Earlier this year I set an iPad up for my elderly dad - it was going to be used for podcasts and YouTube, only - and it looked like it was going to be ideal. "What a great feature," I thought!
Except... There is no way to turn off screen rotation. None. It can't be done in the Assistive Access menu, and doesn't respect the setting in normal mode. It just always rotates. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Support, and there's nothing to be done about it.
My dad couldn't deal with his icons rotating around on the screen, nor not being able to watch videos while lying down. It gathered dust.
I think this comment is the essence of this post and the general sentiment. They make software the user is scared to interact with. This is backwards Apple. They just need to do the opposite of what they're doing and they nail it.
> They make software the user is scared to interact with.
Apple isn't unique here either. This is a sentiment across nearly all OSes, on mobile and on desktop.
It's one of the primary sources of help desk tickets where I work (I'm IT manager, grew up doing helpdesk->sysadmin). People are afraid to even try some basic troubleshooting, afraid to click on dialog boxes, afraid to mess with settings. Even auto-save in Office freaks people out, they are afraid to close their documents because that Ctrl+S feedback loop is gone, and autosave is ambiguous. Is it instant? How do I know it's saved the change I just made? So now there's users that need to go and double check the modified timestamp on the file before closing the document.
I get downvoted and called old every time I say this but Win 95/98 was peak UX. We are chasing aesthetics now instead of actual usability design. Marketing got too involved in how things looked, everything needs to be a customized, branded "experience" and it's causing severe learning curves vs. just following OS conventions and widgets where every app more or less looked and operated the same way.
Where's all the UX designers and researchers? Oh right, we've laid them all off or just spent too many years not listening to what they had to say and letting the rent seeking marketing and accounting folks drive the products.
It's because we've pushed and pushed so much for simplicity and dumbing things down that we've obliterated any semblance of confidence.
When Windows puts up an error message like 'oopsy doospy window's made a fucky wucky!" I don't feel safe! I don't trust this magic box!
Modern software will just lie straight to your face and hide things from you. Like the autosave thing. People don't trust it because it lies. The saving stuff is hidden away, and if it says 'saved', it might not be!
Which, great, fantastic, amazing - when it works. When it doesn't, we don't get any feedback. Things just start magically breaking. Things become unpredictable. And that's scary. We lose confidence in the system.
Like, imagine you have a car with lane keep assist. Lane keep assist makes mistakes, sure. But it beeps, it says "hey we're doing this", and you can trivially override it.
Imagine it didn't do that. Imagine it didn't beep, maybe you didn't even know about the system. Imagine you can't turn it off, or imagine you can't override it. You're just driving one day... and then the car is veering off the road. You push the steering wheel to the right, but it keeps going to the left. How much confidence would you have in that car? Would you get in it again?
A lot of them are still working at these tech companies, gazing at their navels and worrying more about how dynamic their artistic portfolio is, than how their users are actually using their designs.
> Where's all the UX designers and researchers? Oh right, we've laid them all off or just spent too many years not listening to what they had to say and letting the rent seeking marketing and accounting folks drive the products.
I think this is too generous to UX designers. They still exist and are very much involved in shipping unusable trash. I have been through multiple UX design reviews as a user and every time the UX designers are flabbergasted when I show them how their product is actually used. They never have any concept of a real user doing a thing. It’s a widespread cultural failure in the discipline.
I had the same worry but after pressing "next" like 15 times and waiting for 15 pages to load, the last page of Apple's documentation on Assistive Access tells you that you can exit it by triple clicking the "side button" (pointing to the power button, so not the side volume buttons I guess but idk). I went ahead after that and while it needed a few more presses, it ended up working that way, so you can enter and exit at will (at least, once you managed to enter; see my other comment for issues on that front...)
I asked the same question of the Apple Tier 3 Support person with whom I eventually spoke. Tier 1 and 2 were sympathetic, and as surprised as I was by this behavior, and ran me through various series of convoluted setting changes, none of which worked.
[Edit: If I recall correctly, we even set it up again from scratch, to try out an idea the Tier 2 guy had. Tier 1 and 2 really were excellent to work with, despite their inability to solve the problem. Both knew the system well, weren't following scripts, and were able to think outside the box and try creative solutions. It was my first experience with Apple Support, and Gold Stars: would call again.]
Tier 3 was brusque, and acted like I was the first person who'd ever raised the topic (which, given the previous surprise, maybe I was). I explained that my dad was bedridden, and wanted to watch YouTube videos without the damn screen spinning around on him, and recall a palpable lack of sympathy. I didn't get an answer as to whether it's a bug or not, and I'm pretty sure the ticket died at Tier 3, so I doubt anyone knowledgeable will ever know about it.
In Assistive Access mode? What version are you on?
My dad passed in the spring, so it's moot for me, but I'd be glad to know that they've fixed it for other people.
[Edit: someone else in this thread said it's still bugged in 18.6.2, so if you've got a working build it'll be particularly helpful to know which it is. Maybe even for Apple - I maintain a fond delusion that folks who matter still read this board.]
Sorry, I may not have explained the problem well. Yes, in AA mode, the screen is always unlocked, regardless of any device settings you may otherwise, er, set.
Except... There is no way to turn off screen rotation. None. It can't be done in the Assistive Access menu, and doesn't respect the setting in normal mode. It just always rotates. I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Support, and there's nothing to be done about it.
My dad couldn't deal with his icons rotating around on the screen, nor not being able to watch videos while lying down. It gathered dust.