The Apple of My i
July 21st, 2008 | Filed under Design and Usability | 19 commentsI am one of the people who were lucky enough to get an Apple iPhone 3G on its release day. Prior to the iPhone, I used a Sony-Ericsson S700i, which I was never happy with: it had a clunky user interface, tortured data entry via the keypad, and essentially useless contact and calendar functions.
I depend a lot on a reliable calendar that allows me to track my appointments and reminds me when I have to be somewhere. Back in 1997, I bought a PalmPilot Professional, which had nice contact management, calendar, and expense tracking functions, all of which I use regularly. I have carried various Palm organizers ever since.
And here is the snag: I have also carried a mobile phone ever since, and it has often annoyed me that I have to carry two gizmos, both of which need their batteries charged, need to be synchronized, require software updates, and so on.
The iPhone 3G is the perfect stone for killing two birds: it has a nice user interface and is much easier to use than either the Sony-Ericsson or the Palm, and the iPhone comes with calendar and contact management functions. Being able to replace two devices with a single one was enough for me to queue up and buy the iPhone.
Getting the iPhone to work and copying all my existing data onto it was a breeze. It really is as simple as plugging it in, setting a few preferences in iTunes and, bingo, after the first sync, all my calendar data appeared on the iPhone. Awesome!
Now, it is almost two weeks later, and the shine has worn off. The iPhone is great, and most things work well and are well designed. (We can quibble here and there about things such as the inability to use voice-dialling or not being able to record video, but those things are not all that important to me.) However, the one thing I need most from my iPhone, namely its calendar, turns out to be the worst-designed application on the entire phone.
After syncing the iPhone for the first time, I looked at the calendar. A few things immediately jumped out:
- The month view shows the week starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday. This is not the way things are done in Australia, where the week starts on Monday.
- There is no way to search my calendar so, if I want to find out when my next dentist appointment will be, I have to scroll through all entries to find it.
- There is no way to enter monthly repeating appointments for a particular week. For example, it is impossible to say “the second Tuesday of every month”.
In contrast, Apple’s iCal application for OS X allows me to easily do all of these things.
Because I tend to get absorbed in whatever I’m doing (especially when I’m programming), it’s easy for me to miss an appointment, which is why I like to set an alert for most appointments. However, when I entered an event, I found that I have to set the alert manually. There is no way to set a default alert period. Again, iCal can do this—for example, I can ask it to add a default alarm 30 minutes before each event. There is no reason the calendar on the iPhone could not do the same.
That night, I went to bed early and was reading a book, when my iPhone suddenly went “bling bling”. What the…? When I looked I found that it was reminding me of an all-day event for the following day. At 11:30 at night, when I’m possibly asleep already? The culprit is not the iPhone, but iCal: iCal applies the default alert period to all events I enter, including all-day events that do not have a start time. Which means that, unless I explicitly disable the default alarm for each all-day event, I get the alert the night before, at 11:30pm.
The next day, I was out and about and happened to glance at my iPhone, only to realize that I was fifteen minutes late for an appointment, even though the appointment was in my calendar and had a 30-minute alert. And the iPhone did indeed sound that alert. However, what I got was one measly ”bling bling” that lasted for all of a second. I missed the alert because I was in a noisy environment.
My first thought was “I can install a different alert sound that lasts longer” but, digging through the calendar preferences, I quickly found out that I can’t. The alert sound is not customizable (even though ringtones are), so I’m stuck with that short “bling bling”.
I also looked for a way to set repeating alarms. For example, on my Palm, I can say ”alert me every five minutes for up to 40 minutes” and my Palm will ring an alarm that lasts several seconds every five minutes. No such feature on the iPhone’s calendar: all i can do is set a second alert, so I can have an alert, say, fifteen minutes before an event, and another one five minutes before. But that is all I can do, I have to enter the alerts manually for every event, and both alerts are that single useless “bling bling” that I can hear only if I’m in a quiet environment.
After these disappointments, I experimented some more and found other unpleasant things:
- If I use my iPhone to listen to music at low volume level, calendar alerts are played at that same low volume level.
- If I use my iPhone with headphones and put it down for a while, calendar alerts play through the headphones where I can’t hear them.
Now, how is that for brilliance? There is no option to always play alerts through the speaker, whether the headphones are plugged in or not! If I don’t want to miss any appointments, I have to religiously unplug the headphones and turn the volume back up all the way every time I put down the phone. But even doing that doesn’t help much because that single “bling bling” is easily missed, for example, if I leave the room for a few minutes.
