80: Accessible by design

This is my Pokéjam.

This is my Pokéjam.

iOS 10 hasn't been billed as a major interface redesign, but it's definitely accelerating change away from the ultra-wispy, radically flat design of iOS 7. At the WWDC intro of iOS 10, these changes were demonstrated mainly in two apps: Music and News. When I saw the slides, I thought, "OK, this is an interesting, bold new direction for the interface." When I first used Music, I thought, "Wait, did some accessibility setting get turned on?"

No sooner had I thought that than I realized what it meant. For those of us with perfect vision, hearing, motor skills, etc., Accessibility just looks like the extra-fiddly settings section. But for many, those settings are the only thing that makes their Apple devices usable. I shouldn't be shocked at a slightly larger text size in one of the cornerstone apps on iOS. While I fortunately don't need it yet, I would guess that there are tens of millions of older iOS users who have increased their default text size just because their eyes are aging. Frankly, that means that my expectations were reversed. Nice, large, readable text should be the default — as it is now — with an option for the eagle-eyed to shrink it down to increase information density.

Of course, it's still incumbent upon Apple to arrive at a sensible default, especially if it can't be changed. One area of question is the lock screen. I think it's more or less properly proportioned on the iPhone, but Stephen Hackett recently shared a comical iPad lock screen. He's apparently listening to one of his favorite podcasts, "ow with John Gruber" and the latest episode features "uest Glenn Fleishma". (It also features a bug with the playback indicator and times over one hour, which has carried over from iOS 9.)

On the iPad lock screen, the default is clearly wrong; the average user should be able to read more than two and a half words in that space. I expect a sensible revision there, similar to how the Notes app in macOS Sierra finally has moved in the opposite direction, away from a tiny text default. These are both proof that good design is iterative (and the beta period is the perfect time for quick iteration). The drive behind that design has to be that Apple products are no longer for "the rest of us"; with a billion iOS devices in the world, they're for all of us. Out of the box they should be accesible to as many as possible and, with a few changes in settings, accessible to the rest.

79: Keyboard clicks

Few things in the Apple universe provoke such strong reactions as clicky keyboards, both physical and virtual. Some people demand silence, while others want their clicks to be as loud and satisfying as possible. I vacillate: I've used an Apple Extended Keyboard II this decade, but I've turned off the keyboard clicks in iOS.

Or I had, until I installed the iOS 10 public beta, which restored the default setting, turning them back on. Those with an ear for detail also noticed that the click sound has changed. It's softer, more of a pop than a click, and this too has its supporters and detractors. I like it a little better — it's more subtle and refined — but that's not the reason I decided to leave the sounds on.

I have keyboard clicks enabled on my phone now as a sort of early warning system. There are vanishingly few times when my phone should not be set to silent, especially while I'm at work. The worst way to discover that the mute switch got flipped is by accidentally blasting some silly video from your Twitter feed in the middle of a quiet office. Leaving keyboard clicks on lowers that chance. The instant I hear keyboard feedback, I know to enter silent mode. But the soft pock pock pock sound of the keys, especially just for a few seconds, won't cause anyone around me offense.

I have to draw the line somewhere.

I have to draw the line somewhere.

I employ a similar strategy on the Mac, although it allows me to be even quieter. By default, Mac OS plays sounds when changing the volume using the media keys. This can be temporarily disabled by holding the shift key, or the behavior can be reversed in System Preferences. This lets me quickly tap the mute button to check my current volume without creating any sound. And when I put on headphones and want to do a practical volume check — because three clicks on my Sennheiser headphones is several times louder than three clicks on EarPods — I simply hold shift to get the necessary feedback.

Perhaps my stance on keyboard clicks will just be temporary, and they'll begin to drive me insane. Or who knows, maybe with the new sound I'll come to actively like them. Even then, I would try to keep them confined to my headphones; the goal is still to keep my devices' sounds from bothering those around me.

