Control Center on iOS 10: stupid.

[StonewallBrown]

Good friend, this as a beginning point for your comment, does not exactly scream volumes about clear thinking or insight. It's like the worst cliche.

We are talking about what is the design philosophy of a quick control panel. Should we need to swipe several times, in different directions no less, to do a "quick" action? Is that intuitive? Or should it be immediate and singular action - and thus create more value than double tapping the home button and clicking into the card for the app?

Thinking about this carefully is more productive than bad copies of "why dont you move to...."..

I don't see how thinking about it, is more productive or changes anything.

You don't like it. That's your right. Apple may change it in the future. They most likely will not. How do you know it doesn't have anything to do with a new feature in the next phone? Whether there is a rhyme or reason, this is the way it is. Feel free to submit feedback. Maybe it will change their approach if enough feedback is negative.

Beyond that, it seems you have two choices. Adapt or find something that more suits your desires.

 

[Osamede]

No, I dont like it. It breaks with some very fundamental design principles, primary of which is simplification features should actually well....simplify.

Funny you talking about "feedback" to Apple, as you couldn't manage to grasp a direct message yourself. You dont get to tell me what do, I think was the point. ;-)

 

[6836838]

A but of a rant, but the space is wasted. High Shift really should take up the full width of the panel and I'd personally like to see brightness and volume on the first panel. Having to scroll left and right to alter volume/brightness is just silly.

I also think Apple need to have some kind of indicator to show when 3D Touch is available. I very rarely use it, as I find I'm constantly testing to see where it does and doesn't work. For those less informed on this stuff, it must be a real nightmare. But I guess that's slightly off-topic here.

 

[StonewallBrown]

No, I dont like it. It breaks with some very fundamental design principles, primary of which is simplification features should actually well....simplify.

Funny you talking about "feedback" to Apple, as you couldn't manage to grasp a direct message yourself. You dont get to tell me what do, I think was the point. ;-)

I managed it just fine. You feel your view of design and simplification is better then Apple's. Again, that is your right. Im not telling you what to do. I'm offering you suggestions/options. You want things your way. That's not going to happen here. So save yourself the annoyances and find a better solution for you. Or enjoy iOS. Your choice. It couldn't bother me less, one way or the other.

 

[stooovie]

I managed it just fine. You feel your view of design and simplification is better then Apple's. Again, that is your right. Im not telling you what to do. I'm offering you suggestions/options. You want things your way. That's not going to happen here. So save yourself the annoyances and find a better solution for you. Or enjoy iOS. Your choice. It couldn't bother me less, one way or the other.

It works both ways - if you don't want to read other people's opinions on Apple stuff, don't go to Apple forums.

 

[jonnyb098]

I agree with most of what you said. I've been running the beta for awhile and I think CC was just redesigned for the sake of change and it's a poor redesign. Having music controls on a separate panel is silly and I can't tell you how many times I've gone to quickly raise or lower the volume in CC and my input doesn't register on the volume slider and the panel swipes over to the toggle panel.

And this is the kind of **** (hard to control volume slider) that will take them till 10.2 to fix. Attention to detail like quickly using sliders is kind of a big deal and the whole point of QUICK ACCESS CONTORLS!!
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It's their software and they can do whatever they deem to it. So yeah, you DO need to get used to it, use the device as it's intended and worry less about stupid nitpicky crap. Again, it's their product and it will always look and function the way they want it to that represents their company.

Design choices aside. People saying the sliders are hard to use IS a problem that needs to be addressed.

 

[StonewallBrown]

There is customisation in Apple phones. And this control panel is the sort of lace it is necessary. You don't understand design so how would you know bad design? Not bashing anyone for lack of insight - just using mine.

It works both ways - if you don't want to read other people's opinions on Apple stuff, don't go to Apple forums.

Edit: I meant to have originally quoted the above post. I mistakenly thought you were Osamede. My opinions are the same, but didn't need to be so forceful. I despise people that tell others their ideas are right and everyone else is wrong. For that I apologize.

 

[jonnyb098]

You wanna talk bad UI...

12.9" iPad Pro. It's got a bloody 2K resolution display but music text has to scroll?

Apple's QC has gone out the window.

The large iPad Pro is a landscape device. The controls look different in landscape. I don't how you feel anything but goofy using the 12.9 inch pro in portrait.
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Night Shift is their biggest offense. NO reason why that button should be so big.

It's because they will be splitting it in half and have night mode next to it. iOS 10 was begging for a night mode the moment I saw the first slides on stage.

