Setting aside the absurdity of longtime Apple users arguing in favour of this kind of almost impenetrable complexity, John Gruber’s recent piece on the behaviour of the button inside the Apple Watch’s crown is telling.
Here’s a better way to think about it – and without thinking about it, the reason why I think most people aren’t frustrated or confused by the crown button after a week or so. It’s best to think of Apple Watch as having two modes: watch mode, and app mode.
You do not need to understand this to use the watch. Most Apple Watch owners will never really think about this. But this idea of two modes is central to understanding the design of the overall interaction model.
The UI complexity problem of the Apple Watch stems from two sets of overlapping user interface elements: applications/glances and the homescreen/watch face (which are both, in turn, overlapped by the communications application and its dedicated button). For reasons that I do not understand (okay I totally understand why), the designers of the Apple Watch UI couldn’t say no and couldn’t make any decisions, leading to the clusterfrick of a UI it has now.
What puzzles me the most is that untangling this mess would not have been complicated – just copy the iPhone. Homescreen with application icons, and a (centered!) crown to act as a home button. Bam, done. Everything else is needless complexity, especially on such a small device you’re not supposed to stare at for longer than a few seconds at a time anyway.
Gruber’s piece is telling, because as a longtime Apple user, you should never need that many words to explain something that could be as elementary as the homescreen/home button combination of the iPhone. Needing this many words should raise all kinds of red flags that it’s just not intuitive.
There’re several reasons why it’s easier to pick up an iPhone than an Android device, and the simplicity of its homescreen/home button is a big one.
Yes, I do agree the apple watch UI seems insane.
Reflecting on the desktop wars between Mac & windows, I’m reminded on how many Mac advocates even into the late 90’s swore that Macs were easier to use. Well maybe in 1987 that was true to a user that was just learning their way around a GUI. But despite a more difficult learning curve, the windows 95 style gui was picked up by everyone at that point. So the difficulty in figuring it out was a moot point.
So, I’m trying to keep a sense of perspective with the UI on a new device. Maybe its not the easiest to learn, but once learned its great. Like Vim. But regardless, its apparent that its not very Apple like in this regard. Usually, its Apple UI’s that are simpler to learn.
Why are Apple Watch owners not complaining though? I know why, since I’m one of them and have a brain to apply to this question.
First of all, the interface *is* more complicated than the wear watch my wife has in the drawer. But it’s not too complicated. I felt completely at home after a couple of days, and the learning curve was totally worth it. The alternative is a simpler model, which requires more swipes to get things done.
Believe it or not, my feeling after ~3 weeks with the watch is that they got this exactly right.
But isn’t this the same as saying “Android is a bit more difficult to use but it’s not too difficult. The learning curve is well worth it!”?
I owned all iPhones in succession until the iPhone 4. I stopped because I prefered what Android had to offer. Not once after I switched have I thought Android to be difficult. Yet Apple fans rave about how Android is so unbelievably difficult and the iPhone is so simple to use.
How is your defense of the complexity of the Apple Watch different from Android fans’ defense of the complexity of Android?
No. Logic 101.
I suspect Apple watch owners are not complaining because (at this point) they are mostly enthusiasts who are committed to learning how it works. I’m doubtful the Apple Watch will go down with the general public the way the iPhone/iPad did.
Edited 2015-05-22 16:11 UTC
In reply to Gruber’s piece, I wrote this tweet: https://twitter.com/jocrz/status/601522549101465600
It boggles the mind how Gruber embraces the Apple Watch’s UI complexity and he doesn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that the watch tries to do too much and its UI is unequivocally, non-Appley difficult to use. His reaction to the complexity of the Apple Watch is to give it a week and you’ll get feel right at home.
I don’t want to turn this post into an Apple vs Google kind of thing, but if you’ve followed John for some time, you’ll know he’s adamantly against complex UIs. For instance, he murdered Windows 8 for trying to consolidate the tablet with the laptop and mentioned that, unlike iOS/Mac OSX, Microsoft should try to keep things simple and have two OSs… just like Apple.
He’s also said many times that one of main reason’s for the iPhone’s success is its simplicity.
Fast-forward to today, and we have an Apple product that, given its screen size and its purpose, SHOULD have the simplest UI possible, yet it’s arguably one of the most convoluted interfaces Apple’s ever released. However, John’s response is that you should have no problem understanding it after a week or so of using it. By contast, Android Wear is much simpler and in all of his posts about the Apple Watch, I haven’t seen a single mention of it. In his first review of the Apple Watch, he said he would talk about the UI later. Well, here it is, sort of, and the tone of this new review is this:
“This sounds confusing. And if you’re expecting Apple Watch’s digital crown button to work like iOS’s home button, it is not the expected behavior. But in practice, I think it works very well.”