78: Improved data detectors

I keep an informal running list of potential topics for Picomac. There's one that's been in there for months, but I've avoided it because my opinion just seemed too negative. It reads: "data detectors are as dumb as a box of rocks".

Data detectors have been around for a long time on both the Mac and iOS. They first appeared in Apple's Mail apps, doing helpful little things like highlighting addresses or phone numbers so you could act on them quickly. Those data types made sense for such a feature; if pressed, I could probably write a quick and dirty regular expression that would match them just about as accurately as the detectors do.

But highlighting phone numbers wasn't what provoked my ire. It was the overgeneralization of data detectors into Messages, which led to lots of annoying clutter. In an effort to be helpful, Messages would take phrases like "what are you making for dinner?" and underline "for dinner", offering to create a calendar appointment. I hope the day never comes that I need to make a record of what time I will eat a meal in my own home.

Monday was my first full day with iOS 10 and it was also a rough day personally. I was not up for cooking dinner. I got a text with some suggestions: "We could go to Zingerman's roadhouse or jolly pumpkin or something." The two restaurant names were underlined. (And "for dinner" was not!) I tapped on each name and a full page of relevant info popped up: location, phone number, photos, and other info sourced from Yelp. Dumb old data detectors have grown up. First, they're location-aware; if you're not in Michigan, the words "jolly pumpkin" mean nothing with respect to dinner plans — especially if they're written all in lowercase. Second, they're more subtle; instead of looking like an ordinary hyperlink, the underline beneath the text is thinner and lighter — just enough to signal that you can tap on it.

 
 

Highlighting local restaurant names is just one new trick that data detectors have learned, and I expect to discover more. It gives me hope that someday it will be an OS-level feature to perform more complex data detection, like taking an email signature block and automagically parsing it into a full contact card. (That's best done by third-party apps like Interact today.) It's also promising for Apple's ability to do smart things with "proactive" or context-sensitive data on the fly. If data can be detected an acted upon instantly, perhaps someday Siri will no longer have to say "let me check on that" in response to very simple queries. And whatever future data detectors bring, one thing is certain: I won't be rolling my eyes at texts about dinner anymore.

77: iOS 10 – What's new, anyway?

I've made good on my promise to install the iOS 10 public beta. Aside from having to download a configuration profile to my device, the process felt just like any other major iOS update of the past few years: a lot of patient waiting through two excruciatingly bright progress bar screens. I was prepared for a few setup screens (because of one of the worst additions to the OS X update process, even for point revisions), but instead I was dumped straight into Springboard, where I said the same thing I have after other iOS updates: "Hang on, what's different?"

On my first Springboard page, the answer was nothing except the Home app, which — for unknown reasons — had been slotted fifth from the top, far left. I began to poke and prod and immediately rediscovered some changes, like the replacement of the Spotlight/Siri search page with a widget view and the new media and home panes in Control Center. I opened up Messages and saw a couple giant-size emoji. And then I couldn't remember what else I was supposed to be impressed by.

This is a double-edged sword. If people like me who follow Apple very closely can't remember what a beta of iOS has to offer without external assistance, how much of an impact will the new features have? But if my true reaction is "everything seems to be working as usual", that's wonderful for the average user who taps "Update" the very first time their phone prompts them to, because they won't be overly put out by the changes (no mass panic like with the iOS 7 update). And I presume there will be an on-device tour in the final build, much like the iOS 10 preview page on Apple's website.

During the beta period I'll be carefully studying that Apple page, as well as the in-depth writeups of the private betas done by sites like iMore and MacStories. I've already recorded my first bug report, and I'll keep doing my part — although I wish there was an easy way to tell if I'm creating a lengthy writeup for a known issue. But I'm sure there will be entire features that go undiscovered, for days, weeks, or even well past the final release. That's just the complexity of iOS in it's maturity. The best I can do to keep up is to get a head start, and with the public beta, Apple is letting me.