Apple Reverses Course, Moves iPhone 'End Call' Button Back To Middle in Latest Beta (cnbc.com) 60
Apple has moved the "end call" button back to the middle of the screen in the newest developer version of iOS 17, released Tuesday. From a report: The move reverses a change that Apple had been considering over the summer, as CNBC reported last week. Previous beta versions of iOS 17 had moved the red "end call" button to the lower right-hand corner, as opposed to centered in the bottom half of the screen, where it had been for years. However, in the most recent developer beta, the end call button is centered vertically, in the middle of three buttons close to the bottom of the screen.
Why is this news? (Score:3)
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New is that people are receiving a salary to move buttons around.
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They must have hired the person in charge of the Windows 11 taskbar.
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We could ask them.
Wait! We can't find them anymore.
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New is that people are receiving a salary to move buttons around.
You flippantly insinuate that it was easy. Not true. There were a lot of long meetings, and now many press releases and interviews with journalists who want to know the "real story" behind the button placement decisions.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2)
Ya that and not "apple listened to their customers".
Years of lack of objectivity have allowed Google to develop horns while ya'll grousing about anything Apple.
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Team of people created the CERN super collider.
Now zoom into sub-tasks, and
Task 1,000,000. Use screw to connect wire to ground for ground contact.
You: New is that people are receiving a salary to connect a wire to ground contact.
It is quite possible that an Engineer did a lot more than a single task of moving a button, and it is also possible that you are just a jackass
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No it's not, UX designers have existed for 2 decades and this is literally their job.
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Rule #1 Should be not to move things around when a lot of people are used to having them in a certain place.
Rule #2 Should be not to change colors of icons that people are used to.
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I find it strange that they move things around so much even technical stuff that most people don't use. Really most things can be just left where they are, if you think every user spends 1 hour learning the layout of every new release that is a lot of wasted time.
To me its like a electrician coming to your house every few years and insisting on changing the location of your light switches (and not even asking you where to put them), just leave them alone.
Even if its completely free its annoying.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you have to admit, it kinda is news that Apple corrects ridiculous UI mistakes instead of doubling down and blaming their users if they don't like it.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:1)
You're probably just holding it wrong. :-)
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2)
It's news WHEN they do it, you mean. Nobody asked them to reduce contrast or remove edges of controls so that you can't tell where one ends and the next begins, but they haven't reversed course on those decisions.
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Agreed. Moreover, unless I missed what might have been a tempest in a teapot, I don't even know that the beta approach was a stupid choice to begin with, so much as simply a different choice, which makes this even less of a story. "Company doesn't roll out change" is already below the threshold for newsworthy, but "company doesn't roll out a change that wasn't controversial" takes things to new lows.
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The "lower right" placement was too easy to activate accidentally, ending the call.
Moving it back to the middle fixed the problem.
The big question is why this wasn't obvious in the first place.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:1)
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The big question is why this wasn't obvious in the first place.
Someone needed to justify their existence and came up with the idea to move the button.
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2)
I thought the re-fix was worse than the initial move. Now if I swipe up while on a call I run the rock of accidentally hanging up.
Keeping the center clear was better in my opinion.
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Company makes stupid UI choice and fixes it, story at 11... wait you already have the whole story.
Perhaps it's news because the company was willing to fix it. Microsoft and Google never do.
LK
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Company makes stupid UI choice and fixes it, story at 11... wait you already have the whole story.
Well that IS the story. When has a company especially the "Think Different (TM) just the way we tell you to" company reversed a stupid UI choice? This IS newsworthy.
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Company makes stupid UI choice and fixes it, story at 11... wait you already have the whole story.
That's better than Mozilla who made many stupid UI choices and kept them.
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Company makes stupid UI choice and fixes it, story at 11... wait you already have the whole story.
Apple just wanted to see if anyone wold notice or even complain about it.
And Apple learned that their first hunch was the correct one - people do notice and do care about some stuff.
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Company makes stupid UI choice and fixes it, story at 11... wait you already have the whole story.
But this was Apple... the company that "doesn't" make any stupid choices. Any issues with the UI is because you're holding it wrong.
One of the things I miss about flip phones (Score:3)
It was far more satisfying to end a call by slamming them shut.
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Flicking them open to answer was also a naturally slick gesture, in my opinion.
Re: One of the things I miss about flip phones (Score:2)
Ok just stop, you're making me miss my old Motorola RAZR.
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Bah! It was far better when you could slam the handset down on the receiver! Then they KNEW you really were upset...