In other words, his tone is “there are some problems with the UI but given time, you will be able to see that things are actually very good the way they are. You’ll be ok after a week. Just give it time. It’s an amazing gadget; it just takes a bit getting used to.”
Compare that to how he reacts with things coming from Microsoft or Samsung or anything non-Apple and you’ll feel like there are two different people writing on his blog.
Here’s his reaction to the Galaxy Gear:
“About the best you could expect from Samsung without having anything to copy from Apple: overpriced, ugly, laggy UI, terrible battery life, dubious utility.”
Here’s his reaction to the Moto 360:
“It looks like Motorola’s designers tried to draw as much attention as they could to the 360’s stupid flat-tire display shape. The only way this could get funnier would be if it doesn’t even ship until after Apple announces their wrist wearable thing next month.”
About the Galaxy S6 Edge, he linked to someone who said this:
“It’s easy to see where Samsung took its inspiration for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge: the design is strikingly similar to the iPhone 6 in many places, and the features that Samsung did focus its efforts on are all things the iPhone has had for years. Look at the S6 from certain angles and you’d immediately think it’s an iPhone. Put your thumb on the home key and the phone unlocks almost instantly, just like an iPhone. Even the camera mount protrudes out from the rear of the phone, preventing the S6 from lying flat on a table, just like an iPhone 6. (The flat S6 looks like the lovechild of an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 6, while the S6 Edge is a little more distinctive.) Samsung has be known to copy Apple’s design before, which led to record sales and record-breaking lawsuits. It’s hard to say if the Galaxy S6 will bring about any lawsuits, but the similarities between it and the iPhone 6 are undeniable.”
And Gruber added “Shameless.”
Now think about this for a second. He mocked the Galaxy S6 Edge as being a copy of the iPhone…
Oh well, that’s the way it’s always been and I imagine that’s the way it’ll always be.
All your tweets seems to be about the complication or lack thereof in the watch.
Trust me, in practice it’s completely uncomplicated.
Moving on.
It’s not that I believe it’s complicated. It’s the fact that the UI is extremely complicated based on Apple’s history. And given that the word ‘complication’ has been used time and again by Apple fans to refer to other systems, I was expecting they would find the Apple’s Watch UI very complex. Alas, they don’t care. They react by saying “give it a week and you’ll feel right at home”…
But “give it a week to feel right at home” is true of any UI. The hypocrisy level is so high here I can touch it with my own hands.
That depends. Android wear doesn’t really do anything outside of notifications and google now. Apple watch does more, and the interface is more complex to deal with that.
The trick is getting the value proposition right. How simple can you go without losing all your value? For months Thom has been complaining that his smartwatch is in the drawer because it just isn’t useful enough. Now we have a smartwatch that does more and he complains it’s too complex (without ever having used it).
I don’t know if the complexity of the Apple Watch is justified, but I do know that simpler smartwatches haven’t exactly been a raging success so it’s definitely worth trying something different.
You clearly haven’t been reading any of the stuff I have written about smartwatches. I have consistently stated that I find current smartwatches too much computer, and too little watch. That’s completely different from your claim.
Please, do not put words into my mouth to strengthen your own argument.
As it turns out, you said more than one thing when it comes to smart watches. One is that you just want a watch which makes it odd that you’re even voicing your opinion on it since you don’t even want a smart watch. The other is that they end up in a drawer. That clearly means they aren’t useful enough because very useful things don’t end up forgotten in drawers.
Part of what makes something usefull, is being easy to use.
The only thing worse than hypocrisy, is when people point it out after the entity has correct itself.
If people deny a truth over and over again, but then have a conversion moment where they finally see the light, Don’t kick them back into the darkness by crying “hypocrite”. Embrace them and their new found wisdom.
If you’d have read the article you would immediately see why that doesn’t work.
“Consider: What happens when you press the digital crown button while in, say, the Weather app? The answer is: It depends how you got there. If you start from the home screen and tap the Weather app icon, the digital crown button returns you to the home screen. If you start from the watch face, though, and launch the full Weather app by tapping the Weather glance, then the digital crown button returns you to the watch face.”
That makes sense. It would be stupid to open weather from the watch face and then return to the home screen. That’s the problem with criticizing a UI you haven’t used.
This is a perfect illustration of the problem I highlighted. If you didn’t have the silly glances/application dichotomy, you wouldn’t have to worry about where the crown button takes you to begin with.
See my point?
Edited 2015-05-22 15:30 UTC
No I don’t see your point. Your problem here is that you’re expecting it to work like the home button when in fact it’s more like a back button. Nowhere does Apple describe the digital crown as a home button so I’m not sure why you would expect it to work like one.
As I said if it did work like a home button it would make using the Apple Watch extremely annoying given that the default “home” screen if you will is actually the watch face and not the applications view.
I give up.
