After using Apple’s products exclusively for close to a decade, I have seen a pattern emerge with their software updates where every new update introduces a set of trivial regressions in the UX.
- Swipe to seek a video in iOS’ native player has stopped working since I updated to iOS 17. In fact, this paper cut is what prompted me to write this post. I believe it didn’t work on iOS 15 either but worked flawlessly on iOS 16.
- Across all of iOS 16 versions installed on my phone, long-pressing an item on screen (links, app icons, files, etc.) to show the contact menu and selecting an entry in the menu without listing the finger didn’t work. It did until iOS 15 and it does now in iOS 17.
- Spotlight in iOS 14 (and back in iOS 10 or 11, I don’t remember well) took slightly longer to load (and even stutter on iPadOS). I don’t find this issue anymore on the same devices that had this earlier.
- The magnifying bubble that popped up while moving the caret in a text field stopped working around iOS 14/15. It was reintroduced back in iOS 16.
Now, I understand that these regressions are unintentional unlike the botched System Preferences on macOS or the poor handling of Safari UI across iOS 15 and macOS 12.
I also understand that such regressions are bound to happen as no software is 100% QC-able, but it doesn’t mean one has to wait for an entire year to see these get fixed as is the case with the examples I have mentioned.
It could also be the case that these issues are localised to my devices, and that the yearly updates perhaps cleans the slate (the good ol’ reboot-machine-to-rid-error fix). Regardless, I have raised bug reports for all these and more, along with feature requests.
I would like to hear your experiences across major/minor software updates on Apple devices or services.
Also, let this serve as a PSA to file bug reports if you have the time and effort to spare, it helps the developers a lot (Apple or otherwise). Here is a comprehensive guide to report bugs for a variety of Apple’s offerings:
E: Through one of the deleted comments made on this post, I learned that the removal of the magnifying bubble while typing in iOS 13 was intentional.
RE: context menus, I miss the pressure sensitive screens we had on iPhones 5-9. Press extra hard to get a context menu without waiting. There was also a distinct gesture to reposition the cursor in a text entry area.
Force Touch was awesome!
Poor awareness among users and adoption among developers led to its demise. I never really figured which apps had support for Force Touch until I tried using it.
It’s replacement - the long press - just doesn’t fill the shoes of its predecessor w.r.t. UX. But I guess it achieves the same result.