Designing Jank-Free Apps

Nathan Gitter:

Here’s an example of a visual glitch in the Messages app, caused by force-touching to “pop” a message followed immediately by tapping the back button.

These kinds of visual errors are not new to iOS 11, mobile apps, or user interfaces. As apps grow in complexity and user expectations rise, these seemingly small bugs can have a large impact on the final product. They make apps feel janky.

[…]

Be wary of animations that occur alongside the keyboard animation, and don’t assume you have full control over the keyboard. Hiding the keyboard without an animation is possible, but might cause complications later down the road.

[…]

If you are designing an element that animates between multiple states, make sure to consider all state transitions and edge cases.

Benjamin Mayo:

OMG Apple’s latest iPhone X ad includes a shot of the bugged notification bubbles (see thread for explanation)

Yes, I did file a radar on this months ago. I think it got closed as dupe. I’m way more concerned that this was signed off for the commercial.

Update (2018-03-17): See also: Tom Warren (Hacker News).

Update (2018-03-25): Rhett Jones (via Dan Masters):

Last week, a purely cosmetic bug in iOS 11 embarrassingly found its way into an Apple ad. Now, the ad is fixed, but the bug isn’t.

Advertising Animation Apple Software Quality Bug Design iOS iOS 11 iPhone X Messages.app Notification Center Programming

Lightning vs. USB-C for Headphones

John Gruber:

Samsung’s customers aren’t asking for the headphone jack to be dropped, so the path of least resistance is to just keep the jack. But looking at what’s available on the market, a big problem facing Samsung (and the rest of the Android world) is that the USB-C headphone market is a mess — and expensive to boot. “No-name brand headphones at high prices” is a hard sell.

As much as AirPods are better (and cheaper) than standard Bluetooth earbuds, there is seemingly nothing close to Lightning EarPods on the market for USB-C. AirPods get all the attention, but Lightning EarPods are even further ahead of their USB-C competition. The proprietary nature of Lightning allowed Apple to make sure it was ready to serve as the wired audio connector for iPhones when Apple wanted it to be. Keep that in mind the next time you wonder why Apple doesn’t drop Lightning for USB-C.

However, Lightning is no guarantee of quality, either.

Previously: The Impossible Dream of USB-C, Removing the iPhone’s Headphone Jack.

Android Audio EarPods iOS iPhone Lightning Samsung USB-C