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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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).
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.
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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.
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> 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