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Bah! It was far better when you could slam the handset down on the receiver! Then they KNEW you really were upset...
They really didn't, since they were disconnected before the handset hit the cradle. But the people around you knew, and you felt better. And those old Bell rotary dial phones were damned near indestructable, so you could really slam it hard.
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And those old Bell rotary dial phones were damned near indestructable, so you could really slam it hard.
The not-quite-as-old-but-pre-breakup slim push-button phones - the corded ones that could be mounted on the wall, or sit on a table - were extremely solid as well. We actually "inherited" one from my folks after they bought a cordless set. Between them and us, the thing probably lasted 30 years (and even when we got rid of it, it was still functional).
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FYI: when Touch-Tone came along, they did make Touch-Tone versions of those phones as well.
Although there were several disadvantages to the old Bell System monopoly where you had to rent your phone, one advantage was the phones were built like tanks because they were AT&T's properly and they didn't want to have to replace them often (if ever).
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FYI: when Touch-Tone came along, they did make Touch-Tone versions of those phones as well.
Sure, anyone who use a Bell rotary dial phone used a touch tone version as well.
UI should not be subjective, but objective (Score:2)
On my title, though, unfortunately a lot of UI becomes subjective instead of being objective. You have no idea how many times beta applications I have demoed have been changed into oblivion because of everyone else's "taste", sometimes to the point that they even contradict themselves in the same meetings.
Re: UI should not be subjective, but objective (Score:2)
iOS has a dedicated left handed mode that moves controls that are important to access with your dominant hand to the appropriate side.
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Objective? How do you even define objective? There are some fairly objective measures of "good ui" (e.g. time to accomplish a given task, rates of incorrect entry, ...), but even with the two I mentioned, creating a UI optimized to accomplish a task rapidly might increase rates of error. So then, you have to have some sort of subjective decision on the weight of those two (is it more important to do it quickly or more important not to have errors?).
Apple probably has a formal process for UI changes. It isn'
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How do you even define objective?
Oh that's easy wrt UI design. You only need a couple rules to follow.
Objective #1:
Follow the Prime Directive from ST:TOS. Don't fock with anything and don't interfere with what aready exists! UI's don't need to be changed just for the sake of change just to satisfy your fragile ego. They can remain mostly static and still prosper and be useable and successful.
Objective #2:
Hire tech people for UI design even if they are self-taught and without a degree. They have a great
Re: UI should not be subjective, but objective (Score:2)
"Objective? How do you even define objective?"
In the aggregate
Stupid UX designers (Score:5, Insightful)
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P.S. Specifically, please stop tinkering with my alarm clock.
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Actually, that's a tinkering I appreciate.
If it works differently than the last one, I'm less likely to be able to turn it off and go to sleep without realizing it.
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Check out the new Acrobat Reader if you want to see stupid UX changes. I think the goal was to make you less productive.
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I've been using acrobat 8.0 for like 10-15 years
once in a blue moon I encounter some incompatible pdf and I just open it in sumatrapdf but that's like 2% of the time
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Dear UX designers, Please stop making changes for no reason. Sincerely yours, Everybody else
But that's the whole point behind the bollocks field of "User Experience", it's an entire pseudoscience dedicated to explain why we should be using designs fly in the face of well proven HCI and HMI designs.
In other important newd... (Score:3)
Tim Cook will be wearing blue socks today.
But seriously, why not let the user decide where she wants the friggin' button?
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Because selling "victims" is more profitable clickbait, then selling reminders for the Settings icon.
Or socks.
Since nobody calls anymore (Score:2)
It doesn't really matter.
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old people do... won't someone think of the boomers?
I find apps less âoeusableâ these days (Score:1)
Re: I find apps less âoeusableâ these da (Score:1)
Oblig pedantry (Score:3)
I feel compelled to point out that "vertically centered" means equidistant from the top and bottom. The article writer meant to say "horizontally centered", which is described by "in the middle of three buttons close to the bottom of the screen".
Do companies not understand users? (Score:2)
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In this case, I think there was some logic to the change: It's easier to reach the corner of the device, than the centre-line. But as many look-pretty UI changes reveal, humans have difficulty replacing learnt responses with pointless re-locations. It's why there's a big divide between Apple, Android and Windows users.
Physical buttons don't have this problem. (Score:2)
Physical buttons are always in the same place. They also work if you're wearing gloves, or your fingers are wet. Hell, I've had touchscreens fail because my fingers were too dry. I love a physical keypad.
What will they think of next? (Score:2)
Rounded corners???