You;re saying “your proposed solution of turning the crown into a home button would turn the crown into a home button.”
That’s THE WHOLE POINT.
Thom, maybe you should actually try the thing? After three weeks, it doesn’t feel complicated. It doesn’t feel wrong. Apple nailed it. Get over it.
(wife has Wear, I know how to compare)
I own an apple watch and I honestly find these issues with the interface to be a bit ridiculous.
Yes it’s true that some of the UX design decisions are questionable. I would personally prefer the crown tap to always take you back the apps screen. I would also prefer to be able able to scan through glances using the crown rather than swiping. I am sure I could think of another 1-2 other things I would prefer.
But honestly these issues are really minor. You get the interface in a few days and it’s no way an impediment to the general utility of the watch.
The thing I notice much more is the lack of watch apps. Now that I can see and do a bunch of stuff without pulling out my phone I want more apps to be watch aware and the fact that I can’t makes the watch that much less useful.
K
What is this? Some sort of physical “back” button? That’s definitely un-appley.
Apple have served a turd sandwich and Apple bloggers stand around it and pontificate its benefits.
I’ve seen this many times before.
Smart watches do not need navigation, at all. They need only one interaction, a press. If a call comes in, vibrate twice and show the number on screen. If an email from a VIP comes in vibrate once, show the name etc. The watch just has to show the right thing at the right time — it doesn’t need an interaction model. You have the phone in your pocket for that.
It boggles my brain that so-called experts could design an interface where you stick your watch in your face and twiddle a knob and tap the screen to launch the correct app. It’s an interface that doesn’t need to exist and the Apple bloggers can only argue about how something so unnecessary should deign their lives.
First off — the iOS really isn’t that simple anymore. It does 1000’s of things, and each app has so many features and controls that are updated so often that simplicity is no longer it’s strong suit.
I often times click all over, into apps back out again, to my switcher, pull down, pull up, because i can’t remember or don’t know exactly where I was headed. This has increased with every version of iOS. Lots more hunting and pecking.
It’s still far more consistent than Android, because Apple locks the UI toolkit and provides so many pre-built libraries, but compared against itself it’s gotten more and more complex due to feature creep.
As far as WatchOS (which I haven’t used yet) —
OF COURSE it’s complicated, it has entirely new input and output styles and it’s the first real personal computer to ship without any kind of keyboard, mouse, or screen bigger than 2″. When you can’t display more than 50 characters and only allow for the tiniest of controls for inputs, of course it’s all new.
Seems like Apple is swinging for the fences on WatchOS. That’s bound to include some strikes.
I read that initial plans and prototypes were even more ambitious, but the health sensor array was not as reliable as they hoped, the lawyers vetoed most of the tracking/assisting stuff, and more complicated user interactions were too hard to operate/understand.
The is like the virtual touch keyboard – very controversial 7 years ago and many people still hate it. But 99% of phones now have it.
Hmm, I’d actually consider the Apple Watch to be more of a fancy terminal than a personal computer, since it can’t function without a connection to your iDevice. Reminds me of an old mainframe terminal, as it’s got the input and output but only enough brain to keep a connection to the real brain.
That’s quite flattering. To me, smartwatches at this point in time are basically interactive widgets with hardware wrapped around them.
I think the Watch needing another iOS device for many of it’s features is a temporary situation. Agreed that v1 is a bit like a terminal to your iPhone, but it is more than that because it can operate alone and offline, it just can’t exist wholly without the companion.
Just like the iPod needing a firewire Mac, then the iPhone needing a desktop at all. Both requirements were only around for 1-2 versions of the product, gone as soon as Apple had the tech and infrastructure in place to provide the experience they wanted.
Once they get a decent wifi chip, antenna, and better battery into that Watch it will be a fully functional client. Albeit one with very different input and output methods available.
I am watching curiously and cautiously but will probably end up with an Apple Watch at some point, when I see that killer app, or get the workout bug, and can find some other justification for the price.
Then again, my company has clients talking about it, and we have a new offering in the works for iOS, so we might end up developing WatchOS companion apps soon enough.
Gruber’s apologetics in defense of the Apple Watch UI reminds me of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGOn-H7s3Q
Of course, the main difference is that the video is an intentional parody.
Though I suppose I have to give Gruber credit for one thing: that’s the first time I’ve seen him post something that actually resembles an article – as opposed to his usual output, which is little more than the tactics of post-and-run trolling applied to “journalism.”
Totally agree, the problem is that G ruber makes money by slavishly following the cult of Mac. He has to be controversial to be in the limelight (and make more sales for his app).
It would be better never to link to any article by him, they are rarely interesting because he has such a narrow view.
Thankfully he rarely gets linked on more technically-oriented sites. Outside of OSNews, the only time I see him mentioned are by people griping about/ridiculing the piss-poor job he’s done of “maintaining” Markdown.
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