> we just learn them by... querying how to do things when we need them.

The problem with this is that you don’t learn any new features that you wouldn’t have come up with on your own.

I loved reading the well-written manuals and “on-line” (integrated into the software) help of the 90s (and 80s) that explained all the concepts and features of the particular software. You’d learn a ton of new ideas and possibilities. It was really fun and exciting, and it gave you the perception of a well-designed and well thought-out whole. You built up a consistent mental model of the software, and you thus ended up with the feeling of mastery and control over the software.

Nowadays it feels more like poking the software with a stick in an attempt to build a mental model and discover its capabilities by trial and error, often remaining in doubt about the actual intent of how exactly things are supposed to work.

Have you tried googling "iphone manual"? The first result is the iPhone User Guide [1], which is a comprehensive manual that does document literally everything.

The manual is also available as an 843-page ebook [2], and is accessible via the Tips app, which is preinstalled on the home screen.

It's not quite like the days when a paper manual would be right in the box, but it's close. And I think most people would be unhappy if their sleek new phone came with an 843-page tome (not to mention how much paper that would waste).

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/welcome/ios

[2] https://books.apple.com/book/id6443146864

> but you can Google everything you need to know.

It's hard to Google things you don't know exist. And it's hard to Google things that changed. If you've ever had a problem on macos, Googling is only useful if the problem is new; if it's been an issue in older versions, you're going to find all those questions and maybe some answers but they likely don't apply because Apple broke it differently now. Other vendors are not immune to this either, of course. I understand Apple actually does have manuals, they just don't print them and if they reference them, many people (including me) never noticed.

> also came with a manual that documented literally everything

Note that iPhones have a manual too, it’s easy to navigate and quite comprehensive. E.g. here’s a page that describes the “trackpad” action: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph3c50f96e/16.... .

Google only helps if you know what you're looking for and it's a search that it happens to give you good results on. I've increasingly found the latter to be a problem, because when it comes to the point that I need to search online, it's probably not something easily found.

Apple actually does have an extensive and up to date manual on their products which includes all those obscure convenience features. I don’t think much has really changed in this regard. The manual exists, is very easy to read and understand, but people don’t care because they get by without it just fine.

All too often the search results are padded with advice for some other version than the one I am having trouble with, and it is difficult or impossible to craft a query specific enough to weed them out as the information simply isn't there.

Then there is the problem of authors using product- and version-specific jargon that I haven't mastered yet, precisely because one can usually pick up the basic operations without reading a manual - "1. From the customization agent..."

As an aside, the ability to stop yourself and know when to google something is what’s starting to separate the truly “smart” from everyone now - whether it’s coding, or general knowledge and discussions, or even when you’re just sitting in the toilet musing about some random question.

Especially in coding I see this as the major difference between a good and great engineer - google things at the right time to find the best solutions. You don’t have to build it all yourself.

Macs in the 90s, so System 6, 7 and 8, were full of hidden stuff. Clicking stuff while holding option, you would discover all kinds of interesting features and easter eggs.

https://wiki.preterhuman.net/The_Macintosh/Newton_Easter_Egg...

I still can't find a list of all the command key shortcuts for Windows. Googling it yields lots of pages of partial lists.

I think you just articulated what my #1 blocker to mastering vim and/or emacs has been: they're both designed for the "mastery thorough thick manual" era. Dashing off to Google answers my immediate query, but often is far less instructive than a well-organized manual with an index at letting me discover the adjacent thing I actually need.

OK, that's my #2 blocker. My #1 blocker is that I am no longer 15 and have things to do other than just poke about until I master a new text editor.

Yes it's great that we can Google/DDG most stuff at a whim. And there are often many great tutorials both written and video searchable online on a lot of software.

That does NOT solve the original discoverability problem.

>>I've been astonished at how often a feature was added 3 years ago to a program I've used for 8 years, or there's a secret swipe that avoids a bunch of menus, or an unofficial command-line flag.

THAT is the problem right there. You're a likely typical example of someone who is smart, knowledgeable, experienced, and motivated, probably beyond what used to be called a "power user". Yet great swaths of features, and the work of scores of designers, developers, & testers for years, simply escapes our notice.

The result is that vast amounts of productivity go squandered until we discover by chance accident or encounter with some "You didn't know this!" post.

