Home Screen Widgets & Icon Placement

[gnirkatto]

Positively surprised by the announcement of home screen widgets in different sizes.:yes:

Really disappointed by apparently still no free icon - and widget - positioning. In the short demo, the home screen still looks like icons/widgets will move to the right/downwards autonomously, when an item gets inserted. I wonder: would this be SOO difficult to implement? Or just make the home screen look too androidish? :no:

 

[cornettbr]

I think it’s too close to how android does it. If cellphones were homogeneous there’d be no reason to have more than one manufacturer.

 

[gnirkatto]

I think it’s too close to how android does it. If cellphones were homogeneous there’d be no reason to have more than one manufacturer.

I understand your point, but don't accept Apple's concept, from a users perspective: "oh, this looks too much like Android, so let's make it worse than Android".

I consciously call it worse, as it has NO advantages at all over the Android home screen. I believe even Apple diehards will admit that. There is not even a "well, but you can do this or that in return, that Android can't do" - like in some other cases, where religious discussions always emerge.

This free icon placement is so long overdue, it's actually unbelievable how Apple has been ignoring it.

Re homogeneous: I think that iOS (and its connected ecosystem) is so very much different from Android (+Google ecosystem), in so many ways, that making the home screen a little more user friendly would not make one of the two manufacturers become obsolete.

 

[cornettbr]

I agree with you for sure, I can only guess behind the changes. It blows my mind with all the widgets they added there’s not a messages one that can show your top three or something

 

[gnirkatto]

He humorously hints at Android similarities, several times, during his discussion of iOS14 (right at the beginning of the video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0we7kcmgDOw

....and he is right, imho. So allowing for free icon/widget placement would not have made a big difference.

 

[doogald]

I understand your point, but don't accept Apple's concept, from a users perspective: "oh, this looks too much like Android, so let's make it worse than Android".

It could be a patent/licensing issue.

I do wish if there had to be a bias that it was toward the bottom of the screen than the top, (or at least an option) to make it easier to use the phone one-handed.

 

[Annie_M]

Submitting feedback about your thoughts and reactions to this would be a good idea.

 

[gnirkatto]

Submitting feedback about your thoughts and reactions to this would be a good idea.

I usually do so, through the official Apple feedback site, before starting to complain here.

But I have some doubts about it being taken seriously: 1. I never got a response (which I expected, almost, but...), 2. you often can't select an appropriate category, as they were not added, long after the respective app/version/feature got released, 3. you start choosing the Mac as the platform you want to give feedback on (not iPhone related at all), and then they ask you about the iOS level that you are using, not even listing the latest one(s), 4. they ask you which iPhone you use, and offer the XS Max as the latest one to pick, 5. they ask for the Mac OS version and only offer older ones to pick, 6. and there are more issues.

I would send them feedback on their - partly - miserable and faulty feedback site, if there was a proper category.