Hacker News Reader

Comment by no_time | Hacker News Reader

Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen?

>Any information processed in Private Compute Core requires explicit user action before it can be shared with Google (...)

If they know everything about the data going in and coming out it's still useless.

Also what important APIs did they axe now?

View on HN

As someone who grew up using 160x160 and 320x320 PDAs, the idea a smartphone now uses a 1080x1200 rectangle to only give me eight buttons makes me want to throw up.

As someone who used 132x65 pagers back then, my Blackberry RIM 850 can display more information in the screen than my Samsung Note 8. I loathe this "maximum white space!!" UIs as well. My boss prefers the grandparent-mode UIs whereas I prefer compact with every space is being used as possible. I like to have high-density texts like the old day of Reddit to minimum screen-scrolling.

Oh man, blackberry's where such perfect communication devices, fast writing no additional bs...i miss that time, it was the perfect mix of smart and dump phone...and nothing more was/is needed.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517447

"Ask HN: Do you still miss your RIM BlackBerry?"

Except for the web

But otherwise I do agree it was a fantastic phone for easy communication. Although it was far too easy to txt and drive

oh yeah we all look back super fondly on the dozens and dozens of nested lists that somehow was considered passable as a user interface.

I'm no fan of the current whitespace-heavy UI paradigm, but to say BlackBerry did it better is definitely not matching my own memories of my BlackBerry devices at all.

It is the design paradigm of Blackberry is what we prefers because it shows information of what we want and need without any fuss. The modern design paradigm is so backward and marketing-oriented, filled with ads and paddings the way bean counters have in mind. The 90s/00s era have a good design in mind that are human-oriented and natural to use. Now, everything felt off and harder to memorize those extra steps. My Blackberry make it feel like an important tool and easier to use (they are refers as Crackberry back then), modern smartphone tries their best to be hostile toward their users no matter what. If we stay on the goal of human-oriented design with modern style, then our design paradigm will be vastly different than what we have now.

I agree with the sentiment about UI designs today, and I think that those horrible lists of the BlackBerry were just as bad, for the very same reasons.

some of those list items took some action immediately, some opened further lists, and there was no differentiation visually, for example. some may call that "tool-like", but I call it "lacking important contextual information", and it's just as bad as other UIs which lack important cues.

> modern smartphone tries their best to be hostile toward their users no matter what

they definitely do not try to be hostile. I sense an attitude on this site lately which is probably best summed up as "everything new is stupid" and that is just as misguided as believing that modern smartphones are intentionally hostile.

MAYBE they're unintentionally hostile. Maybe, but I doubt it. Smartphones are imperfect, yes, and dark patterns DO exist, yes, and I can't recall ever seeing anything hostile in Android or iOS or iPadOS, ever. organized poorly? sure. oversimplified? yep! hostile? never.

Those PDAs generally used styluses, similarly sized screens (or at least about half the size of current phones, 4-5", so a very different DPI) and it was considered okay to make interface elements so small that you could not walk and reliably hit them at the same time.

By your logic we should be able to use a PDA interface on a smartwatch.

> In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen?

Don't you think that a letter is a bit optimistic? What about colored buttons with icons, ala Idiocracy?

Screens keep getting bigger, while tweets stay the same size. You need something to pad the rest of the space.

How about more tweets? The information density on modern everything is utter garbage.

I doubt anyone here wants more tweets. I personally wish the twitter UI would just be entirely whitespace (or a fine chirping blue if they're feeling adventerous) for their audience to sit and enjoy; I can genuinely find no drawbacks to such a UI rework.

You're not wrong. I guess I'm more annoyed by how widespread it has become to waste whitespace. The new Reddit design is unusable for me because of how much space it wastes. I try it sometimes for a few days, then go back to the old design and feel so much happier to be able to see so much at once without distractions.

Whitespace is among the least of new reddit's problems lol.

> all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame?

I don't think fashion has an endgame.

Whitespace so hot right now.

What I want from a grandparent mode is for the app to not show an sign-up announcement screen with every update or at least have that X (close) prominently; Adobe Acrobat Reader is notorious in that regard as they showcase their graphics prowess with fancy 'Sign-up' screen with every update and almost invisible (X) button; Old people who are just trying to open a pdf from the email shouldn't have to put up with this.

> Looks like grandparent mode...

I almost cut my arm off with all that edge. Care to dial it back a bit?

The counterpoint is that most of the 'information' apps think are important really are wasting my time and obscuring actual signal. Putting design on a diet and making apps think about what data is priority vs noise is something that respects the user.

The ability to glance at my phone and get the most important info without parsing out noise - that's a big plus. The ability to mix and match widgets on my home and lock screen to display the data I want without crowding stuff out - also great.

It's funny that a related argument against mobile is that all apps demand full screen and it's difficult to do advanced work bc of app switch friction - well this approach of forcing apps to limit and prioritize info puts out a path of addressing that inefficiency nicely.

> what important APIs did they axe now?

Again many API turn downs improve user privacy, improve system stability, or push apps to more battery/memory efficient APIs.

Do you really want win32 level of API compatibility? As a user I don't care. As a developer I would rather work on a living and evolving platform then a fossil or legacy tarpit.

>Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen?

Just playing to their customer. As time goes on, the demographics of Android users get older and less savvy as everyone else switches to iPhone. (not snark, I have a Pixel myself)

Are they? Or is it change for change’s sake. If it looks like it did the last 5 years it looks “old” so you have to do something.

They did this. It’s trendy. Later they’ll “discover” information density and go in the other direction.

Well at first IT people complained because boomers wouldn't learn how to use computers. Now they (sorta)did and they want one letter per screen. Since they still control the majority of the market share that is what we will get by default.

Its really the getting old denial mode. All of those people need reading glasses not huge font. Seriously the in house attorney where i worked(like 70yo) had his phone font set so large it was like 2-3 words per screen on email and text.

always nice when an optimist joins the conversation. everything just lightens right up.

It now opaquely covers the entire screen when you look at a single notification.

I feel the same about it. Also now the settings it's just a bunch of text without icons.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com