I finally replaced my old iPhone XR with a 15 Pro. Although I’m delighted with the upgrade, there’s one prominent feature that I’m disappointed with, and that’s the new Action Button replacing the Mute (ring/silent) Switch on the left side of its titanium case. The design of the previous switch made inadvertent operation almost impossible, but the new button is all too easy to press accidentally. So I took a look in Settings to discover how to reassign its function, and that’s where I discovered the feature that I most object to. Select the Action Button there to see a travesty of human interface design.

Apple provides ten choices for the Action Button’s function, but rather than using one of several well-proven methods of offering that choice, it took me on a trip to the theatre.

There’s no way to see all ten choices listed together. Instead, you have to swipe from one to the next to discover them one at a time, with each option filling the display. The first time I saw this it was vaguely amusing, but as I’ve been trying to work out my choice, given that the Action Button can be pressed when the phone is in my pocket, Apple’s stageshow has worn thin. I’ve now come to hate the Action Button settings, and have disabled the button.

This reminded me painfully of two examples of Apple’s theatrical design that have persisted in macOS: the Time Machine app, and its protégé the version browser.

From the outset, Time Machine looks as if it has just come from a fancy dress party with a Star Wars theme. Best described at the time by John Siracusa as “a crazy-ass swirling nebula and moving star field, into which fades a succession of historic incarnations of the lone remaining Finder window”, it was fun for the first few times before you learned to access your backups more prosaically in the Finder.

Although Apple has more recently cleaned this up and made it look more functional, I’ve never understood why it’s the only app on my Mac that has to run in full-screen mode purely for effect.

Fans of Time Machine’s unique interface can get more of the same through the File / Revert To / Browse All Versions… command. While it’s an entertaining encore, I fail to see how this too has to run in full-screen mode, particularly as it interrupts the running app and its interface. This time, macOS provides no more direct alternative, and that makes me wonder how many might have been deterred from accessing document versions as a result.

Oddly, the one part of the macOS interface that had its videos removed is Trackpad settings. Prior to macOS Ventura, the Trackpad pane in System Preferences contained helpful video clips demonstrating various gestures, that were far superior to verbal descriptions. When Ventura replaced those with System Settings, Apple dropped those clips, and only reinstated them with primitive animations after general outcry during beta-testing.

I’m all in favour of having fun, and good human interfaces should bring fun wherever it’s appropriate, just as the Trackpad pane used to. But fun is only justifiable when the rest of the word is completed, making it functional. The Action Button on my iPhone is now functionless, just as the version browser has been since it was introduced. Well-known controls might seem boring, but they’re well-proven.