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When Apple released the iPhone in 2007, they released iPhone OS (later known as iOS) with it. The device and the operating system necessitated each other. The two were birthed into the world together on the same stage.
The industrial design of Apple’s new phone was a drastic departure from other mobile devices at that time. The input method was entirely touch based, eschewing the then-accepted truth that physical buttons were the only productive and reliable interface. The operating system was, for many of its users, and introduction to direct manipulation in interface design.
The hardware decisions they chose to make were both forward thinking and full of risk. In that way, the physical design of the phone was a concerted bet on their own ability to produce software that could excel at driving it.
By 2007 (really, much earlier), mobile phones were already ubiquitously successful. But, smartphones weren’t really selling in large numbers. With the release of the original iPhone, Apple displayed the first comprehensively successful attempt to create a mass-market, consumer-friendly, always-on, pocketable touch screen computer.
And in doing so Apple had created for itself the difficult charge of teaching the consumer how to a use such a device. Its design of the system software, in its early days, was informed by the assumption that most users would be arriving at their device limited knowledge of how to use it. The iPhone’s software was designed to introduce its hardware.
iOS will celebrate its sixth birthday this year. It has evolved, impressively, from its beginnings. But, since those beginnings, it has carried the weight of having to teach its users. It needed to both function and to instruct.
Today, that focus on instruction, which was at one time a marked advantage for iOS, has become something of a burden. iOS is pinned down by its early interface decisions. Decisions that were made to help users relate older, physical ideas to this new, touch-driven software platform.
Many of the skeuomorphic tendencies in iOS that bring derision from critics today, were the same instructive design decisions that helped bridge the industry from physical buttons to touch screens. And Apple’s loyalty to those decisions has left them with a mobile operating system which feels decidedly less modern than its peers.
Apple’s hardware execution, its iterations on the iPhone, has been focused and tremendously successful. But, the perception that its mobile OS has aged poorly is a growing one. With many consumers now shopping for their second (or third) smartphone, iOS’s instructive conventions can appear restrictive and simplistic.
Six years after creating a product category and teaching the world how to use it, Apple’s mobile operating system now exists in a world full of people who understand how to use it (and devices like it). Moving forward, iOS has the difficult task of adapting to this new world from a position of strength in the old one.
To be more clear, I’m not broadly arguing against instructive interface design here. Just trying to note that a lot of the criticism aimed at iOS’s current design trends seems to be oddly disconnected from the praise that was heaped onto those same design trends just a few years back.
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Also, as consumers are used to doing more and more on their phones and treating them as computers, iOS has not developed a way to handle more complex processes or tasks. It’s a bit like London’s underground – it led the way, but it’s all a bit crappy now.
Of course, If you dropped it in the loo it would be exactly like London Underground.
Such a mis-conception, I look at my non-tech friends and family and they never say anything about it being unable to ‘handle more complex processes or tasks’.
…and there is your answer
With all due respect I doubt your friends have anything exceeding single digit IQs. They don’t need it.
How long did it take ios to get copy and paste? When the iPhone came out symbian Nokias could copy/paste. Even my over 50 mum uses copy and paste on here phone especially on texts and editing contacts. ios is a $#%&
Firstly, the first line of your message is totally unnecessary. You should rethink how you address people on the internet who disagree with your opinion, you don’t know me, you don’t know my friends and I’d thank you not to make assumptions of their IQs purely because they don’t require a phone to have the same functionality as you see fit.
Secondly, I’m sure there must be a more recent example of the point you are trying to make rather than to keep wheeling out the C&P problem.
Im a programmer amongst other things so Im not exactly tech adverse but as far as Im concerned although not perfect iOS is how computers should be or at least heading in that direction, there is simply no need for a clunky unintuitive OS’s in this day an age. OS’s are predominantly designed by hardcore geeks and focus groups not a good combination in my opinion.
I’m a programmer, and as nice as the iOS UI might be, there’s a glaring fault now bigger phones have gained popularity. The back button, no other current mobile OS has made the mistake of putting it at the top of the screen, not WP, BB10 or Android.
People can write articles all they like about how 3.5″ is the perfect size, (until the tall phone came out because that’s perfect too obviously) but it can’t get any bigger without making it so uncomfortable to use a key UI button.
