But the back button (if I'm remembering right) on the Android (which is always there) isn't always consistent in its functionality. In some apps it does one thing, in some apps it does another. At least the home button is more consistent.
The inconsistency you talk about only happens when authors poorly create their applications. Android's entire multitasking functionality is built on top of a stack of activities, which is easiest to think of as a stack of screen views. I start at my "desktop", click on my Photo Gallery, decide to share an image using Dropbox, and it takes me to choosing a Dropbox folder. That's roughly three activities or so (depending on how many screens within each app I have to go through) all on a stack. Built properly, if I decide I don't want to share on Dropbox while choosing a folder, I would just hit the back button, it'd pop the Dropbox folder browsing screen off the stack, and take me back to browsing my Photo Gallery. Poorly-created apps will try and "recreate" their internal activity stack when they're not supposed to. Let's say that getting to Dropbox's folder browser if I were to launch the app independently took four activities in and of itself. If Dropbox was poorly written, it would try and recreate that natural flow of previous activities when you're just trying to do a share, so hitting the back button won't take you to the Photo Gallery from sharing.
Sorry, it's complicated to explain but makes perfect sense when you're actually using a device. The tl;dr is that if app developers don't suck the back button's behavior is seamless and consistent.
If it's complicated to explain, then it's complicated.
Android's back button strikes me as an interesting idea that doesn't really work. If it depends on application X doing the right thing in order for the experience using application Y to be pleasant, then it seems pretty broken.
It's not dependent on developers using it right. They can only make it bad by intentionally messing with the back button. The default behavior, which 99% apps use, is what the parent described. You're already used to this behavior when you press the back button on your web browser.
The developers don't have to use it at all. The overwhelming majority of apps don't touch it.
I know you have to cheer on your team here, but the back button is completely intuitive and users like it; you're creating problems based on what is theoretically possible and not what is reality.
Again, people who've never used it think it's complicated. It's really not, and it's extremely intuitive as soon as you start using the device.
In the same vain, any poorly-written application on any device that doesn't conform to UI standards and guidelines will drag down the experience when using that device. This isn't a problem unique to Android, but it's more obvious when apps violate it due to how multitasking is built into the OS from the ground-up.
If it's not complicated, why do some Android users complain about it? If it's as intuitive as you say, shouldn't everyone be happy with it?
As for poorly-written apps dragging down the experience, I don't think that's necessarily a given. Obviously if you have a crappy app, then using that app sucks, but that crappy app shouldn't also make the experience of using other apps crappy.
>If it's not complicated, why do some Android users complain about it? If it's as intuitive as you say, shouldn't everyone be happy with it?
Don't you think this is a silly argument to use against Android's back button when the post we are commenting on is a complaint about iOS's home button? By your logic, that should indicate that the home button's behavior is not intuitive and complicated... you know, because somebody complained about it.
Except I never said that iOS's home button behavior is "extremely intuitive" or assert that only people who've never used it find it complicated. Of course, I also didn't give a long description of the iPhone's home button behavior, say that it's really complicated to explain, and then say it's intuitive....
Obviously some people disagree with the iPhone's home button behavior. Then again, they're not complaining that it's too complicated to understand, merely that it's not the ideal (or perhaps "correct") behavior.
I've found that those that switch from iOS complain about it the most, as they are used to the one button approach. Just like swapping between any OS I guess, you have the things you are used to and initially, the new idioms don't sit well with you.
Average internet users don't understand why Twitter hijacks their back button on the browser, but I'm sure if given the choice between no back button and one that works almost the entire time, I'm sure you can tell which they'd go for.
I'm not sure that's a very meaningful point. Your Android device is not a browser. Your desktop/laptop OS functions just fine without a global back button. So does iOS. If I'm given the choice between no global back button or one that annoys me 5% of the time, I'll take no global back button. My browser can still have its own.
On my desktop if I'm in a stack of dialogs I often use the ESC key as a back button. iOS has zero meaningful inter-process communication (which is why every app has to have a piss-poor re-implementation of Safari and Twitter) so it doesn't even have a concept of "global".
I've got apps that happily send me into Safari, iBooks, and any number of other apps when it's appropriate. IPC might be minimal, but apps definitely don't have to provide their own browser. (I've never used an app that reimplemented Twitter functionality except Twitter-specific apps.)
I only mentioned it as a UI thing because every time I touch my girlfriend's Android and try to navigate around, I'm confused. Yet, when she grabs my iphone, she's not confused. It also could be that I'm just the slower one of us (she did go to MIT...)
So the back button on your browser sometimes takes you back and sometimes dumps you onto your desktop?
Also, sometimes the back button in my browser totally sucks, such as when I click a link to a Twitter message and it decides to totally break my back button so that I have to press 3 times rapidly to go back. I don't want this experience with apps on my phone.
I'd rather that Twitter didn't break my back button. But I see no value in having a global back button anyway. Who should my browser's back button sometimes take me to the previous page, sometimes take me to Microsoft Word, and sometimes drop me on the desktop? Why can't the back button do one thing right instead of a bunch of things kind-of right?
And I would much rather have no global back button on my phone than a sometimes-broken one.
It makes sense with the way Android works. Applications are often interconnected. I can browse to reddit in Browser, click on a YouTube link and open it in the YouTube app, hit share, and open up GMail to send it to a friend. I can then hit back to go back to YouTube, then again to go back to reddit. Believe me, it feels so natural to me now that I find iOS clunky to use without it.
But you can't just ignore the back button, because apps use it rather than providing their own back buttons. You have to use it, and there's no way so far as I know to force to behave in a way I would consider intuitive.
How it would that's intuitive to you? The back button should return you to whatever previous screen you were on -- that's pretty intuitive.
As for applications that get it wrong; that happens on all platforms for all kinds of different features -- it's unfortunate but it shouldn't reflex poorly on the feature itself unless it's particularly hard to implement correctly.
No, it's not the functional equivalent. My phone is not a web browser, and it's broken to try to treat them the same. My web browser's back button never drops me into Office, and it never dumps me onto my desktop. It moves through my web browser's history. It doesn't try to build some awkward linkage between what I've done in my web browser and what I've done outside my web browser.
The idea that you have a linear sequence of "actions" across all apps seems pretty weak in a multi-tasking environment.
If all your applications exist in the browser (say you're a lover all Google apps) then yes the back button in the browser might drop you into your spreadsheet, your email, etc.
Google has simply extended the concept from web apps to regular apps -- and that's hardly a big stretch -- especially when all your regular apps can link to each other.
Actually that's an interesting point, because Google Apps don't do that. If you're in Gmail and you open a spreadsheet, it opens in a new Window/Tab, so that it has an independent history. Ditto if you click on a link in an email. This approach gets you separate histories for your apps. You don't get an awkward single history that links across your mail and spreadsheets and random websites. You get separate histories. The exceptions are when you choose to manually enter a new URL, or if you hit back enough it will take you out of Gmail into whatever you were doing before.
You are right, and the stack of Activities make perfect sense from the perspective of a developer.
But for example, as a user, I think it's confusing that you can open an app from home screen and can go back to home 2 different ways (either back or home button).
Also, if it's that easy for developers to mess up navigation, then it's going to create a frustrating experience for user.
