Interesting Links for 14-09-2012

[andrewducker]

• How Buzz Aldrin's communion on the moon was hushed up
  (tags: moon religion space astronauts )
• Intel predicts 10GHz chips by 2011 (the first comment is _awesome_)
  (tags: intel technology speed )
• A Dozen Android Features Missing From iOS
  (tags: iphone ios android )
• Publishers Hate Money, Clearly (Stross, Doctorow and Tor all try to do the

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

The only one of those Android features I think is useful is the back button, and at least last time I tried an iPad, swiping backwards did that too.

Though the back button has UX problems of its own: if I go into an app, and hit back, does that mean 'back to main screen', or 'back one screen in the internal history of my usage of the app', or 'back up one level in the internal UI hiearchy of the app'? On my android at least, all three seem to happen depending on the app.

> Widgets: Don't open an app, view its status directly on your homescreen, such as your itinerary for this week from your calendar. Simple, yet very useful.

Ugh. That's on reason I hate android tablets -- clutter and mess.

[andrewducker]

I don't see why "Display the information you use the most without making you dig through apps" is necessarily clutter.

[momentsmusicaux]

It possibly wouldn't be if well-designed. But what I see on Android tablets in the shops is a total dog's dinner of different widgets of all sizes and shapes with different controls and I can't figure out what it's all meant to mean. Or rather, I don't want to have to.

[andrewducker]

Presumably you'd only use the well-designed widgets, and ones that worked how you wanted them to :->

The only ones I use are the ones for turning WiFi/mobile data on and off, and the one for using the phone as a torch, all other widgets are happily unused.

[andrewducker]

I do agree that the Back button can differ in how it's used. I prefer it to be "Take me back to where I just was" - whether that's the previous page inside the app, or back to the app that launched the current one.

I can see the argument for "Take me up one level", but it doesn't work in my internal map - I'd rather have an internal "You are here" (with breadcrumbs or whatever) to allow me to go where I want for that kind of page change.

[momentsmusicaux]

> I prefer it to be "Take me back to where I just was" - whether that's the previous page inside the app, or back to the app that launched the current one.

Ah but then that locks you out of the interface.

This happens to me lots:

- I get a text message
- I click on the notification to read it
- I want to send another text or compare with a previously received one. So I press back to mean 'Go out of this message and up to the list of all messages'
- But that takes me back to the home screen.

And then there's a bug whereby even if I now go into the text app via its icon, I get taken to that message (which is logical) but back keeps taking me to the home screen.

[andrewducker]

But that's not "back", that's "up"! The SMS app interface should have a button of "take me up a level" built into it IMHO.

Of course, the simple solution to making us both reasonably happy is to combine these things. So that if you load the SMS app it simply slides "up to the top level" into the stack of previous pages, so that pressing back once takes you to the top level, and pressing it again takes you back to whence you came.

[erindubitably]

Though the back button has UX problems of its own: if I go into an app, and hit back, does that mean 'back to main screen', or 'back one screen in the internal history of my usage of the app', or 'back up one level in the internal UI hiearchy of the app'?

My android phone has two buttons that serve more or less the first two functions, which is handy.