HN Reader

> After using the knobs in Garageband for a while, I noticed that they didn’t always react the way I thought they would. Most of the time the little indicator dot on the knob would follow my finger as I spun the knob around in a circle. Other times the knob wouldn’t follow my finger at all and seemed to go in random directions. I eventually figured out that I had stumbled on three different ways to turn a virtual knob.

> ...

> Apple’s attention to detail is what has propelled it to be the most valuable company on earth. Whether it’s the click of a physical button or the math behind inertial scrolling, Apple employees work really hard to make products that are deceptively simple and just feel right. The virtual knobs found in Garageband are no exception and I hope others enjoyed learning about them as much as I have.

I think these two statements are contradictory. Personally, I've noticed a pattern when people post about Apple UX that seems to go "yes this thing may be unintuitive but actually it's a sign of really good design!" that I can't quite seem to wrap my head around

The whole idea of knob is stupid both on touch screens as well as desktop. There are other good alternatives which are far more intuitive than knobs.

Knobs are good when you can physically rotate them like for example in a car. But there we are removing knobs and adding touchscreens.

It is interesting how opinionated people are. Personally, I think we just don't know enough to do a reasonable assessment. If we had some example of where a knob might be good and then try to understand whether it was good and if not, why not?

One of the issues (in my opinion) is how much control per pixel you get from a control. Certainly a knob has more control factors than a button. If nothing else you can click it and turn it. In the same size, a knob has much more control effect.

The other issue is how easily and comfortable a person can be using the control. This is complicated. If you see something on a screen that looks like something from the real world, then you have an idea of how to use it. And many of us became very comfortable with the old goofy Windows controls. But initial comfort is not necessary. Learned comfort is. If initially we don't know what it can do and how to use it, can we learn and once we do will we be comfortable?

It is not straight forward. The challenge I face is using a very small form factor - a mobile phone screen - to inter operate with complex systems and vast amounts of data.

The fact that it embodies more control factors in a small package makes it interesting.

This is not an Apple original design, this is standard fare in DAWs and VST plugins and has been since at least the early 00s. In the beginning of the article he talks about context menus as something that is not one GUI's but just standard in the industry - these knob interactions are like that for the audio industry.

I'm amused by the contrast between Apple's attention to detail on the implementation and their failure to recognize that a virtual knob with a touchscreen or mouse is a fundamentally bad idea.

The author also makes this error, praising Apple's design prowess and denigrating its competition while failing to recognize they "didn’t always react the way I thought they would" because they're ill-suited to the medium.

QuickTime use to have a wheel as a volume control.

It’s was a pain to use and they later dropped it for a slider.

http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm

Up and down virtual knobs are entirely unintuitive to me.

I understand the rationalization, but a knob is not a slider and what's the point of non-skeuomorphic skeuomorphism?

Huh, the knob turns back when you attempt to turn it circularly (the most intuitive gesture).

How difficult can it be to make a knob that works when turned both linearly and circularly?

Having played a lot of MSFS 2020/2024 recently, I feel like I can appreciate this way more now. Since they have to make these knobs realistically and in 3D, when using them with a keyboard and mouse (or even worse a controller) it’s incredibly difficult to see and turn them. It gets even worse since you can push and pull many of these knobs (the difference being potentially catastrophic as well).

Pretty interesting- on the first knob (with vertical and horizontal disabled) works great with how I thought the horizontal and vertical gestures were supposed to work - the difference being I did them on the edges instead of the center.

I found this knob to be the best experience.

Curious if others feel strongly for the centered experience.

It gets very glitchy if the pointer/finger is near the centre of the knob. Really that area should be disabled or "worked around" somehow. The hard part is you can't stop the user's finger/pointer from crossing through the middle, like a physical knob does by its physical construction. So there's a mismatch there.

I don't know who they think they are fooling but these are all garbage. Jerky and frustrating to use, same as always.

The one called garage band synth knob with 17 images is available as MF-A01 in real life. But beware there are 2 versions with same model number get the one with the set screw and brass bushing.

Ironically, this post perfectly demonstrates up why these gestures should not be used together. I could not reliably make it trigger one vs. the other and which mode it selects is not something the code can detect without continued input which will lead to discontinuities in value.

oh wow this is my article! wild to see it pick up traction after 13 years.

I guess I should probably publish more of my drafts...

Thanks for reading/commenting!

I didn't read the writeup. The result was pretty gnarly. The active area on a phone left me scrolling up and down and I had to go very slow once I got purchase on the knob or it would rotate back after a quarter turn.

Please no.

fanboys are out of this world.

i can guarantee the only reason there's 3 input types for the knobs, is because three different teams did their own thing and nobody cares.