Usability Hell is by me, Nick Donnelly.
“Cellular data is turned off for [app name]“
Yeah. That.
Today I saw this message 54 times. I may have a bad memory but ITS NOT THAT F****** BAD.
Every. Single. Time. I. Load. A. F******. App.
And just for extra protection - sometimes before I close them too after waking my device.
How on earth is this not irritating the hell out of the developers who work on iOS? Is it because they are all so rich they don’t care about paying more for data? (serious question) - or maybe Apple pays it.
Today It Reached Its Nadir
I was snowboarding near the Russian border - in Gudauri, Georgia. Ironically enough I was listening to ‘Becoming Steve Jobs’ with Audible, on the lifts - then a nice deep house playlist on Spotify in the powder on the way down.
(as Steve might have said - this message is “Insanely Shit”)
I did about 15 runs in total. At the top of each lift I took out my phone, unlocked it, sometimes had to press OK on 'cellular data is disabled for Audible’, loaded Spotify, had to press OK on 'Cellular data is disabled for Spotify’, then press play on playlist.
Then when I came to the bottom of a lift - the same process in reverse.
In both cases people on skis and snowboards are trying to dodge me - and I’m trying to get on or off a lift. Delays are not what I wanted.
FFFFFFGAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBAAAASSSS.
Had it not been such a nice sunny day - I may have thrown my iPhone off a cliff; there were plenty to choose from.
It also seems to inconsistently do this when I’m connected to WiFi too! You know - just incase….
Why I Turned Data Off
I turned data off for Spotify and Audible (and App Store, Castro, and Overcast - podcast apps) because - like 90%+(?) of people - I don’t [always] have an unlimited data tariff. These apps download large files that I only want to download on WiFi.
Virtually anyone with such an app - should have data turned off.
After a little 'incident’ with Overcast - @MarcoArment, developer of Overcast (@OvercastFm), has a nice solution with an 'Allow Cellular Downloads’ button visible on the downloads page. Similar implementations are piecemeal and inconsistent across apps.
We can’t leave this to individual developers to solve - a holistic solution is required.
Who Is This Message For?
This message is displayed when you have manually turned cellular data off for a particular app. When *you* turned it off. So this warning is for people who hit their head really hard and have temporary memory loss just before disabling data. So hard that they forgot they saw this message the last time - and every f****** time - they open the app.
Or people that did it by accident or forgot they did it. But - this is their own fault, what about the majority who *disabled it on purpose*. How is this acceptable User Experience?
Why It’s The Wrong Message
If anything - telling users wireless data is turned *ON* for 'downloading’ apps would make more sense. Apps like podcasting apps can easily - often in the background - download gigabytes of data on your limited cellular tariff; possibly costing you $1000’s.
How Apple Should Fix It
For the love of god (who obviously doesn’t exist while this bug does - and like because famine) - can we fix this! It’s so easy to fix, in order of goodness:
1. Remove this warning entirely.
2. Give us a universal option to disable this warning.
3. Show it once a day (week?) *at most*. There is no good reason to show me this message 54 times in one day.
4. Stop it being a modal dialogue that forces you to press 'OK’ or 'Settings’ - make it a tapable banner instead (90% fixed right there).
Beyond this, apps should have a flag the developer or Apple can set - marking them as 'data intensive’ or 'background downloading’. This flag causes the user to be prompted about cellular data when the app is installed "On/Off”
A further, prominent standard switch / information bar saying 'app cell data off’ within the UI itself would also be a good idea.
The current approach is broken to the point of infuriating me - and probably millions of other iOS users many times every day.
I don’t think 'infuriation’ is what Apple is going for?
Apple - can you fix this please.
