iCloud's "Find my iPhone" UX just ruined my week

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iCloud's "Find my iPhone" UX just ruined my week

Last night I left my iPhone in a taxi in NYC. I came back to my friend's place and used her computer to visit icloud.com and use the "Find my iPhone" feature. I could see my iPhone driving all over Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. But what could I do??

I called the phone several times, but got no answer. It's no wonder, my phone was on silent mode. I thought, "Well, I will just wait until morning and check it again. Maybe I'll be able to deduce which taxi garage the phone has ended up in, then I can call the garage." I went to sleep.

This morning, I was more clear-headed, sober, and concerned about my phone. I went to "Find my iPhone" again. While using it, I noticed that my iPhone's dot went from green to gray. Uh oh! What does that mean? It's then that I noticed the "All Devices" menu, which I never would have paid attention to before. In the "All Devices" menu, I saw a list of my previous phones and my macs. When I clicked on my iPhone, a little box popped up on the right side of the screen with very helpful information and features. I was able to "set lost mode" "play a sound" and "notify me when found". What amazingly helpful features for my situation!

Of course it was too late. The reason my dot had gone from green to gray is because the battery had just at that moment died. Even though I had clicked "set lost mode," nothing was happening because my phone was dead.

I implore the product people who own the "Find my iPhone" interface to take a hard look at the basic UX failure of this page. Please consider WHY WOULD ANYBODY BE ON THAT PAGE? They are there because they LOST THEIR PHONE. Given that, be good UX people and MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO ACHIEVE THEIR VERY IMPORTANT GOAL!

Yes, the screen as it is designed now is clean and beautiful, but fails to emphasize or make easily-discoverable, the #1 and very very important user goal of FINDING MY iPHONE!

For reference, here is the screenshot of the beautiful, clean, "find my iPhone" screen on which the main calls to action are:

1. The dots on the map which aren't at all interactive! Clicking on my iPhone's dot does nothing!

2. the "Find my iPhone" menu (which is not helpful as it brings the user back to other iCloud apps"

3. "All Devices" which I would never click. Why do I want to change which devices are shown? My iPhone is already on the map! I have no connection that this where I would go to ACTUALLY FIND MY iPHONE!

4. My Account dropdown which also not useful

I am so frustrated by this. If I had noticed this last night, it would have saved me hundreds of dollars and a lot of headache. Please, Apple, put one one hundredth of the same user experience methodologies to this "Find my iPhone" app as you do to your other consumer products.

Posted on Feb 28, 2015 5:07 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 28, 2015 6:47 AM in response to rlr208

Submit your feedback directly to Apple using the appropriate link on the Feedback page:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

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Answer 2

Feb 28, 2015 7:05 AM in response to rlr208

And if you had done even the most basic research, such as a google search of 'lost iPhone', you would have found the very first search result is "If your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is lost or stolen - Apple Support"

And that article would have told you EVERYTHING you needed to do in your situation. You obviously had internet access.

Your ignorance is not Apple's fault. There's no 'pop-up' explaining how to add a Contact or Calendar event.

Give your feedback to Apple as directed. And next time, use this wonderful invention called 'the Internet' and 'Search Engines' to find relevant information.

Or, hey, you could have called Apple. But by your own admission, your were too drunk to think straight. Again... not Apple's problem.

Best of luck! Enable Lost Mode immediately to protect your device. Follow the steps in the article I linked, since searching via Google seems to be a skill that escapes your grasp.

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Answer 3

rlr208 Author

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Feb 28, 2015 7:32 AM in response to TJBUSMC1973

TJBUSMC1973, yes, you're right. If I had googled it, I would have figured it out. My post is not to say that this is impossible. My post is to say that the design of this feature has fumbled the most basic UX principal: make it easy for your user to achieve her goal. If the feature is called "find my iPhone," the ways to achieve that goal should be apparent without a google search. If Apple had applied your principal of "it's not our problem, our users can just google search how to do it," they would have failed as a software company. In fact, they are successful because their philosophy of UI design has been the very opposite of that.

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Answer 4

Feb 28, 2015 7:52 AM in response to rlr208

rlr208 wrote:

TJBUSMC1973, yes, you're right. If I had googled it, I would have figured it out. My post is not to say that this is impossible. My post is to say that the design of this feature has fumbled the most basic UX principal: make it easy for your user to achieve her goal. If the feature is called "find my iPhone," the ways to achieve that goal should be apparent without a google search. If Apple had applied your principal of "it's not our problem, our users can just google search how to do it," they would have failed as a software company. In fact, they are successful because their philosophy of UI design has been the very opposite of that.

You did find your iPhone, on the map. You said so yourself. You watched it drive all around town. The fact that you didn't think to click on the drop down arrow next to 'All Devices', even to see what it was for, that's a user failure, not an interface failure.

UI design of the FMiP is perfectly fine. Give your feedback to Apple. You do not have a technical issue. You have a perception and opinion issue. I have NEVER seen a post on this forum in all my years complaining about the UI of this feature. And yet, I see people every day posting that they lost their iPhone, and what should they do.

There's a little something called personal responsibility. You had access to every resource that could have solved your problem. But you were too drunk to use them properly.

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Answer 5

rlr208 Author

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Feb 28, 2015 8:05 AM in response to TJBUSMC1973

I submitted my feedback to Apple.

I also let them know that next time they have a software design question, they should turn to you, TJBUSMC1973, since you can settle all usability issues through your deep knowledge of trolling these forums.

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Answer 6

Feb 28, 2015 8:27 AM in response to rlr208

rlr208 wrote:

I submitted my feedback to Apple.

I also let them know that next time they have a software design question, they should turn to you, TJBUSMC1973, since you can settle all usability issues through your deep knowledge of trolling these forums.

You're the one that is posting non-technical questions/issues on a technical assistance forum. That's trolling.

There is no technical problem with the system. Therefore, your post was a simple complaint about the interface, and that is based solely on your perception and opinion. Nothing more. Thousands of people use that system without an issue, everyday.

This is a technical assistance forum, not an emotional assistance forum.

Now, maybe you didn't read the Find My iPhone information when you enabled it.

But you definitely read and agreed to the Terms of Use of this forum 6 years ago. Or at least you said you did. And if you had actually read and understood those terms, you would know that this forum is not the appropriate place for that.

Is Find My iPhone working as designed? Answer: Yes.

Therefore, there is no technical issue. A request to change the user interface is not a technical issue. It is not something your fellow users can assist with.

In the end, you wanted to whine and rant. And you may have successfully done so, but to no avail. All of the time you've spent typing up that rant and attaching the photo, etcetera... total waste of your time. Congratulations.

I look forward to an actual technical assistance question from you. Until then, have a wonderful weekend without your iPhone.

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