Speaking of Apple, it is more than a little frustrating that if I start driving with Google Maps, and I realise it's too quiet, the volume control changes the Ringer instead of the media volume unless I time it to be while she is speaking. Which is kind of tough if it's really quiet, and hard to catch during shorter snippets anyway. I remember on Android when the app had focus it'd always change the media volume in these situations. I'm not sure which of them to blame!
Still think changing the volume from just being one setting and hard mute switch to the granular ringer/volume and context based approach was a mistake.
I liked I could physical switch kill my phones sound so if you were browsing Twitter or whatever on public transport you knew it would always be muted. Now if you click on a video in most apps it will just ignore the mute and start playing it at likely full volume.
The physical mute switch only seems to truly silence the ringer and the OS overrules it if it thinks you want to listen to video.
Cleverness over predictability. Instead of removing or even hiding complexity they obfuscate it. It seems like a consistent theme with Apple's designs.
The extra funny bit is that the type of physical volume control it's imitating is bad even in the real world. I remember having these dinky little wheels on Walkmans and such and having to fiddle a lot with them to get the exact volume I wanted.
The insanity of the false intuitiveness is hilarious. So let me get this straight, you need pixel perfect accuracy to reduce the volume to lowest, but not as much to increase it to the highest? How was this delineation determined?
Speaking of Apple, it is more than a little frustrating that if I start driving with Google Maps, and I realise it's too quiet, the volume control changes the Ringer instead of the media volume unless I time it to be while she is speaking. Which is kind of tough if it's really quiet, and hard to catch during shorter snippets anyway. I remember on Android when the app had focus it'd always change the media volume in these situations. I'm not sure which of them to blame!
Still think changing the volume from just being one setting and hard mute switch to the granular ringer/volume and context based approach was a mistake.
I liked I could physical switch kill my phones sound so if you were browsing Twitter or whatever on public transport you knew it would always be muted. Now if you click on a video in most apps it will just ignore the mute and start playing it at likely full volume.
The physical mute switch only seems to truly silence the ringer and the OS overrules it if it thinks you want to listen to video.
Cleverness over predictability. Instead of removing or even hiding complexity they obfuscate it. It seems like a consistent theme with Apple's designs.
Yep, I came here to mention the QuickTime volume control wheel, which was strangely missing from the article. Skeuomorphism gone mad.
http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm
The extra funny bit is that the type of physical volume control it's imitating is bad even in the real world. I remember having these dinky little wheels on Walkmans and such and having to fiddle a lot with them to get the exact volume I wanted.
Might be useful if you pointed out what you’re referring to. I assume it’s the little volume control on QuickTime player?
It took me more than a few seconds to even find the control. I guess that's why it's so bad!
To be honest, without reading the comments I actually would not have realized that there's a volume control visible on this screen.
Yes, it was extremely difficult to adjust accurately.
The insanity of the false intuitiveness is hilarious. So let me get this straight, you need pixel perfect accuracy to reduce the volume to lowest, but not as much to increase it to the highest? How was this delineation determined?
Oooh, so that’s where the allergy to skeuomorphism comes from.