It’s so bad that Apple’s own documentation of Notifications doesn’t mention that the Stroke Down screen contains Widgets as well as Notifications.

The four quadrants of Widget, Notification, Control, and Sound sort of make sense if one stares at them enough — but I can see why Apple is trying something different in iOS 11.

I notice these things while working on the “simplification” section of my Smartphones for All book. iOS is getting more and more complex, and less accessible to special needs users. Apple is catching up with Android’s unusability — in a race they don’t want to win.

Apple really needs to add a ‘Simplification’ section to the Accessibility Settings. For my part while working on this chapter I realized how little value I get out of the Notifications Center. I generally interact with it by force-pressing Clear to wipe out a useless backlog. I’ve updated my Notification Settings to disable “Show in Notification Center” for most of my apps.

PS. Anyone else remember when GEOS (GeoWorks) for DOS had two modes — basic and advanced? Heck, anyone remember when SImple Finder was a useful thing in MacOS Classic?

I’m not sure how old our 9″ Air is. Maybe 2009 or 2010 (update: mid 2011). It has been a terrific machine, The 2008 MacBook Air was the ultimate personal computer. Newer Macs are all regressions. 

Alas, Sierra did it in. I just updated from El Capitan and it is too darn slow. SPODs are ugly things. I’m glad I waited to the last minute. 

I’ll try a few things, maybe drop back to El Cap, but a new Mac is coming. Shame there is nothing I like. If I had to buy today I’d get another Air…