Apple's products are getting harder to use, ignore principles of design (2015)
The iPad was my gateway into the Apple orchard. I had never purchased an Apple product until about a decade ago, when I got the first Retina iPad as a gift for someone who didn’t use computers. I was so impressed by how intuitive the device and OS was for them, that I installed macOS in a VM on Windows to try iOS development. I fell in love with macOS (back during Lion) shortly before getting my first MacBook and leaving Windows forever behind, never to return.<p>Fast forward to a month ago. I purchased one of the newer low-end iPads as another gift for someone else who didn’t use computers.<p>It was depressing.<p>The setup process was kinda annoying. No, we don’t want Apple Pay, thank you. I had to enter the Apple/iCloud account credentials multiple times at different points before it stopped asking me to sign in again.<p>There were a lot of bugs in the system UI and the preinstalled apps.<p>I had to disable the multitasking gestures because they would be confusing for a new user.<p>They have removed labels for the Dock icons with no way to restore them, so I had to keep apps with less obvious icons out of the Dock, so they could have labels. Because a flower for photos is not a connection that many people can intuitively make.<p>I had to explain that dragging down from the right corner of the top edge brings up the brightness control.<p>Dragging down from anywhere else on the top edge brings up the notifications.<p>Dragging down on a blank part of the home screen’s background, away from edges, brings up the search bar.<p>Fuck.