Disclaimer: I'm generally fine with iOS and use it and macOS as my daily drivers.

> There's a pretty useful manual built into the device itself called Hints I think? Did you read that?

I posit that if one needs to load up the Tips app to figure out how to perform desired functions, that's a problem with the UX and not the human trying to use the device/app.

The ideas espoused in The Design of Everyday Things[0] pops into mind right now.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expand...

On the contrary I think it’s quite reasonable to gate functionality behind reading the manual. But one wonders why it’s a distinct application and not integrated throughout the system, such as through tooltips or a “question mark cursor”?

> The ideas espoused in The Design of Everyday Things[0] pops into mind right now.

the unfortunate reality of touch screens is that there are no affordances for things that can't be seen. design of everyday things goes over stuff like never put a pull handle on a push door kinda things. i think having to go to an app for some things is somewhat reasonable given the ui size constraints and only having so much touchable area... most of the functionality is there and self evident without an app.

> Did you try Accessibility > Motion > Off?

There is no "Motion > Off" but there is a "Reduce Motion" toggle. Seems to be turning things that were slowly animated into even slower fade, like when you switch applications. Doesn't seem to actually affect much, animations inside for example Apple applications is still there, no matter if that toggle is on or off.

> There's a pretty useful manual built into the device itself called Hints I think? Did you read that?

I've browsed through it, but I don't think it's in no way extensive? I tried to find anything documenting the "Hold on spacebar and drag to move text cursor" in the Tips application (that I'm guessing you're referring to?) and found nothing, which is one of the features I "discovered" purely by accident.

There's a manual for iOS. Here's[0] the section about the onscreen keyboard (ctrl-f for trackpad to find the spacebar thing).

Expand the Table of Contents + at the top to see all the sections.

(Like others, not defending the state of things, just trying to help.)

0: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/type-with-the-onscree...

edit: if you want it in an offline format, you can find it in the Apple Books app by searching iPhone User Guide.

Yeah, with the helpful title of "Turn the onscreen keyboard into a trackpad", not even mentioning "move/moving" or "cursor", and also using "trackpad" wrong? A trackpad is for controlling a pointer, like a mouse, not to control the "insertion point of text".

Great that it is mentioned somewhere, in some manner, I guess.

Yeah that was quite hard to find, even though I already knew about the user guide. I searched for both cursor and spacebar and came up empty. Finally checked each section.

Not great.

I think you’re talking about iOS. If so, it’s Settings -> Accessibility -> Reduce Motion -> On

This doesn’t solve the problem. It just turns the animation into equally slow fades.

Wow, for just a second I was excited. And then I looked in Accessibility > Motion and there’s no “off”. I tried “Reduce Motion” and deleted an old Wallet Pass, and it still did a ridiculous and obscenely slow animation.