Hi.
As the subject says, I'd like some thoughts on this mode. By thoughts I don't mean, "it's awful, I disabled it" which admittedly *was* my first thought when I first enabled it. On the other hand I've been using iOS 15 for less than a day on a single device, my ancient iPad pro 9.7, so that's hardly much of a place to have an opinion.
I've already noticed, for example, that every widget is a group, which on an iPad is kind of handy since it lets you flick past them easily and use them easily. Other than that, though, I find it a bit odd, particularly as someone who does a lot of sliding, exploring by touch and going directly where I want to go.
Is this more useful on an iPhone where presumably people do a lot more flicking? Is it helpful with the keyboard? That's probably my next experiment to see if it makes using this iPad more efficient.
So really, I'm just interested. Where have people found this feature useful? Where is it confusing? Do people find they switch in and out of it, or stick to one setting? After all, it's probably one of the bigger changes to iOS navigation in a while.
Comments
At the moment I find myself…
At the moment I find myself switching in and out of it because I can't make up my mind.
In some apps it works quite well, like the weather app and in others, like whatsapp it treats some elements as groups.
In whatsapp for example, the edit field where you type your message is treated as a group, yet you can still double tap on it to enter the text area to input text.
Maybe apps need to be updated for this to work, or maybe I'm not use to it, having never owned or used a mac to be sure, but the way it is now, I'm finding it hit and miss.
My Thoughts
Thankfully, you can ad it to the rotor and turn it on/off at will.
It's a feature that will improve over time.
It works great in Settings, the Home Screen, though definitely needs more mirroring like on the Mac when it comes to Safari.
Now if ever IOS one day gotten a NumPad-Commander mode like on the Mac, that's where using groups is fun!
Initial group navigation thoughts
This new group mode seems to be a bit of a double edged sword. I tried this out for the first time in the Weather app. It was like night and day. Rather than having to explore the screen minutely to get at what I wanted, this feature made the new app extremely intuitive. So intuitive, in fact, that I'll be using this as the example experience in the second edition of my Personal Power guide. Everything was nicely divided into logical groups which you could go in and out of effortlessly.
Surely, I thought naively, is feature would do equally well at making the sprawling Apple News app a far more pleasant experience for VoiceOver veterans like me and those less versed in its quirks. Sadly, barring drastic improvment, I'll be using this as an example of when to thank one's lucky stars that it's easy to turn the feature off. It jumped right over the many sections of the "Today" tab to present me with the tab bar as a group. Some groups were detected as I scrolled and explored. However, this mode utterly failed to enhance the use of the News app in any meaningful way. Headings are still the best bet. However, they're imperfect as navigation aids since they're often out of range of one another. Hopefully, this will be attended to and whatever markers are needed will be aded to the News app to make group mode work better.
There's some very nice potential here. I'll definitely be trying group navigation with other apps. However, I recommend people keep the means of turning group navigation on or off as needed ready to hand.
I added it to my rotor
Hi,
I had no idea you could add “navigation style” to the rotor, but I just did it.
I’m really enjoying grouped navigation.
It makes navigating much faster.
Hmm, definitely sounds like…
Hmm, definitely sounds like this is yet another of those features that rely on apps to do a decent job implementing it, but once they do it'll be useful in a lot of cases.
I have to admit so far, as an iPad user, it's kind of disorienting a lot of the time. It doesn't always seem obvious when I'm actually in a group, particularly if I've gotten there by touching an area of the screen without flicking to it or something. Taking the advice and adding this one to the rotor.
Nice for touchscreen users in some places, but....
I find that it works well in the Weather app, but not so well in the Mail app. It works so well in the Weather app that I've considered setting up my first VO activity for using it. However,since I'm mostly a braille only user, and there aren't commands on a braille display to move in and out of groups, it's pretty darn useless for me at this point.
That's good to know. I'm…
That's good to know. I'm going to try it out. The way it is now, it's different than before and I haven't figured out any tricks to get where I want to efficiently. This could be a game changer.
I just tried it and it looks…
I just tried it and it looks exactly the same. I don't know what I did wrong. I did the two-finger swipe right, because I think that's what this group nav is, and it isn't working. I need to know more.
Its promising but not consistent.
I’ve tried to use the new group navigation style for over a week which meant ditching my 2 finger swipe left and right for activate and escape which I find really useful and incredibly quick. I think its really promising however I won’t be using it until its consistent across all apps, if it only works in a few or even most I think its going to be more frustrating than useful. I’ll give it another go in a few months and see if they’ve made it something that acts the same way in all apps consistently, then I think it will be worth losing my activate escape swipes.
I'm not sure what the use…
I'm not sure what the use case is for this, especially on a smaller phone. Maybe if you're one of those people who finds it easier to navigate by flicking? I use a combination of that and finding things by touch since once I know where something is that's just faster.
I played with group navigation for a minute when I installed 15 and it made me smile because it turned my phone into a micro Mac because it works just like interaction in macos and it took me back to using my old MacBooks. Interesting that they added the option to disable interaction on the Mac back in El Capitan (I kept mine turned on), and now they bring interaction to iOS.
I think group navigation will be one of those things that's hard to get used to if you've never used VO on a Mac. I've heard some long-time PC screen reader users say interaction on the Mac is too slow, but I found it useful in some situations, but not in others.
maybe for paramountPlus app
well I will try it in paramountPlus, maybe it will let me see all of the shows under a particular heading.