http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/
And yeah, it's UX cancer.
Read the "Step Into The Light" section.
9.3.5 => 10.0 is not a "security update".
Constant nagware until you update is asinine. "Update Now or Later?"... f* you, I don't like what I see in 10... but I'm stuck with dancing around daily fucking warnings.
I swear... I'm not bitter :) I also won't buy another iPhone.
Just bought a new Android table and it had lollipop. Turns out you cannot get the most recent OS for it so I am stuck with a 2 year old OS.
It also depends on the Android device. I have a Nexus 6, released 2014, that's on the latest Android 7 (Nougat) and my old Nexus 4, released 2012, is on Android 5 (Lollipop).
Maybe I would have preferred if my Nexus 4 also got upgraded to the latest, but then again it might not have the needed juice, I like very much how it runs right now and all the apps I use still work and receive updates. And I also have an older iPad that got upgraded by Apple and is now unusable.
Even so, with Apple there's no way out - once upgraded, it stays upgraded and once support is dropped, it stays droppped. With my Nexus I have a choice - because of Android's nature I can always use CyanogenMod. It's not exactly a solution for the non-technical-savvy, but it works.
On a more serious note, in my opinion updates are an exemption and the user should be urged to do them.
XP sucked until SP2. 8 sucked until 8.1u1. 10 gets better each roll.
My issue with iOS 10 is the changes to the underlying flow (like unlocking the phone) and the lack of tweakability (basic issue with iOS). Naggware on top of that grates my nerves.
* It won't download over cell towers * It won't download if less than 1GB available on phone
Now, I've got to balance my space to within 1gb and minimize time outside of that while on Wifi.
Swap out audio books? Take too many pictures/videos? Podcast downloads? Game/App downloads?
I know this option exists... and it's just as crappy - if not more so - than clicking "No" every day.
On every single minor "security" update...
I'm of the "avoid popups at all cost" school of UI design. As soon as you let developers have modal UI that isn't meant to accomplish a specific, user-initiated task, they will immediately start using that power to be obnoxious.
Why? If the developers produced a product that works and sold it to a user at a fair price, why on earth should those developers then have some sort of indefinite responsibility for producing updates because other people chose to break compatibility?
There is a reason we have standards and there is a reason it's important for system software in particular to define and support standard interfaces. In fact, that is arguably the primary function of an operating system: to provide a stable platform on which other software can run.
The fact that some of the main OS providers no longer seem to recognise this and instead consider instability and backward-incompatibility to be strategic assets makes me genuinely afraid for the near future of our industry. If I want to do something as simple as buying a laptop for one of my small businesses tomorrow, so someone can get on with useful work and will be able to continue doing so for a long time, there are currently no good options available.
Now Apple breaks backwards compatibility with this software when I upgrade.
Even in the case of the software maker still being in business, should they have to provide me free upgrades for life? If they do that then they have diminishing profits with every upgrade. On the flip side, should I have to pay for a new license when I don't need the new features and am perfectly happy staying on the existing version if it only would continue to work?
To give two quick examples of this I used to run Parallels on my Mac so I could run a couple of Windows apps that I absolutely had to have and it would have been very inconvenient to use a boot camp setup and reboot every time I needed access. Then when the Mac version changed Parallels quit working; my only option was to buy a new license for Parallels. To make matters worse; you never really know what software will break when there is an upgrade, but if you don't upgrade then you end up in the boat that some other piece of software you are running does get updated, but you can't use that software without getting the latest version of Mac.
When I compare this to Windows; I'm still running today on Windows 10 software that I purchased for Windows 95. For all of the many things I dislike about Windows; the one thing I applaud them for is their level of backwards compatibility.
Update: Still getting nuisance notifications.
Long story short, I'm pretty sure this phone is my last iPhone.
Holy sh*t! That's really low.
The only one where I can give an honest answer is "No, I love my laptop too much to upgrade." I'm actually having exactly this problem. I would like to upgrade to a new notebook with more RAM (4 GB soldered in is becoming a bit claustrophobic these days), but I have several rare autographs on my notebook cover and don't want to abandon it.
Heck, I even uninstalled every jwz package from my Debian systems after the xscreensaver fiasco.
It's not sayin "Do it later, I'm a lazy bum."
1. Comply with whatever they want you to do
2. Lie (say that you are going to comply later without intending to)
3. Walk away from the product (perhaps forever).
An even smarter way (in my opinion) of getting 5 star reviews is by showing the dialog only after x hours of use. Users most likely to rate badly will have the app uninstalled before the dialog shows.
I can see how you'd see this as providing a positive bias, but I see it more like getting a chance to see if you can't help the customer out before they give up on your app. It also reminds the customer that there are people on the other end - so even if the issue can't be resolved, and you still get a one-star rating, the level of vitriol seems likely to be reduced - something all too easy to forget when angry-reviewing.
Of course if they just take the feedback and dump it, that's a different story - but again, I would think anyone with that experience would still leave the negative review.
TL;DR - too many downloaders use negative reviews as a combination support request and cudgel. I think this is a reasonable defense against that.
This technique is a genuine way to encourage sharing positive experiences about the app. In the same time, it offers a chance to the app provider to improve a bad user experience.
Whether it's a dark pattern or not, I think really depends on the motives, are you genuinely trying to make the app better or are you only interested in the people's perception of it.
Here is a great article on the topic which discusses the same issue: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/06/a-better-way-to-req...
Otherwise I don't mind such dialog boxes.
Do you like our app?
<Yes, rate it> <Later>
This is what makes the IT part of my heart die a little inside even more: when even the "good folks" in this industry feel like they have to do obnoxious things just to get ahead or keep up.