It is obvious that the designers at Apple have never used their own phone, at least not to remind them of appointments. Presumably, either a lot of people at Apple are missing their appointments, or they do what smart people do and carry a Palm instead…
A little googling reveals that these problems have been present since the original iPhone, and that many people have complained about them. Yet, Apple chose to do nothing about these very real problems for more than a year.
Not one to give up easily, I decided “well, what Apple won’t do, I can do easily enough.” Writing a calendar application isn’t all that hard, so I decided to write my own. I downloaded the iPhone SDK and started reading the documentation. It took about two minutes for me to find the following in Apple’s Audio and Video Coding How-To:
- How do I control playback level?
- On iPhone, the user controls playback level using the hardware volume control.
- How do I access the hardware volume controller?
- Global system volume, including your application’s volume, is handled by iPhone OS and is not accessible by applications.
- How do I control where sounds play (built-in speaker, dock connector, headphones)?
- iPhone OS sends audio to the appropriate device, depending on user preferences.
Well, so much for my ambitions to write my own calendar with decent alerts. It’s not possible to do what I want to do (unless I’m Apple). (I know that this is not a hardware limitation because when the phone rings or an SMS arrives, the sound indeed plays over the speakers at a preset volume level, even when I leave the headphones plugged in.)
How is it possible for a company that prides itself on ergonomics and ease of use to fall this far short of the mark? This is design at its worst: it adds alerts, supposedly to help people keep their appointments, but does not bother to check whether the feature actually serves its intended purpose. To top it off, customer complaints about this very real problem are ignored.
Sadly, I shall continue to carry my Palm, and I shall continue to live in the hope that, one day, someone will make a single device that can make both phone calls and remind my of my appointments. (I’m not holding my breath though.)
Now, what does all of this have to with Ice? Well, on the surface, nothing. I wrote this entry mainly because I passionately care about good design and usability, and because I believe that a company that does not listen to its customers is losing the plot, and losing it fast. (And venting my spleen made me feel better…)
But, come to think of it, this story has actually quite a lot to do with Ice: ZeroC does listen to its developers and the suggestions they make. In fact, many features of Ice exist only because our developers pointed out that what we did wasn’t good enough. On top of that, we eat our own dog food: we use our own software and, believe me, when one of us finds something that is awkward to use or does not work as it should, we are not shy in pointing out to each other that it sucks and needs fixing.
There are two overriding rules when it comes to design:
Though shalt use what you design yourself.
The proof of the pudding can only be found where the rubber meets the road, that is, in actual use—not with a test bench setup.
Though shalt listen to your customers’ complaints.
Just because I think that my design is fine, that does not mean that other people think so too—chances are that they will use my design in ways I have never thought of.
Here at ZeroC, we keep both rules firmly in our minds.
Cheers,
Michi.
Tags: API design, design, iPhone, PDA, usability, user interface design
[...] adeelquadri wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptA little googling reveals that these problems have been present since the original iPhone, and that many people have complained about them. Yet, Apple chose to do nothing about these very real problems for more than a year. … [...]
Pingback by The Apple of My i — July 21, 2008 @ 4:47 am
It is obvious that the designers at Apple have never used their own phone
I realized this too after getting my 1g iPhone last year. the phone provides a great screen and browser nonpareil but i get more “phone” functionality from any of a number of Sony Ericsson phones i have.
Comment by iDay — July 21, 2008 @ 10:55 am
Though it’s nice to share with us potential buyers, EVERYONE please also send feedback directly to Apple:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html
so they actually get it. If enough complain, the priority will rise and changes will happen. You can also file enhancement request or New feature request at bugreport.apple.com. You have to sign up as an Apple dev though. Those definitely are looked at.
Comment by Pecos Bill — July 21, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Try setting the preferences in iCal, so that the week starts on Monday.
Or just stick with your Palm Pilot.
Comment by Ben — July 21, 2008 @ 6:36 pm
My preferences in iCal are already set for the week to start on Monday. It appears that the iPhone calendar application ignores that setting.
And, yes, I’m sticking with my Palm for now because the iPhone’s calendar alerts are useless.
Comment by Michi — July 21, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
It seems you have already figured out a work around for the alerts. First make multiple alerts for multiple blings and second remove the headphones when not listening to music. This way you can leave the volume for the speakers high and the volume for the headphones lower for your music pleasure.
Seems an easy solution to me compared to keeping two devices around and sync’d.
Comment by doug — July 23, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
I cannot have multiple alerts. The most I can have is two, and those have to be manually entered for each event. That’s inconvenient, and doesn’t really help me. What I want is the calendar to nag me every five minutes for the next, say, 40 minutes, until I either acknowledge the alert, or until the 40 minutes are up.
