Customization? On an Apple device? Are you out of your mind?

Have you looked at how much stuff there is under Settings on a recent version of iOS? Admittedly it's not the Windows Registry, but...

> Windows Registry

That's a term I haven't heard in years. I wonder if anyone still remembers the literal thousands of settings that were possible to change and all the "tweaking" programs that were made for it.

Google gpedit.msc if you really want your mind blown.

Both are still around.

Sadly it's missing a few things that would be really nice, like being able to turn off the %*(% home bar.

What's the beef with the home bar? Seems pretty innocent?

Because I absolutey do not need it, and it's infuriating to have a high contrast item in view when using a dark app (Like, say, a video player...)

There is an API for developers to use to signal that a view should hide the home indicator [1]. It doesn't guarantee that it will be hidden (the user may have accessibility or other options enabled which take precedence and prefer to display it)

When playing fullscreen video on my phone, I do not see the home indicator, as it hides after a short delay due to most developers adopting this API. Just tested in VLC and the home indicator is hidden after about 3 seconds of fullscreen video playback

[1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiviewcontro...

It’s much more problematic on iPad Pro, since lots of devs don’t have one. It’s also geometrically larger, especially in landscape.

Getting app developers to fix it is a very mixed bag. One app I use a lot (F1 TV) had had this issue forever, and many many many people have complained to F1 Media about it. They don’t care, apparently, and that’s a high end app that costs upwards of $80/yr

Also, erm, Safari. I was actually complaining about this (with a screenshot) just yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33770571

As stated in my sibling[0] to your comment, the developer may have limited ability to fix it, since its a preference the system will often override. That said, its literally a one line change to implement it (for each view controller class), so there is little reason for them not to put it in, even with its limited effectiveness.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781895

This is not the behaviour I am seeing as I compile to my iOS devices right now. The home indicator is consistently hidden on view controllers which adopt this preference, but will reappear whenever a user interacts with the application, only to hide again after a few seconds.

I agree that it can be annoying if the developer of an app does not adopt the correct behaviours. But in the case of Safari we should not be allowing web developers to hide persistent OS UI elements. The better solution to your screenshot, I think, is to design with safe areas[1] in mind so that the overlap does not occur and persistent OS UI remains accessible.

[1] https://webkit.org/blog/7929/designing-websites-for-iphone-x...

But why on earth does it NEED to be persistent?

It’s instinctual behavior.

Like imagine if a desktop pc had 3 dime sized dots on the bottom of the screen to remind you a mouse has 3 buttons.

It’s noise, not signal.

It wasn't instinctual when iOS introduced the swipe up to close apps in 2018?

It's also a clear indication that you can swipe up to go home. If the indicator is invisible, you cannot swipe up. You need to interact with the app to make the indicator appear (eg. tap the screen). I appreciate the visual indicator and that it can be disabled when there is full screen content

False. Swiping up in the YouTube app with the bar hidden goes home just fine.

You're right. I confused two APIs, there is also `defersSystemGestures(on: edges)` which allows an app to prevent a swipe to go home initially. A lot of fullscreen apps do this so I thought it was the same API

> It doesn't guarantee that it will be hidden (the user may have accessibility or other options enabled which take precedence and prefer to display it)

In my experience as an iOS developer using this API, the only time the preference to hide the home indicator is respected is in the case you mentioned, when a full screen video is playing. Otherwise the home indicator always appears whenever the user stops interacting with the screen. So the GP is correct that there is no user control to make it hidden, and not really any developer control either.

It consistently hides the home indicator in my experience.

I just compiled two of my apps with `prefersHomeIndicatorAutoHidden` set to true. This resulted in the home indicator disappearing after a second or two on the view controllers where it was configured. Neither of the apps were video apps.

The home indicator does come back if you interact with the screen. Tap the screen and it will appear briefly, before disappearing again.

Yes, I have seen. Most of them barely do anything worthwhile. It’s like publishing an entire book in title sized fonts.

"10 minutes ought to be enough for anybody."

“10 minutes just works”

I recognise the current truth of this, but I feel a deep wave of sadness as I remember that the computer to have in the 90s if you wanted to customise evvvvvvery little thing was a Mac. A ton of custom aspects were available right in the base system, plus of course a seemingly infinite array of inits and cdevs to tweak things, and finally you could resort to ResEdit to modify anything by hand. Apple fell so far in the 2000s and especially the 2010s from that ideal.

Perhaps that didn't receive approval from a higher power.

But options are so complicated and boring. Can I just pay you to pick the best one for me?

Pay apple, multiple recurring subscriptions to do what they want you to do. This is always the answer.

I want to play this spotify track through my appleTV. A. No, you can't, it doesn't work without rebooting the appleTV, which will work but only until you pause the music. A: "You can pay for an apple music sub."

I want enough space on my phone. A: No. You Can't. We're taking that for OS stuff to sell you things you don't want. A: "Buy a new phone with more storage and a vastly inflated flash price." Or A: "You can pay apple a sub to have your private files hackable and released as "the fappening" like happened to Jennifer Lawrence." You'll have to take steps to avoid this if you are able which you might no be, ha!

I don't want any of my private files from my phone or my computer on someone else's computer. Have you tried using apple without paying for their backup service? You probably did manage, do a survey of your friends to see how they went.

I want to use firefox with uBlock origin (or whatever) on my phone. No, you can't. I'm sure there's a way to pay apple for something to do something I don't want here. Chime in with it.

I want to run Kodi on my appleTV to be able to watch my DVD library that I own, using the device that I own plugged into the tv that I own. A: "No. You can't. You can pay apple a sub for appleTV the app which entitles you to pay again for anything you actually want to watch that you already own."

The answer is always pay apple more money and probably a recurring payment. Always. And by design. They pay economists to optimise the models to make it happen.

I want to pay Mary for her app. A: "No you can't, you can pay apple and apple can tax Mary 30% of her gross revenue for a service you can't opt out of.

You pay apple to be their product. The market power is utterly phenomenal. The answer is always pay Apple more money.

Yes, that's called having a default, and it's a good thing. An even better thing is to let someone change it afterwards, if they want to.

That would be nice, right?

Unfortunately, <queue some made up story from Apple's PR team about how some soldier's lives were saved by limiting AirDrop time to exactly 10 minutes>.