and sub modes. Swipe to zoom works mostly except when it changes modes. I spend about 10 seconds every tone inise the camera app just making it take a picture because accidentally touching it in the wrong place switches to some other mode.
3. The genrel consistency has went downhill. Its difficult sometimes now to know just how to interact with an app.
4. Search box. If i do another attempt at a web search when i am in mail search box i dunno. Either unify it or make it distinct. Also sometime its at the top sometimes the bottom
I have an ipad that I mainly use to open YouTube... If I had q nickel for every time some random gesture accidentally triggered some weird feature, I'd certainly have a few nickels.
That's what made me switch to Android.
At least you can have 3-button navigation
For me, the swipe to go to home gesture on iOS very often conflicts with my swipe to go to all tabs in Safari.
> Swiping from random directions achieves different things (and how would you even know you can?)
Cultural context, the same way you'd know tapping on an icon opens an app.
Im an iPhone user. I want it to take as little space as possible physically and mentally, and try to use it as little as possible. My experience has been that it was easy learning to use it by just bumbling around.
That is, until two weeks ago when I got my new iPhone. I had to, the old one couldnt upgrade to the newest iOS.
I feel ashamed to admit, that I had one or two days of extreme frustration just learning to do basic stuff. It was not about the shape of icons, but more along the lines of what you write. Swiping patterns, button press sequences, and the time you should hold down a button. It is ridiculous.
Some of the blame is on me for not being mobile phone savvy, but it is indisputable that the UX has deterioted significantly. I suspect it will just get worse going forward.