I appreciate the suggestion of setting the speaker volume high, and the headphone volume low. But that is not very practical either. For one, I don’t always listen at full volume to things on the speaker; second, if I forget to unplug the headphones when I stop listening, I still miss the alert.
Basically, I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to compensate for bad design. If I carry my Palm, I’m pretty much guaranteed that I won’t miss an alert. Even adjusting for the iPhone’s behavior, I am not guaranteed the same thing.
Not missing appointments is important to me, so I continue to carry both devices, as much as I dislike having to do that.
Comment by Michi — July 23, 2008 @ 10:28 pm
[...] Rain wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAfter syncing the iPhone for the first time, I looked at the calendar. A few things immediately jumped out:. The month view shows the week starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday. This is not the way things are done in Australia, … [...]
Pingback by Best Iphone 4 You » Blog Archive » The Apple of My i — July 25, 2008 @ 9:16 am
I understand your issues, but you need to understand that these are choices not bugs. Two alerts (which by the way the messages stay on screen) vs. 8+ alerts is a design choice. Going back even further my Newton would do continuous alerts and I’ve wasted a great deal of battery power with it blinging away all night in another room. By combining functions into a single device the odds that you will both not notice the dual alerts and also not look at the phone for an extended period of time should be very rare IMHO.
The same is true about speaker volume. How many times have you seen people in a meeting or conference dive for their phone/PDA to turn off a sound that they thought they muted already but some piece of software that thinks it knows better forced notification. I’m not going to argue which is correct because there is no such thing in this case. I’m just stating that having the USER and not the program have control of volume is a very reasonable choice. In the future Apple might breakdown volume control options more precisely but only if it does not get overly complicated for the average user.
My advice to you is to try to work under this different set of design goals and see if you can make it work. I’m certain that you can learn to pull the head set from your phone (note it will pause playback for you automatically too!!!)
P.S. I’d also send feedback to apple, because I’m betting they can come up with some workable compromises for future OS updates.
Good luck.
Comment by doug — July 25, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
@doug: Hmmm… If that is a design choice, it is a poor one, because the choice should be mine, not the designers’. The iPhone has to be flexible enough to accommodate my idea of how I want to be notified of meetings; if I have to change the way I work to suit the iPhone, things are seriously the wrong way around.
Your argument about speaker volume does not make sense, in my opinion. What I am asking for is exactly what you suggest: I’m asking for me, as the user to be able to control the volume, by saying “when you alert me, do it at such-and-such a volume”. But the iPhone OS thinks it knows better than me and won’t let me do that.
I can do exactly what I want when it comes to ringtones and SMS alerts: they do ring at a preset volume level that I can control, and they do play over the speaker even when the headphones are plugged in. (Of course, if I put the phone on silent, that would also put calendar alerts on silent, just as it does for ringtones and SMS alerts.) The battery argument is completely bogus, IMO. (Even my Palm from over ten years ago had no problem with repeating alerts.)
This is bad advice, in my opinion. Not because it would be impossible, but because it gets it back to front: I buy a device like the iPhone to remove friction from my life, not add to it. The last thing I need is some second-rate designer to patronize me and tell me that he/she knows best.
Comment by Michi — July 25, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
[...] iPhods.com wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptGlobal system volume, including your application’s volume, is handled by iPhone OS and is not accessible by applications. How do I control where sounds play (built-in speaker, dock connector, headphones)? iPhone OS sends audio to the … [...]
Pingback by Hot Iphone 4 You » Blog Archive » The Apple of My i — July 25, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
You miss understand my argument. You have been working with a device for years and have come accustom to it’s way of doing things. My recommendation was simply to try to “get use” to the abilities of the iPhone as I’m sure you “got use” to the way your palm worked.
We have all seen devices and applications that try to fill in every check box of every review and the interfaces become cluttered beyond use. I am not suggesting that one more slider in the sound control section of the iPhone will cause this situation, quite the opposite I brought it up as a possible future solution.
I believe the USER should control the volume and that portion of the rant was in response to you looking for a way for an application that you might write to override the USER selected volume. By consolidating volume at the system level it simplifies things (in this case for you too much) and is probably a good design choice. Here is hoping Apple defines at least one more sound type that developers can choose to use.
BTW: Although the iPhone does not allow you to define a meeting that repeats the first monday of every month, it does honor such meetings. So adding one to iCal is a work around for this limitation.
P.S. I disagree with you that Apple does not listen to users and HIGHLY recommend you post your concerns to Apples site.
