Apple's new design style in iOS 7 has had plenty of detractors, but some may have genuine cause for complaint: the zooming and parallax animations across the new operating system have been giving some users bad cases of motion sickness. "The zoom animations ... are literally making me nauseous and giving me a headache," Apple forum user Ensorceled writes. "It's exactly how I used to get car sick if I tried to read in the car." Other forum users are reporting feelings of illness, eye pain, and dizziness as well.
Though Apple does include an accessibility option called "Reduce Motion," the feature seems to primarily remove the shifting parallax effect seen on the homescreen. However, it seems that most users aren't finding fault solely with the homescreen. Instead, most are pointing to the zooming effects that are now ubiquitous across iOS when opening and closing apps or entering the multitasking menu. "I had severe vertigo the minute I started using my iPad with iOS 7," writes Apple forum user glassrabit. "Lost the rest of the day to it." Another user, nybe, writes, "I had to go home 'sick' from work because of the intense nausea due to using my iPhone with iOS 7."
Most of the users commenting in Apple's forum report having called the company's support line only to be told that there was no way to fully disable the effects. Many say that they've resorted to downgrading their devices to iOS 6, which did animate the way that apps opened, but did so in a way that was quicker and didn't involve flying into or out of the screen. "I've had zero issues with any iOS version prior," writes Apple forum user BurgerKing. We've reached out to Apple for comment on the motion sickness issue, and will update if the company responds.
Comments
Haha, what?
By eadnams on 09.25.13 4:41pm
I never liked the slower animations in iOS 7. I don’t want to watch the app open, I just want it to open!
By Verge_Master on 09.25.13 4:42pm
Exactly the issue, IMO, with Apple products: they hide the fastest hardware behind the slowest animations, giving the illusion of something happening rather than something actually happening.
By CallsOutBS on 09.25.13 4:44pm
Apple does not have the fastest hardware.
By LetsGoa on 09.25.13 4:54pm
On smartphones, currently, they have.
By Felipecn on 09.25.13 4:55pm
Indeed but it does feel like the animations are masking something though. They are overwrought & seem to have made my iPhone 5 just a lil slower. I turned off that parallax effect immediately. Wholly unnecessary to me.
By VoxMediaUser601442 on 09.25.13 7:54pm
Animations are one of the ways used to make things look fast.. When the user see a transition animation he does as much like he is waiting for the content to load..
There are countless tricks used to make things look fast, which is as important as actually make things fast.
I totally agree that overdone animations can become a burden though
By Teovald on 09.26.13 3:42am
Ditto
By San Pedro Mike on 09.26.13 10:30am
In response to many of the above comments…
An instant transition is certainly the fastest. It is also the most harsh. Everything costs something (in this case in terms of speed), but cost without return (value) is absolutely meaningless. Sure, the app transition could be faster, but then how would the interface look and feel?
Think of it this way. You’re just waking up after either a late night, a night out drinking, or both. Your alarm goes off. You need to turn a light on. Do you want it full blast immediately, or would you prefer it to turn on gradually, even if only over the course of a minute or so?
Faster doesn’t always mean better, just like cheaper almost always implies worse. They are both meaningless without context. If you want to try and apply this to your life today, ask yourself (the next time someone brings something “urgent” to you) this question, “What is the appropriate sense of urgency?”
By hahaderekface on 09.26.13 11:11am
When I tap my email app, I don’t want it to gradually fade in over a period of 5 seconds.
Maybe Apple should add a “hangover” mode that opens each app in 5-6 seconds and dims the screen if this is their primary interface goal.
Transitions have been used extensively in iOS from the first iPhone on to give an apparent rapid response. Your argument is flawed in that most of the transitions don’t help the user to create a mental model of the navigation.
By mr_r_sole on 09.26.13 1:55pm
not the fastest hardware, but the fastest software… there is a difference. windows phone is the same way. just with less apps.
By awesometacoking on 09.26.13 12:53am
yes actually. they do. with their measly 1gb ram and 2 cores, they are smoking every phone out there, pure hardware power-wise, for now. check benchmarks.
By teknikal90 on 09.26.13 3:30am
Isn’t it like 12k score in something, versus 18k of the Snapdragon 800.
By Mathias Lindberg on 09.26.13 4:34am
Pathetic…. only 12K bro!?
By lehtovaara on 09.26.13 7:16am
It’s still OVER NINE THOUSAND!
By kain0m on 09.26.13 8:05am
12K, does it even bench?
By ADHDassassin on 09.26.13 8:55am
Posted somewhere else… some apps that are heavily multithreaded are more performant on 4 core SOCs, with a notable hit to power consumption. But in most benchmarks for most things a smartphone does (web/core apps/games) the A7 is very much in the lead. Only the Snapdragon 800 tablet clocked SoC and Intel Bay Trail SoC, also at tablet clocks/power use (and not shipping yet) can compete as of now. Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/5
By quantumaspect on 09.26.13 8:16am
Javascript compilation is something the extra instructions in the new architecture should help with a lot. That explains the higher web performance.
By Danrarbc on 09.26.13 9:49am
So you mean it’s only faster because it’s faster?
By IDontGetIt on 09.26.13 11:23am
They have, currently, the only 64-bit processor on any phone…
By De_n00bWOLF on 09.26.13 7:59am
which actually does increase ALU performance by about ~9% and FPU performance by ~15-20%, all by itself due to ARM64 supporting advanced SIMD instructions among other things: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7335/the-iphone-5s-review/4
By quantumaspect on 09.26.13 8:20am
The thing is the ALUs could have been upgraded without going 64 bit. I really don’t like crediting the 64 bit transition for this when it’s just a better instruction set.
By Danrarbc on 09.26.13 9:50am
True, yes. the new SIMD instructions are due to the arm64 spec than the SoC being 64bit. I personally am curious about the A7 (or A8, A9..) in a macbook with 4gb+ ram.
By quantumaspect on 09.26.13 10:26am
It’ll be a bit better than the ARM Chromebook.
By Danrarbc on 09.26.13 4:22pm
Yes, but it uses a 32Bit data bus for storage. That is why the system apps take twice as long to open when the A7 reads from the storage memory (the 64bit apps are twice as large as the 32bit apps). Don’t believe me… test it yourself. The data was published by www.chip.de
By Coolknight1968 on 09.26.13 9:02am