I've occasionally seen some introduction wizards be somewhat helpful, but they are never in any kind of depth. It's like they are afraid to show you what the software can really do — but the real case is some marketing dude thinks (likely sometimes correctly) that if the intro is too long, people will think it's complicated and won't use it. If that's the case, we're again being dragged down by the lowest (of most ordinary) common denominator.

Solutions? How about the Quick Tour, and even the outline/TOC of a full manual, so we can at least skim it and see if some feature exists and then Google/DDG it...?

I think relying on google might be too far, but there is certainly a middle group. My linux tools usage vastly improved by switching to a newer shell , with auto complete, pop up man pages, syntax checking arguments before executing, etc. Same with vim and tmux. Also using modern cli tool replacements that rust made popular. I wasted so much time when I was younger remembering things that provide a very small to no advantage if you do the above instead.

So, I'd say, google can be wrong, the ideal case is modify your existing tools as needed to maximize discoverability and minimize friction to actual documentation

This pattern is quite global. Everything is "more available" now, real time streamed, there's no apparent need for apriori organization since we can correct on the fly. Or so it seems.

Games are patched live, browser in constant update etc etc

> I've been astonished at how often a feature was added 3 years ago to a program I've used for 8 years,

This looks suspiciously similar to lifecycle of a social media, especially how they grow new features and eventually dies when users migrate.

Maybe it's a viable strategy for a social media, mobile OS, MMORPG, anything aaS to not explain features or educate users, but to grow as users consume added mechanics, until it becomes impossible for new users to catch up and old users to keep up?

I actually miss picking up books like the Macintosh Bible where you can read through UI features. There was something fun about reading and then trying it in front of the keyboard.

I'm very, very tired of the size of the backlog of stuff I probably ought to Google. It's too freaking long. Just make it easy to do without looking it up!

I really LOVE how rust approaches this: provide as much help as possible in the compiler error messages. Not sure if they were inspired by elm that does this too, but it means you do a lot less context switching between your program and “the manual”/stackoverflow/whatever else.

In the 1990s, plenty of people felt obligated to drive to the mall, walk into B Dalton, and purchase a 300 page book to learn how to use their new software. There was a whole section for it.

Today, they can find the equivalent information for free without leaving the device where the software is running.

I haven't encountered a professional software product without a manual yet. What you describe applies to software for mass consumption only. It might change in the future, but it would be a bit ridiculous for a company to sell a product for a professional without documentation.

The G in "GUI" stands for "graphical." People forget that when they defend shitty, undiscoverable UI. The examples in this article are right on point. Apple (and others) far too often simply punt and give up on doing the necessary design work, burying functionality behind some bullshit like "long presses" or "gestures" or modifier keys or modifier-key-clicking on a text label that isn't even demarcated as a control.

UI design takes time and thought; that's true. But why does a company with Apple's resources not bring the necessary effort to bear on it? It's not as if they can't afford it. Sure, there are time constraints, but if you're going to fold to those and trowel out shitty UI, then don't presume to publish "human interface guidelines" or other such bibles.

And it's high time to stop tolerating smug douchebags who denigrate any complaint about missing functionality and declare, "Well, you simply long-press Option-Shift-Command-Q to bring up the configuration menu."

As an interface designer I am completely confident that you're looking at old usability through rose colored glasses. Most software these days doesn't come with a big monolithic manual because it doesn't need one. More people directly use software now than ever before and most of them will probably never read a single line from a software user manual; not because they don't exist, it's because they don't have to. The vanishingly small percentage of folks very experienced with interfaces designed for professional software users– often using old interface flows and metaphors– get frustrated with software designed for everybody else. Your understanding of software usability isn't representative– that's why almost no open source software, no matter how big the manual is, gains anywhere close to the same usage as their commercial equivalents.

I've found this to be nearly useless in practice because it fails to register the back taps accurately enough to be reliable.

> I think Apple does a decent job telling people about iOS features across the User Guide, Tips.app, and the Apple Support YouTube channel.

I have a nit-pick with the article, because all of the listed features are features where an obvious, more intuitive interface exists, but may be clunkier.

Eg. Calculator: the way “real” IRL calculators change the number you type is with the “clear” button. IPhones support that. Personally, i didn’t know about the swipe, and I think they should add a backspace button because swiping is confusing and younger people may not understand clear either. But you don’t need to swipe to use the calculator.