 

[lagwagon]

Design choices aside. People saying the sliders are hard to use IS a problem that needs to be addressed.

The sliders were hard to use in developer beta 1 and quickly got addressed in developer beta 2/public beta 1 already. Personally I haven't had a single slider issue since they fixed them way back then in the third week. And have seen very little (pretty much none) comments after the fix until this last week with you mentioning it and maybe 1-2 other people. Definitely no where near the comments from dev beta 1.

 

[KALLT]

Notification Centre just doesn’t feel right. What really disturbed me was the lack of handlebars and drag areas. This is all over the place; notifications and widgets too. Apple is attempting to use the translucent bubbles as some kind of solid element that you can interact with, but the visual style makes it feel awkward. You feel compelled to touch these bubbles instead of the screen or the surroundings, even though you don’t always have to, but you don’t know where you can safely touch it and instead drag it carefully from a safe spot or by quick gestures (which can sometimes trigger buttons and sliders). This is a clear departure from how it used to work since iOS 5. Now Apple opts for the same unintuitive gestures like on the Apple Watch. It’s a botched transplant from Watch OS.

 

[aarontsuru]

I wonder if it would work a little better with a 'flick up' up open and then it would be vertical scrollable, then 'flick down' from the top or have a tap-to-close somewhere (or both)?

 

[StonewallBrown]

I wonder if it would work a little better with a 'flick up' up open and then it would be vertical scrollable, then 'flick down' from the top or have a tap-to-close somewhere (or both)?

Only problem with that would be one handed use on the bigger phones. I like the idea, just not sure how to get it to work on a plus.

 

[VSMacOne]

The sliders were hard to use in developer beta 1 and quickly got addressed in developer beta 2/public beta 1 already. Personally I haven't had a single slider issue since they fixed them way back then in the third week. And have seen very little (pretty much none) comments after the fix until this last week with you mentioning it and maybe 1-2 other people. Definitely no where near the comments from dev beta 1.

I seem to still be having issues with the brightness slider in CC. It's been a couple of betas now that I have reset all settings, but that didn't seem to help last time. We'll see how it goes with the GM.

 

[aarontsuru]

Only problem with that would be one handed use on the bigger phones. I like the idea, just not sure how to get it to work on a plus.

I think it works for notification center, but also, a quick-tap "minimize/close" bar or x or something at the bottom wouldn't be so hard, or even move the "flick down" arrow point to the bottom of the screen to close. Lots of options.

 

[iainmann]

There are some areas where Android is better than iOS and Control Centre is one.

 

[Feenician]

There are some areas where Android is better than iOS and Control Centre is one.

Which Android are we talking about here? How is it better?

 

[lagwagon]

Which Android are we talking about here? How is it better?

Obviously the one where his opinion makes it a universal fact it's better for 100% of the population, because it's so well designed.

 

[wdam123]

I'm not sure what you all think of Control Center on iOS 10, but I'm personally very surprised to see it has such bad U.I in the latest beta.

I think it's a huge mistake to move different controls over different panes to make it 'less cluttered', and at the same time don't allow users to customize a panel used so often.
What does 'cleaner U.I' mean when it affects the user experience?

Suddenly, when brightness is wrong or music is too loud I can't rely on muscle memory anymore (swipe up, adjust, swipe down). Nope, since iOS 10 I could be in one of three panes and have to navigate to it first.
The whole core idea about Control Panel is to super quickly change settings or access commonly used tools, regardless of which context I'm in.

First of all let's take this screenshot:
https://postimg.org/image/6frudh5o9/

Starting at the top, the use of color is misplaced. I'm glad Apple is getting some color back in their operating system (I hope they'll do the same with the Finder's navigation bar) but in this case a toggle button doesn't really benefit from having different colors. Its toggled state is what counts and this should be consistent throughout the 5 icons. Why is the lock icon red? Is it a warning? No it's just the lock rotation being 'locked'. Why is airplane mode orange? Or 'do not disturb' in a slightly different blue tone? These things matter.
(The respective colors in Settings *do* make sense to me. The purpose there is to quickly identify the appropriate icon in a huge list of items)

The fact that I'm still not able to press-and-hold the Bluetooth or Wifi buttons to change Wifi network or Bluetooth devices SUCKS. Still, I have to dive into the Settings menu all the time. And mind you, I have to do this a lot of times. It's so easy to do, yet Apple doesn't allow me.

