{"id":12507,"date":"2026-10-06T15:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=12507"},"modified":"2026-10-06T15:54:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T15:54:26","slug":"apple-user-interface-catches-me-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/12507-apple-user-interface-catches-me-out.html","title":{"rendered":"Apple user interface catches me out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m in one of those long calls to support where you wait for ages before a human answers, which is my excuse for slipping up. I’ve had the iPhone keypad open to navigate menus but now I want to hide the keypad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a button for this:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
iPhone UI for hiding the keypad<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Unfortunately the text that looks like a caption is a button, and the button that looks like it is captioned is the button for hanging up. And I have to call back and wait again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes I should know better but I do not think this is good design. The “button” for Hide Keypad is not even underlined or highlighted to show that it might do something when tapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is another one, from Apple Music. I am on the home page and want to search for some music. There is a Search button or perhaps tab indicator top left:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Search tab\/button<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Tap Search though, and there is nowhere to type. Wait a moment, yes there is. It is up at the top and there is not even a flashing cursor to show that I can type there. I have to click again to do that, not where it says Search, but where it says Apple Music:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Apple Music search confusion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This is on the Mac desktop app; the mobile one is a little better but not great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am guilty of clicking Search multiple times before realising that I have to click where it says Apple Music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I get the intent here; the UI is steering you towards clicking\/tapping on categories rather than typing a search. To me though, that is browse rather than search.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in one of those long calls to support where you wait for ages before a human answers, which is my excuse for slipping up. I’ve had the iPhone keypad open to navigate menus but now I want to hide the keypad. There is a button for this: Unfortunately the text that looks like a … Continue reading Apple user interface catches me out<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,25,1142,47],"tags":[158,323,1635],"class_list":["post-12507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-design","category-gadgets","category-iphone","tag-apple","tag-design","tag-ui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12515,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions\/12515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}