Comment by doug — July 25, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
@doug: I am not asking for a program to be able to override the user’s volume choice; I’m asking for a program that allows the user to choose to play a sound through the speaker. That is exactly what the iPhone already does for ringtones and SMS alerts. Why should calendar alerts be different?
I think you are right in that the SDK should offer an “alert” sound type that plays through the speakers at a preset volume level even when the headphones are plugged in, except when the phone is set to silent mode. Oh yes—I want customizable calendar alert sounds, the same way I can customize ringtones, because a one-second “bling bling” just doesn’t cut it.
I completely agree with you that devices that try to be everything for everyone tend to turn into ergonomic nightmares, no argument there. But repeating alerts are such an obvious thing to want (especially when there is only a non-customizable one-second alert tone). Adding that option would not complicate things significantly, as evidenced by my Palm.
I know that iCal events transfer across correctly. But I don’t happen to always be near my computer if I want to enter a repeating event. (I don’t see that as a major issue though. It’s the dumb alert functionality that I’m really upset about—all the other limitations are comparatively minor.)
Google searches show that quite a lot of people have complained about the same problems since the release of the first iPhone, so the issue isn’t new, and Apple have not corrected it. This very much looks like a company that does not listen to its customers.
I submitted feedback to Apple about all this as a matter of course (even before I wrote this post).
Comment by Michi — July 26, 2008 @ 2:36 am
I heartily agree with your observations. The alerts issue ranks up there with Apple not sync’ing todos from ical desktop. It leaves me flabbergasted and disappointed. The Palm had enough user options but Apple has fumbled the ball in a big way.
Comment by Doug — July 26, 2008 @ 5:07 pm
Michi - you do know that Palm makes phones, right? Seems that would be a logical choice for your needs.
Doug - dude - If I had the attitude that my design choices were much more relevant than my customer’s requirements, I would go out of business. Somehow, though, Apple has acquired numerous fan-boys like you that keep them going. Don’t get me wrong, I thing Apple has some amazing products, but I don’t understand the “Steve Jobs can do no wrong” attitude.
Comment by Steve — August 8, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
I know that I could buy a Palm phone, yes. But having just bought an iPhone, and being locked into a two-year contract, I’m reluctant to do that
Also, as far as I am concerned, the iPhone truly is the better phone–it’s usability runs rings around everything else I have seen. As I said in my original post, most things really work well. If only the iPhone had usable calendar alerts…
I agree that a lot of people are drinking the Cool Aid all the way. In some ways, that’s a good thing, and I think that a company that excels at design does indeed deserve customer loyalty. But, at the same time, Apple don’t have the final word of wisdom on everything. If people repeatedly complain about the same thing, that’s a good indication that the design has missed the mark. Not reacting to such feedback smacks of arrogance and is a great way to turn people off, especially when a fix is easy to provide, as in this case.
Comment by Michi — August 8, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
you realize that Apple people have their iphones surgically implanted-and they never take showers-the alarms work just fine for them-no need to fix anything-not arrogance just their reality
Comment by John — September 13, 2008 @ 11:56 am
Never saw the last couple of posts but it appears that Michi and I only really disagree on one thing. The fact that this issue has not been addressed is evidence to him that Apple doesn’t listen and I’m more of the thought that this issue has not become important enough. The first year of the iPhone was spent getting ready for 3rd party applications and the last 6 months have been getting the 2.0 software stabilized. As good as the current version is Safari crashes too often.
2.2 will still be fixes mostly (maybe cut and paste) and then we should look for enhancements. I personally can wait on this because it doesn’t affect me like it does you. I’m hoping that once we are fully on solid ground that Apple will start to tackle bigger features. My list goes something like this:
1) Text to Speech
2) Voice recognition
3) iChat mobile
4) Push Server Access
Along with these I hope enhancements like.
1) Cut/copy/paste
2) iCal event handling in mail attachments
3) Custom Alerts and better alert handling
Good news could be on the way thought based on an article in ARS:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/09/19/apple-patents-reveal-better-iphone-alerts-preferences
There are plenty of things Apple can add to the iPhone, better alerts is only one of them.
Comment by doug — October 21, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
Hi Doug. I agree, we could interpret this as meaning that Apple does indeed listen, but that the issue has not become important enough. That’s of no consequence though: either way, I’m stuck with the useless calendar alerts.
Yes, there are lots of other enhancements Apple could make. But it would be nice if the features that are already there would work properly first, before Apple worry about adding new ones.
Comment by Michi — October 22, 2008 @ 2:11 am