In Praise of iPhone Navigation (Premium)

Every time I switch between an iPhone and a Pixel, I’m confronted by the things that each gets right and wrong. The mix shifts over time, of course, as Apple and Google add new features and capabilities to their respective smartphone platforms. And each seems to retain some key advantages over time, like the Pixel’s customization capabilities and notifications system or the iPhone’s consistent and elegant design and superior app ecosystem.

But as I move forward to my coming iPhone 15 Pro Max review, I’m continually reminded of a few subtle but important advantages that the iPhone retains over Android. And I felt these were worth discussing separately because they’re not unique to the latest iPhones and are great examples of Apple really paying attention to details in ways that Google does not. And while I generally prefer the openness of Android in general and the pervasive helpfulness of Pixel in particular, these are features I really miss when moving back to Google’s smartphones.

The first is a basic but intelligent navigation behavior. It doesn’t have a name, I assume, and it’s one of those things I suspect most iPhone users don’t even notice. But I bet they would notice it if it disappeared.

This behavior occurs in at least three separate iPhone UIs---the home screen, the App Library, and the App Library’s all aps list---and maybe more, but those are where I notice it the most. So I will provide an example in all three places that explains this behavior.

I have a few folders on my home screen that are common between iPhone and Pixel (though I experiment with them sometimes); these folders contain groups of related apps and have names like Chat (for messaging apps), Read (for reading apps), and Listen (for music, podcast, and audiobook apps).

On both platforms, when I tap on a folder, it opens an in-place view that shows all of its app icons.

And when I tap on an app icon, that app opens. All basic and obvious, yes. But what happens next varies by platform. On the iPhone, if I swipe up to go back to home, that folder is still open. And this is very useful. Maybe I tapped the wrong app icon, which I do sometimes because I’m fumble-fingered. Maybe I just finished with that app and I want to move on to something else; if I opened the Read folder, for example, it’s possible I will want to read more but in a different app.

This is the behavior: The iPhone remembers where you were when you went into an app. And if you opened that app from a folder, that folder is still open when you navigate back.

That’s not what happens on Pixel. On Pixel, when you open a folder, open an app inside that folder, and then navigate back to home, I return to the home screen … but the Read folder is closed. And I have to take the extra step of visually locating that folder and opening it again. Which I notice a lot because I often use a series of apps in turn from the same folder. It’s the type of minor a...