Folks, this is why the bigger arguments about competition or arbitration and so on always come back to the same point ("there's no meaningful choice"): Eventually, everyone winds up doing the same thing because it's the only way to simply not lose ground to the others who are doing the obnoxious-overall-but-good-for-just-me-in-the-short-term tricks. If I uninstalled every app that demanded this...well, I'd have very few apps. And that's even worse because it's just obnoxious enough to help the individual app developer but not so obnoxious as to spur people onto meaningful action, yet the annoyance is still present...always grating on nerves...disrupting just a little bit of productivity or happiness...needlessly.
That's when you have to start thinking about regulation.
On the case of the Android store, regulation by Google. Their inaction is harming everyone.
If we ever meet, I might ask you if you want to be hit in the face now or later. I hate doing it, but it's a necessary evil.
Like many users, I as well have fallen victim for having a temporary fit of rage and leaving a 1 star review with a 1 liner of nonconstructive feedback for an otherwise useful app.
As if to say "Fine, you want it? Here's your god damn review!"
I bet they take your one star and just hide the dialog, but take people who rate it as 5 stars to the "real" app store rating page.
Does iOS let apps self rate like that? This seems inconceivable to me.
Bottom line: when an app keeps pestering you to rate it, say "Yes fine I'll rate you", they take you to the app store and there, you do nothing (or one-star them). The app should register that you rated them and stop pestering you with that dialog.
Apps on Android totally can and do do this.
It's not allowed in the Google Play TOS, and it's one of the darkest patterns there is, but it's technically possible just as it is on iOS.
edit: Some of us do not want to enable this power-draining, privacy-sucking global option just to use Tinder. An xposed framework module was created to bypass the check, but Tinder has actually begun checking for it and the app doesn't work properly if it is enabled.
Google is notorious for it, especially when they try to get you to use the YouTube app rather than the web interface.
It's not "maybe later" I want—it's "never ask me again".
The worse, if you agree, it enables the location service for everything all the time where you have the feeling it was just for the Maps app.
I just discovered that 2 days ago and I must say I was really really angry at Google for this clear dark pattern use.
Their piping of apps' access to things like location through Google Play Services to force you to give them access makes a mockery of the permissions system. I really don't like the way they've been doing things the past few years.
Edit: Gmail complains about lack of access to camera and microphone, not location services. Fixed.
When Google released the new permission system in Android, they blew their one chance to actually make permissions meaningful. The fact that "portscan my network" is one of the Other permissions is testament to how unconcerned with user security and privacy they seem to be as an organization (despite, no doubt, some individual developers who care). I'm pretty close to deciding that my next phone will be dumb and featureless.
But still, I can't see why Gmail should need access to those devices, and far less why it should harass me so aggressively about it when it works fine without them.
Just conjecture, but I feel like there was a sea-change at Google regarding attitudes towards users' privacy, about the time that adblock became widespread and competition started heating up between them and Facebook for ad revenue. They're behaving far less ethically than they did even five years ago.
I now use HERE WeGo or OsmAnd (on non-GAPPS devices, from f-droid). While the experience is not nearly as cool, I love the fact that I am not participating in uncontrolled monitoring and unexpected battery drainage.
The worst is that if you accept it once, this setting is saved and there is no obvious way in the UI to change it back (which was possible in the past I think).
To reset it, go in the Applications manager in the settings, choose Google Play Services and reset all its data.
There is no way it is a bug, someone had to think and put this deceptive behaviour as a feature (and someone had to design its deceptive UI, someone had to do unit testing for this deceptive behaviour, someone had to QA it…).
And Google is really shitty app publisher in more ways than this. Has anyone ever seen a meaningful changelog in any major app of theirs?
The tollways here are especially heinous when you don't use them often enough to justify the hassle of getting an I-Pass, since the cash toll is twice the I-Pass toll.
Even if that's not true, I may never visit the page again if my perception is that it's gearing up to annoy me.
I will often see: OK, NOT YET, DON'T SHOW AGAIN. Which I think is fine.
Remember, as an app developer, if a user denies the iOS permissions dialog in your app, you can't EVER show the dialog again -- the user has to manually leave the app and re-enable the permission in the iOS Settings.
Successive calls to the function to ask permission automatically return false for "denied" so it is in the developer's best interest to try to avoid showing the real iOS permission pop up unless the user somehow indicates that they are going to accept the permission (in this case, in the "pre permission" clone dialog).
There's even GitHub projects and CocoaPods for this: https://github.com/yahoo/YMPromptKit
When I used this "trick" (yes, I'm guilty), only a handful of thousands of users actually accepted the soft-prompt and then successively denied the real iOS hard prompt.
Done properly I can appreciate it, especially on Android where permissions are often nonsensically bundled together. Although I'm never sure when it's crossed the line into scam. Is the permission for getting the user's gamer id really "make phone calls"?!
Not to mention, the pre permission dialog is usually deceptively similar to the Apple one.
(And to be clear, I've never built one of these extra permission prompts, so I'm saying this purely from the perspective of a user.)
Fuck you.
However, it doesn't seem like you are interested in furthering this discussion. Would you have rather I not posted at all?
There are many YC companies listed on this Dark Patterns site, and their founders definitely frequent this form. So far everyone else has been completely mum.
Given that you are on YC's community web site, may I suggest using some tact?
App developer insisted upon a review, so they got one.
If you're at a company that does scheduled releases (e.g. once every three weeks), you'll need to continually ask people to review the app to keep that rating high.
Otherwise you only get ratings from new users and users that are discontent with the particular version. It's rare that people who have already rated the app 5-stars will continually go out of their way to rate the app 5-stars again without prompting.
It had a [don't ask me again] checkbox that when set greyed out the option to disagree.