Good point about the back button, especially considering how often its used. You wont hear any argument from me about the iPhone 5 screen being the perfect size, because blatantly it isn’t. I think practically every argument put up in defence of not widening the screen is flawed, most notably the one handed use excuse
a) You don’t need to reach over the side of the screen to swipe, scroll ect anyway, but you do need to use both hands to pinch to zoom on web pages to make the text legible because the screen is too narrow to display your average column of text clearly.
b) As you pointed out by lengthening the screen but not widening, you are creating vertical reach issues
c) It doesn’t make a developers job any easier if you just increase the length of the screen, they still have to alter the code to adapt to the new screen size, If they’d increased the width and height and kept the same 3:2 aspect ratio, then in many cases the hardware could handle the scaling without any need for additional code (no black boarders on older unsupported apps).
Even with code optimised for the new screen size you still wouldn’t require addition art assets, beyond new backgrounds the buttons ect would still be the same size, just with more space around them, decreasing the likely hood of pressing the wrong thing.
d) And finally the 16:9 aspect ratio, who holds a phone up in front of their face for 2 hours to watch a film on a tiny screen ? and thats the only reason to have 16:9 I can see
As I think you agree the iPhone 5 screen size is a litany of errors, but thats not to knock iOS although not perfect and arguably getting a bit scrappy as new features are bolted on without much thought, the basic principles of simplicity are far more solid than its peers in my opinion.
IOS is too complicated for most people I know who use them. Simple setting changes is beyond most people, always ask for help how to use their phone. The only thing they work out is what a browser is or messaging, even camera functions are beyond people or setting up their email lol.
Tbh Apple wont lose anything in a redesign of IOS, they can still make it easier to use while making it look nice, instead of a sea of icons.
Personally I find it has a lack of function over Android or even what I’m using atm, Symbian. And I find their design of the stuff like the store to be shockingly bad, it’s an aging bloated, dated mess. I mean come on Apple why can’t you just let us easily change themes, text alerts or ringtones? Instead of just dragging over mp3 files you make us jump through hoops.
If iOS is too complicated for most people you know, maybe it’s time for you to get some more intelligent friends.
he said “most people I know”. doesn’t mean his/her friends. loads of people at work ask me to setup their gmail or something on their iphone; maybe he talking of them. maybe before you give such a shit cuss you should read the comment properly. you even quote him in your own comment and don’t realise…;
U seem upset.
yes, i have no friends (intelligent or otherwise).
We should be praising Nokia & Alcatel as much as Apple, as they did as much as anyone in the late 90′s to make mobile phones affordable to everyone, and without them, we probably wouldn’t even have smartphones.
Nonsense, we should be praising Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone.
Actually we should be praising Elisha Gray for inventing the telephone.
Ah yes, looks like Bell invented the telephone in the same way Apple invented rounded corner rectangles.
I have enjoyed iPhones for four years now, using it for Phone calls, Emails, the odd message, games and navigation. Also on a TV with dock for watching films/music on my boat.
It works perfectly, and I really can’t think of anything I would want to do with it given the screen size, having lots of icons is fine, you know where you stand with icons, and it connects to other devices with apparent ease.
I’m entirely happy with it (4S 64Gb) and use the navigation (CoPilot) all over Europe with great success.
It’s not crappy in any way, other than battery life, which is fixed with a Mophie cover.
Why change something that just works?
“Why change something that just works?”
Unfortunately no operating system “just works”, the “just works” was a Jobsism, marketing spiel, he knew it wasn’t true but kudos to him, the press and public lapped it up.
ALL of them have bugs and exploits. It is those exploits that allow owners to jail break their phones, or will allow scapegraces to hack your phone one day.
I cannot think of anything that you can do on an iphone that you cannot do with any other phone OS either now or previously.
That said, I am glad that you are happy with it. Apple do deserve the credit for popularising smartphones and tablet and mp3 players even though they were late to each of those markets.
Although being able to jailbreak a phone doesn’t mean the phone doesn’t work, nor have any of the bugs in iOS. The only thing that hasn’t worked was the antenna in the iPhone 4 when held by a lefty, a big problem yes, but other than that virtually every iphone and iOS HAS just worked.
Why change something that works?
Because that’s how Apple made smartphones popular? Pre iPhone smartphones had a user interface that was old and tired. It was also not optimised for touch so touch only phones were not clever contraptions (I had a Samsung Omnia which was not my finest phone buying decision).