Next is the brightness slider. I'm not sure about you but when I quickly open the control panel and want to adjust the slider, there's a change I make a mistake and by not properly touching the horizontal slider. In iOS10 I now keep accidentely dragging the entire pane instead of dragging the slider. As if these two are 'fighting' since both the front element is responding to my horizontal input as well as the entire background.

In iOS9 for some reason the slider was more responsive (or at least the perception of it). I think it's a stupid design on Apple's end. It reminds me of embedded Google Maps views in websites, where you accidentally start dragging the map instead of the webpage itself. The latter is harder to fix, the former is just lame design.

Moving on to AirPlay and Airdrop. There is no reason why these buttons couldn't be smaller buttons as well, but I don't think they're necessarily bad either.

But then! Night shift!
What a horrible, horrible waste of space for something that is so rarely interacted with. Which U.I designer came up with THAT? This could have been merged witch the Airdrop/Airplay row.
Something that I'm using much more often is the 'battery saving' setting. The ability to turn battery saving mode on/off is something I'd love to have, yet Apple doesn't want or allow me to.

https://postimg.org/image/h3vlcbfnd/

The second pane... total abuse of valuable space. Just look at it. It's as if is it's a placeholder screen, unfinished

Granted, it's certainly nice to be able to click the application that is claiming the audio, but it could have been solved with a mere clickable audio icon left of the slider.

The play/pause/reverse/buttons just drown in space.

Another horizontal slider that fights with the parent pane's horizontal dragging.

Great to be able to select a different audio output but I'm not so sure why this should be an accordion menu folding out, versus the interaction design used on the home screen (3D touch to open a folding menu that closes on release, in this case selecting the audio outputs)

These two panes could have been consolidated to one, without sacrificing interaction. Perhaps the one panel would have been larger (height), but so what? There's room for it! Maybe the 5s would be in trouble but there are ways to fallback gracefully in U.I.
At least I would have liked the ability to design my own control panel and stick with just one pane.

Apple's sometimes idiotic focus on aesthetics and minimalism ruin basic interaction. Control Center is one example of that.

-------

Ps The above looks even WORSE on iPad. With so much screen estate, there is no reason why there are multiple panes at all.

In the attempt to try to solve an issue (too cluttered? Not enough controls?) they've created one (the need to scroll multiple panes, odd prioritization/spacing for elements).

Couldn't agree anymore, so inconvenient to have to swipe between panes or have to stick on a specific pane so I don't have to swipe.

 

[jamesin702]

while the widgets panel looks cleaner, having to swipe again in notification center seems inconvenient. probably better just to open the app itself. shame that widgets is only accessible through notification center.

 

[jasonklee]

Control Center was a cluttered mess. The new card-based UI allows elements to breathe and allows for future cards.

 

[lagwagon]

Control Center was a cluttered mess. The new card-based UI allows elements to breathe and allows for future cards.

Quite true. It's cleaner by far.

Apple often designs for what they have coming next. I fully expect things like the Nightshift button to get smaller with the addition of a new button to take up at least half the space (matching how AirPlay/AirDrop share the same space.) Quite possibly in a later 10.1, 10.2 or 10.3 update.

 

[stooovie]

Also, two-pane CC makes you miss some shots as it's no longer just swipe up and tap Camera. Now it's swipe up, fumble a bit with CC and miss a shot. And yes, I know I can lock and swipe left, but that was there before too. Quick access to camera from unlocked phone is just not as straightforward now.

 

[stooovie]

while the widgets panel looks cleaner, having to swipe again in notification center seems inconvenient. probably better just to open the app itself. shame that widgets is only accessible through notification center.

And from the Springboard too, TBH. But I get ya.

 

[TurboPGT!]

As usual, users that have no jobs in UI design or software development have their opinions. They are of course not very well thought out, and very "me" oriented.

New Control Center in iOS 10 is very, very well done.

 

[d4cloo]

Control Center was a cluttered mess. The new card-based UI allows elements to breathe and allows for future cards.

That's even worse. What's the point of quick access if there are like 5 or 6 cards? At that point it seems better to access the Settings pane.

Right now "allows elements to breathe" comes with "and by doing so compromised the user experience considerably".

In my opinion one single card should have been the restriction for designing control center. Two is too much already.

But okay, if more than one is what they want, Apple should have allowed us to configure Control Center so that I can only include the elements that *I* want for quick access (in my case all on one card, maybe you would like more).

Perhaps by dragging icons from an inventory onto the card in view.
And non-experienced users simply would accept what Apple provides by default and be done with it.

Allowing to configure cards shouldn't affect complexity negatively because it's optional.