iOS UX Defects: Excuses for break up

“Unbearable Painfulness of Deleting & Blocking Spam”

I think I’m about to break-up — with Apple and I’m looking for evidence— if not excuses — to justify my decision. I’ve had enough of Apple pulling mind tricks on us, so last Friday I wrote the “Lightning Conspiracy” article, a serious allegation Apple should really answer to. This kind of disappointing experience is like catching a cheating partner in the act and is sure a love breaker.

Love Breaker: Who Broke Apple? [Photo Credit]

Now, every imperfection — that have maybe long been there — started to annoy me. Here’s one: The Spam Frustration

“It takes — 12 — (yes, twelve) steps to finally delete and block the sender of an unwanted text message on iOS 9.x. That’s unbearable in UX land.”

And we all thought geniuses working at “1 Infinite Loop. Cupertino, CA 95014, USA”

10 Major OS Versions Only To Get Bubble Effects?

We are now requested to upgrade to iOS 10.1 and for all those years and for all those updates Apple didn’t really care to solve this, indeed they worsened the process.

“Why on Earth would I care to add a number as a contact, if I’m going to block it for spam.”

As I refuse to upgrade to iOS 10, I can’t test how many steps it now takes, (from the below list I still estimate 12 steps, lots of scrolling and data entry). But being able to block a spammer only after adding as a contact is bad UX if not being stupid.

1. Open the Messages app and open a message thread for the number you want to block [Alternate universe: slide left to delete & block, one step magic.]

2. Save the number as a contact. If the number already exists as a contact, proceed to the next step. If you haven’t received any messages from a number that you want to block, add it as a new contact.

3. Open the Settings app and tap ‘Messages’

4. Scroll down to the ‘Block’ option.

5. On the Block screen, scroll down to the very bottom and tap ‘Add New’ [That takes a lot of scrolling if you have 500 numbers or so blocked.]

6. Select the contact you want to block and save

Why Apple is not using this simple Mail app method below, I don’t really understand:

Blocking & deleting a text message should be as easy as sliding the message left or right

However, it’s almost as easy as this on Android.

Latest Messages App Updates: Check ‘Bubble Effects’ As If You Care…

Bad Idea: Third Party Spam Blocking Apps

Also, as far as we understand, with the recent iOS 10 release, Apple gave access to third party apps like Hiya, ability to reach your contacts & block unwanted callers. So Apple will be pushing paid apps and/or services for you to be able to get rid of spam. That’s unacceptable. This should be a primary function embedded in iOS and should be easy to accomplish. (By the way, there’s no word on third party message deleting/blocking apps yet.)

Help Us Fight Mobile Spam

I get a lot of SMS spam, especially from — but not limited to — illegal betting companies. I’m not denying that at least in Turkey, the mobile operators, the regulatory authorities and globally the GSMA platform are indeed mainly responsible for failing to fight mobile spam:

The issue of mobile messaging misuse is a global, inter-operator problem, which requires a comprehensive spam mitigation strategy by the industry as a whole […] The involvement of the GSMA also helps the Spam Reporting Service gain economies of scale and benefit from network effects, enabling it to be a highly efficient and effective weapon against unwanted SMS messages. — GSMA

But Apple as the soon-to-be-former “ultimate user interface of our lives”, could’ve easily helped & smooth this rough terrain for iOS users, at least on the client side.

They chose not to. Maybe, Apple loved us for our money (and we held our tongue for the looks). Now that they think they skimmed enough of it, maybe they don’t care. Such a shame.

Cem ARGUN.-