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Freshly Squeezed OpEd: Wither iOS Manuals?

Dec 19, 2013 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Due to health reasons, I have spent an inordinate amount of time producing articles on my iPhone. As a result, I use a ton of iPhone apps which is fine by me. And a lot of the apps are quite intuitive.

However, the developers seem to be confusing simplicity with ease-of-use. So where do I find out how to use certain features?
As an example, let’s look at Evernote. Evernote is my haven for all of my articles plus other things. And this year they added tags into the mix, which is a godsend. But with all the drilling I’ve done, I still can’t find any way to access that feature on the iPhone app! (After ten minutes of trial and error, I was able to figure it out.)
Now, I’ve accessed Brett Kelly’s new book (and you should buy it, BTW, if you don’t own it already) covering every possible thing about Evernote. But so far I haven’t come across any iOS information. Perhaps I need to look further.
But my point is – I shouldn’t have to. This is an Apple app. My experience should be as simple as breathing.
And again, I’m not picking on Evernote. I’m just using them as an example of an app that I use constantly and rely upon very heavily.
I have noticed that some developers have firmly embraced this ‘swipe’ concept. That’s excellent. Except they pack so many variables into a single swipe, that it negates the whole idea of the simplicity of the action.
So, developers, please remember. As simple as you can make your apps behaviors, the more functions that you introduce, the greater the learning curve.
Please help me with the learning curve. I’ve a lot of writing to do.
© 2013 Frank Petrie

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