Keyboard cursor: This feature was demo’ed live when it was released, and it added a more dexterous way to position the typing cursor besides just touching the text where you want (old way, still works). Touching the screen where you want to type is pretty discoverable, and has been a stable feature for a while. It matches how mice and word processors on desktops would work, and seems intuitive to just tap on screen where you want to type anyways.

Safari Tab Change: You can just go to the safari tab page, available by touching a permanent on-screen button. Also, the swipe to change tab feature mimics the operating system’s swipe to change app experience, where the URL bar is indicative of the system’s handlebar. (Also demo’ed live when the feature was launched).

* 2. Move the insertion point by dragging around the keyboard.*

Anyone know how to go down doing this? Left, right, and up are all good, but I can’t figure out how to go down consistently. The 1.5mm below the space bar is really fiddly.

Note that enabling "Back Tap" will cause a daemon to run in the background all times taking a couple percent CPU (to detect this action, of course). I don't have very good numbers of the battery life impact but my guess is that it's perhaps half an hour or so. Might be worth keeping in mind when deciding whether to enable this feature.

I had screenshot function mapped to back double tap when I attempted to use iPhone last year, result was a gallery full of screenshots triggered by putting the phone on a table.

I just tried this on my Pixel 6 Pro and it unexpectedly worked (by defaulted to showing the notification pane). Hidden indeed!

Wow, these are great! The back tap feature seems really handy, and it even worked with my case on. I guess they're doing it by sensing phone movement/rotation rather than some sort of touch sensor on the back.

Back tap is nice, but seems to completely not work if you have a moderately thick case (I have kids, it's mandatory).

I was very excited when I learned about it until I realised that it doesn't work very well with a magsafe wallet.

Did you perhaps skip the on-boarding process? A lot of what you mention has been part of the Getting to know your iPhone on-boarding since they were introduced on the iPhone X. Specifically where to pull down from and pull up from.

I’m not sure what you mean by the flashlight not being actionable. Notification shade/Lock Screen buttons are long press actions to prevent accidental activation.

On iOS 16 there’s now a button on the launcher to invoke search in case people want to avoid swiping

You say they design their products to be used by tech savvy people but gestural design is designed to become intuitive after the first tutorial. Indeed the only people I know who struggle with it are tech savvy people who skip the on-boarding. In much the same way that people who think they’re handy disregard ikea instructions etc

Here’s a talk on the thought process behind a lot of their “fluid” design https://developer.apple.com/wwdc18/803

> The flashlight button on the home screen is also not actionable.

The button is actionable, it just takes a long press to avoid accidental activation.

The home button has like 11 different uses based on context and how you press it. It's just insane.

I kinda secretly judge UX people that enjoy iOS. And somehow almost all of them are Mac/iPhone users. I think that is a bit responsible for the uptick in form over function lately.

All those flashlight buttons are actionable, you just need to press and hold. I suppose this proves a point about discoverability.

> - seeing notifications requires swiping down specifically from the top left

Not really, swiping from anywhere on the top (except top-right) works. This is consistent with the other gestures: swipe up from the lock screen to unlock it (just like you would open a roller shutter); swipe down to lock it again -- and see the notifications. You can also simply hit the side button.

> - turning on the flashlight requires swiping down specifically from the top right

You can turn it on from the lock screen, as others have pointed out.

> - turning the phone off requires holding two unrelated buttons

Yes, so that you don’t turn it off by mistake. Smartphones are not devices you turn on and off; outside of OS updates they stay on forever.

> It makes me wonder if they intentionally design their products to be exclusively usable by tech-savvy people.

I would say the opposite. When I think of tech-savy people, I think about mouse and keyboard; when I think of non-tech-savy ones, I think about tactile displays and gestures (and voice).

My 92-yo grandfather barely knows how to make his printer work but has no trouble remembering the most common swipe gestures: it’s hard to forget about pinch to zoom or swipe down to 'close' the phone and swipe up to 'open' it again.

I suspect that designers are tasked with too many features on too small of a device. On a desktop with a mouse + keyboard there is a potential for so many shortcuts ... you have to get much more creative on a touch-only device.

I don't endorse it however. I think pop-up menus (even the much maligned hamburger) are at least a way to make many more features discoverable. I dislike "gestures".

I think many of these are inherently poweruser features though. Most non tech-savvy people will rarely have to turn off their phone or clear their open apps (really if the memory eviction system is good this shouldn't even be a concern).

