Comments on: Hey Apple, Don’t Make Me Think

By: Ben Rosengart

Ben Rosengart — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:33:29 +0000

Good catch.

Me, I’m peeved about the inconsistent placement of “Done” and compose buttons in different iPhone apps.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:15:21 +0000

you could also customize the mac version of the safari toolbar to match the iphone one if you wanted…

By: pauldwaite

pauldwaite — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:01:36 +0000

> Apple is getting revenue from search referrals and are counting on people erroneously sending their urls to a search engine. Actually that is my theory for why all browsers are making it increasingly easy to mistake the search bar for the address bar….

Interesting idea. My parents never type anything in the address bar except “google”, even though there’s a Google search field in their browser. What they’d make of Mobile Safari I don’t know.

By: Craigb6

Craigb6 — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:54:02 +0000

I think the reason becomes clearer if you are right handed and use the iPhone/Touch one handed. It is possible to browse the web one handed, however if the reload button were on the left it would be difficult to reach it with your thumb. In the current setup you can, plus you can simply tap the address bar to get to the search field instead of tapping the spotlight icon.

By: Beerzie Boy

Beerzie Boy — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:31:16 +0000

Agreed, and the iPod/iTunes thing is particularly annoying. I don’t know why they just merge the two.

By: eoin

eoin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:20:38 +0000

There is no need for the searchbar. The same functionality is achieved by clicking ( or touching, I suppose) within the url field.

So get rid of it :-)

By: mj

mj — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:27:20 +0000

I didn’t even notice that icon. I always just hit the URL bar (BIG TARGET) and it gives me both options.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:27:37 +0000

In the previous revision of the iPhone software, the bookmark button was at the top left, to activate the straight-to-google search mode you had to tap the URL bar, then tap the search bar which appeared beneath it.

Bookmarking, while nice, is not a primary use of a mobile web-searching device. This is why it was moved to the bottom, with the other navigational tools (because it’s navigational)

Yet this move has bugged me since it happened. It clutters up the navigation bar at the bottom, which took some getting used to for me. Maybe my fingers are too chubby. Wait, I know they are :-)

I liked the previous method of invoking the search field. The joining of the search field and the address bar worked for me conceptually (both going somewhere), and was convenient.

By: Arden

Arden — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 09:17:43 +0000

In Apple’s semi-defense, the stop/reload button has always been on the right, and I’ve found this a good place for it for those times when I need to quickly stop the browser from going to an accidentally-clicked link and wasting lots of time back-navigating and reloading. It’s also a good place for it because most people are right-handed, and presumably use their right fingers with their iPhones more than their left.

Putting the search button to the left of the URL bar doesn’t make a lot of sense, as has been pointed out, but the big problem with it is that it’s harder to tap because many of us use our left hand to hold the phone and our right to browse. However, I find it superfluous anyway, because the search field is only a couple taps behind the URL, both of which I can easily access with my right thumb.

So, to sum up: keep the stop/reload button where it is, and just get rid of the search button altogether.

By: Wolf

Wolf — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 08:14:02 +0000

I can only assume they did it because most users are right handed, and presumably reloading is used more than searching.

But that’s not true – so this fix would be a good one.