Has Apple completely lost the plot in terms of default Home Screen layout?

[skrungemaster]

Imagine you’ve just switched to iOS. You boot up and activate your cool new iPhone 15, and swipe into the Home Screen for the first time.

You’re greeted with 39 pre installed apps, across two home screens. Two stacks of widgets, and another smattering of random widgets off to the left. There are duplicate widgets in stacks all over the place, and on top of that, a full App Library sorted into random categories when you swipe to the right.

It’s chaotic, ugly, and it’s clear that as Apple has made more and more default apps, they are sticking them without care on the default Home Screen.

Here’s iOS 4 for comparison.

 

[matrix07]

Yes, that’s like 14 years ago…

I don’t think there is much more confusions. The OS is much more complicated clearly but the starting point is not.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Imagine you’ve just switched to iOS. You boot up and activate your cool new iPhone 15, and swipe into the Home Screen for the first time.

“Just switched to iOS” from what, though? If you’re a current “smartphone” user (basically Android at this point) you know what smartphones are capable of; you’ll see most of those 39 apps have fairly obvious functions. Sure, you’ll have to get used to the Apple-way some of them work but I don’t think an Android convert would expect not to have to do SOME learning.

If you’re the last guy in town with an old Motorola MicroTAC, well… you have 15 years of learning ahead of you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t see how organizing it would help much. It’d be like plopping Grey’s Anatomy in front of someone and expecting them to be able to excise your appendix.

 

[Bazza1]

Unless you're running a SE or an earlier iPhone with a hardware button, there is no Home page anymore. Time was when tapping on the button it would take you to the first - the Home - page, where Apple initially stuck a majority of it's app icons, but left it that they could be moved to other pages as the user customized this page and others as they added apps. But tapping the button would always take you back to that 'priority' Home page.

Now turning on an iPhone, it opens whatever page was last viewed, leaving the user to flick thru their pages to get to 'Home'. Although I have some users place widgets on the first screen and put all their apps into folders on the second page they have - so really, a variation of the App Library, but in named folders that make sense to them.

 

[pdoherty]

Unless you're running a SE or an earlier iPhone with a hardware button, there is no Home page anymore. Time was when tapping on the button it would take you to the first - the Home - page, where Apple initially stuck a majority of it's app icons, but left it that they could be moved to other pages as the user customized this page and others as they added apps. But tapping the button would always take you back to that 'priority' Home page.

Not sure I agree there isn't a Home page. Swipe up *twice* to get to it.

 

[morphism]

Imagine you’ve just switched to iOS. You boot up and activate your cool new iPhone 15, and swipe into the Home Screen for the first time.

You’re greeted with 39 pre installed apps, across two home screens. Two stacks of widgets, and another smattering of random widgets off to the left. There are duplicate widgets in stacks all over the place, and on top of that, a full App Library sorted into random categories when you swipe to the right.

It’s chaotic, ugly...

I agree, iOS is a confusing mess. I don't get the obsession with widgets covering up the screen, I just delete them all.

Add to that the nagging about permission to shove notifications in your face (for the App Store, Books, Music, etc.) for more opportunities to give Apple money, as well as serving you personalized ads in the App Store, Stocks app, News, etc.

Apple seems to be building a targeted ad platform by using Siri to build a profile of you on-device and then serving up ads matched to some anonymized version of that. Technically it's not selling your information since it's done on-device, but morally it's the same thing.

 

[Paddle1]

Unless you're running a SE or an earlier iPhone with a hardware button, there is no Home page anymore. Time was when tapping on the button it would take you to the first - the Home - page, where Apple initially stuck a majority of it's app icons, but left it that they could be moved to other pages as the user customized this page and others as they added apps. But tapping the button would always take you back to that 'priority' Home page.

Now turning on an iPhone, it opens whatever page was last viewed, leaving the user to flick thru their pages to get to 'Home'. Although I have some users place widgets on the first screen and put all their apps into folders on the second page they have - so really, a variation of the App Library, but in named folders that make sense to them.

Swiping up (where the home bar usually is) while on the home screen does the same thing pressing home did.

 

[Bazza1]

Swiping up (where the home bar usually is) while on the home screen does the same thing pressing home did.

Sorry, should have noted that - but not an obvious control feature to reach Home, unless one makes a point of swiping corners and top and bottom to see what Apple has tucked away.

 

[sviato]

Not sure I agree there isn't a Home page. Swipe up *twice* to get to it.

Not even twice, just swipe to mid screen and you’re back home