Some of the other stuff you mentioned is discoverable in my opinion. Swiping down from home gives you a search bar. Notifications being accessible by swiping down from the left is admittedly not as good as swiping down from the top bar in the older iPhones, but I think still more discoverable than the Windows notification system that requires you to click a button.

To add insult to injury, sometimes the share sheet is really, really slow! Like several seconds with no UI feedback to indicate anything is going on! That’s quite frustrating when I want to quickly invoke my password manager or search on page.

I agree, the share sheet is just too confusing. Favorites management, my password manager, air drop, texting, find on page, and the kitchen sink are all in there and are quite undiscoverable if you don’t know to look for them.

To add some confusion on top of that, some features and extensions go in the similarly un-discoverable “aA” button in the URL bar, so it’s not even like everything goes in the share sheet. That button is really tough to remember even exists since it goes away when you scroll.

You don’t have to use Share for Find on Page. Just type in the address bar, then “On this Page” will be the bottom option. Obviously, that doesn’t seem to be sufficiently discoverable as well.

Agreed.

Photos have an option to mark photos as hidden, so they won't show up in random places.

Its meant to be for more sensitive photos.

If you want to mark a picture as hidden, yep, its under the share icon.

The share button also has actions that vary unnecessarily.

For example, in SFSafariViewController there is no “add to home screen” button, but in actual safari there is. Despite them both being web view experiences controlled entirely by Apple.

(And you can’t detect SFSafariViewController vs Safari as a web app, so good luck onboarding users for your PWA.)

You can also just type in the url bar to find on page (also super unintuitive)

Have you looked at Apple’s Shortcuts App that allows some customisation of the share actions? e.g. that is the way to run JavaScript snippets in a web page on Mobile Safari (equivalent to javascript: bookmark urls in desktop browsers). I’ve only tried it on iPad, but I presume it works the same on iPhone (it would be unobvious if it didn’t).

The Shortcuts App is the way to access some deep and very unobvious functionality.

and this keeps changing too!

in Safari, things constantly switch between the Share icon, and the "Aa" menu in the URL bar!

The removal of the three dots completely throws me for a loop. I simply could not get the gestures to stick in my brain. And not to sound entitled, but... I shouldn't have to?

Anyway I'm ride or die for the three dots and am pretty worried they'll kill off the option to bring them back.

The iPhone got some undeserved credit for being intuitive just because it was so limited. It did not even have copy/paste. Even now, it is far from obvious how to use undo (tap with three fingers). It’s when there are many features that great UI/UX designers shine.

I like the way Xiaomi enabled gestures on my phone. The default was the three button layout, with the option to switch to gestures. The moment you enable gestures, you get a little interactive tutorial on how to use them so you don't get confused.

First thing I did on my new phone was put those dots back...

I still always turn on the bottom 3 button on Android phones. Just easier than remembering gestures.

Android at least lets you re-enable the old UI in most cases. And then there's the ability to install custom launchers etc that also helps maintain sanity with major releases.

> iOS 16 just got haptic feedback on its keyboard in 2022

Wow thanks for letting me know. I finally have haptics again after switching to an iPhone 6 years ago.

I totally agree with iOS having a worse typing experience. On Android with Gboard I could swipe/type extremely quickly with few errors. On iOS I make a mistake every few works, and the swipe accuracy is significantly worse.

I know that there is Gboard with iOS, but I've had a lot of trouble with custom keyboards on iOS, so I've given up.

> Editing text with various multi-finger gestures

What multi-finger text editing gestures am I missing out on?

That excuse doesn't hold for the calculator example, where the 0 button takes up 2 spaces for no good reason, and they could easily added a backspace button instead.

Not 'just' quicker. Easier. Less frustrating. Important elements. This is my experience of using the long-spacebar technique for placing the cursor.

Digressing: An AI noticing that someone has moved the cursor several time without ever typing anything could pop up a "Want me to show you other ways to move the cursor?" dialog, and teach the 'hard to discover' technique. I await the day ...

This seems crucial to me - most of these 'nondiscoverable' actions are shortcuts, and there is another discoverable way to achieve the same outcome. They are similar to keyboard shortcuts in that way, they just help power users who know them.

(The calculator backspace seems to be an exception, which is why I also dislike it.)

Siri & Search in Settings. Can configure what’s shown.

Although it’s true what they say in your [1] link with the speed.