iOS 4: When new isn’t better
By The Prodigal Fool, published on 22 June 2010
Only a fool (yeah, OK you’re right, we’ve been called at lot worse than that) would argue that iOS 4 isn’t a tangible step forwards compared to its predecessor, iPhone OS 3. The new OS – which Apple released to the world yesterday – brings a slew of welcome enhancements to the iPhone platform. The most notable of these are: multi-tasking, folders, iBooks and the unified inbox in Mail. All good stuff.
But while Apple was busy cramming still more features into their über-phone, we feel like some of their legendary design flair and UI simplicity fell by the wayside. It’s not a biggie – God knows we’re loving iOS 4 -but here are the little areas where, to us, new isn’t better.
Multi-tasking user interface
We’re relieved that Apple has finally brought some sort of multi-tasking to the iPhone. As we’ve said before, it has never been a priority for us but nonetheless we welcome the options afforded by multi-tasking. But, why did its user interface have to be so clunky? First, having to double-click for something that is so common gets tiring real fast. Double-clicking on a mouse is easy. On an iPhone button? Not so much. But our real issue with the multi-tasking UI is what happens after you double-click. You’re presented not with a list of all your open apps but just four of them. Want to see more? You’re back to swiping through them. What’s the point? You may as well go back to the main app screen and choose from there. Another unwelcome side-effect is that you lose double-click access to the iPod controls. They’re there, but you need to swipe to the right to get to them. Sorry Apple, this is kinda clunky.
You want to see a multi-tasking user interface done right? Check out Palm’s webOS, Maemo or – dare we say it – Symbian 3.
Folder implementation
Anyone who has spent the last couple of years swiping through home screens to find the app they need knows that folders couldn’t come soon enough to the iPhone. Things were really starting to get messy. But why did Apple implement them in this restricted and rather ugly – we would say Androidesque – way? You can’t put more then twelve apps in any one folder (that’s four less than you can fit on a homescreen) and accessing them involves a pop-up screen that appears on top of your existing app screen. It just looks a little ugly and not in keeping with Apple’s normally peerless design aesthetic.
Here’s one area where Apple could have taken a leaf out of Nokia’s book. When you click on a folder, you should simply be taken to a new app screen containing all the apps in that folder with no restrictions as to how many fit in one folder. A simple back button could take you up through the hierarchy again. The convoluted and restricted folder implementation in iOS 4 looks and feels pointlessly over-engineered.
Desktop picture
One word: why? On a desktop machine, a laptop, even on an iPad, we get it: there’s plenty of screen real estate so some people are going to want to personalise it with a desktop picture. But on an iPhone? Space is at a premium and as soon as you start adding a background, things just start to look a mess. Windows, Android and Symbian users have been showing us just how messy things can look with a desktop picture for years but, until yesterday, the iPhone was immune to this rather misguided trend. No longer. Oh sure, you’ll tell us that this is an option; if we don’t like it, we don’t have to use it. Well, kind of. Except Apple doesn’t actually give you the option of not having a desktop picture. The only way to switch it off is to trick it: use an all black photo. Again, not a huge issue of course, but it is one more area where we think the geniuses in Cupertino have dropped the style ball on this iteration of their OS.
The rest of iOS4? Oh it’s superb, as you’d expect. And we can’t wait to see it running on an iPhone 4 (roll on Thursday!) but we didn’t want to let today pass without reminding Apple that new isn’t always better.
iOS 4: When new isn’t better
Only a fool (yeah, OK you’re right, we’ve been called at lot worse than that) would argue that iOS 4 isn’t a tangible step forwards compared to its predecessor, iPhone OS 3. The new OS – which Apple released to the world yesterday – brings a slew of welcome enhancements to the iPhone platform. The [...]