Apple came along, looked at the competition and tried to do something newer and betterer… if they NEVER change then in a short time they will be the established dull boring OS and others will seem clever and innovative.
Logically they have to change or become the old-man of mobile phones and only Hipsters will want them because the OS is “Retro”
Just have to hope that making that change doesn’t come at the cost of usability or idiot proofing – many customers don’t need an iPhone’s worth of computing power with the possibility of launching rockets into space, they need a phone with a camera glued to it, which possibly plays music too and occasionally looks at funny pictures of cats or Wikipedia… sure by opening things up a bit it could be used as a powerful computing system, but if to do so many people get so baffled by it that they can no longer take bad photos in Instagram or phone for a taxi then they will lose custom
“The industrial design of Apple’s new phone was a drastic departure from other mobile devices at that time. The input method was entirely touch based, eschewing the then-accepted truth that physical buttons were the only productive and reliable interface. ”
Why must journalists keep perpetuating this myth? Sorry this is not intended to be a slight on anyone in particular but we have generations who believe that (to quote/paraphrase apple’s pre trial papers) “all phones had small screens and numerous buttons before the iphone”
Before the iphone was released I had a touch screen phone with a 5″ screen. Yes it had more than one button on the front, it had a Windows button and 2 other mappable buttons which acted as shortcuts. Those buttons were there for convenience whereas the iphone home button has to be used for the phone to function.
“With the release of the original iPhone, Apple displayed the first comprehensively successful attempt to create a mass-market, consumer-friendly, always-on, pocketable touch screen computer.”
Another questionable sentence. The first iPhone had very few apps, it lacked features that were considered standard on other platforms. Jobs had “sworn” that 3rd party apps would not be allowed. I concede that it vastly outsold the other pre-existing and more capable touch focused devices. Consumer friendly? that is a very subjective statement, Symbian was and remains far easier to use IMO. Windows mobile was not difficult to use but like iOS, setting it up was far from easy for a newbie. However unlike WM iOS was fairly stable, mind you when iOS locks up, most owners have no idea what to do. At least you could pull the battery on a “dumb” phone and not have to resort to some kind of Vulcan death grip
I don’t think being instructive is a burden. Every single time I’m handed a different kind of phone, i’m completely lost:
Technique to unlock is always on the second attempt, and you’re greeted with around two useless apps under their clock. Flick side-ways a few times (find a page with nothing on it!). Flick through completely for second time because now you’re ‘sure’ you missed the app you were looking for.
“oh no mate, you need to press the menu button”. Oh, so you keep you facebook app hidden deep with your basic settings apps, ok :/
Not sure who wrote this article at Gizmodo (normally they are preceded by the name of the blogger/journalist), but I wish to thank you for validating my own thoughts on iOS (and even OS X, Windows and some other OSes) and therefore also effectively validating my business plan and what I am about to do that will hopefully offer ‘a better way’. That’s all! AdiOS folks.
“eschewing the then-accepted truth that physical buttons were the only productive and reliable interface”"
Ever heard of windows mobile phones with no keyboard?
It’s understandable that journalists and media people in general perpetuate this myth. They are not tech people (at least the majority of them aren’t) and are more prone to be thought about history by companies marketing departments.
But in a “tech blog”? That’s too dumb to be here guys, specially under “The Tech Blog”…
Power users may bemoan the lack of complex task features, but the average person in the street is happy to take photos,video, web browse, listen to music, SMS oh and phone people. iOS gives them a VERY simple intuitive interface that is easy to use.
My mum who is pretty awkward when it comes to technology, struggled with her Android phone, but instantly knew how to use my iPhone without any input from me.
iOS needs to innovate and evolve though I think
I brought my stepdad an iPad 2 xmas’s ago because he was showing an interest in computers, he uses it occasionally but mum never did.
My Mum (61 this year), has had a Windows PC for probably 5 years, and always needs my help with things, now has a Android phone and last xmas brought herself a Nexus 7, I think if you are able the grasp the concept of a desktop and a start menu you figure out the homescreen and app drawer concept of Android pretty quick.
The biggest pain I found the iPhone I’ve got for work was finding the setting to turn on the keylock, looking hopelessly for a security category under settings and finding nothing.