> no one else seems to have any issues with most of this stuff
In my experience, 9 times out of 10 what this actually means is that they just don't know it's an issue! The type of person who would be confused by, say, the iOS control center, is not necessarily the type of person who would easily identify and raise the issue of it being difficult to do something on their device. They would just be mildly annoyed that they can't figure it out, or that the device "can't do it", and move on to find some other way. You may not realize it if you don't interact with those types of people but they fundamentally do not think like you or I do and what may be an obvious problem-solving process to you (e.g. identify a problem, figure out what tools are at your disposal and whether each could be helpful, check for functionality that could do what you are wanting, ask for help from others if you can't figure it out on your own, etc.) may actually not always be so obvious.
That's why the main way I find out people don't know how to do something is from them seeing me do it with my device and going "what!! I didn't know it could do that!!"
My experience with the people you describe is that no amount of changing the user interface would help them do anything as they only rote learn things regardless, because you cannot manufacture interest in the disinterested.
That's why I don't pretend that there's a way for an interface to fix this problem, nor that it's entirely an interface's fault that this happens. But there's certainly at least a little wiggle room where you can happen to be slightly more useful for these types of people even if by and large they're not entirely helpable.
I have a feeling businesses like apple have design tested their interfaces on older people more than just about anyone else, it’s safe to assume they weighed up the pros and cons well in that regard though
Other than that, Apple tends to lean a little elitist in certain areas, when they actually slightly over-estimate the competence of the average user. A lot of their thinking makes perfect sense to me now, but I am not an average user by any means, and even me in a wrong mindset could not make sense of it in the past.
This happens a lot on the Mac, where a lot of, say keyboard shortcuts, are just kinda there and no guide walks you through them, and no help page or documentation entry mentions them - you are just expected to learn and grow how you make use of them over time, from menu bar entries, the internet, or other operators directly.
It doesn't fit everyone, but Apple is one of the world's only havens for a very particular type of crazy, and that is exactly what Steve Jobs was all about.
I’m sorry but the keyboard shortcuts for everything are listed under the menu item in the top bar - they’re not only easily documented in this way but it also lends itself to a natural flow of learning. If you don’t know the keyboard shortcut for an action, go to them top menu and click it and while you’re there you might read the keyboard shortcut that’s listed there so that you can do it faster next time. They’re WAY better at documenting their keyboard shortcuts than any other OS.
The fact that you made this argument without knowing that kinda makes it hard to take the rest of what you said seriously tbh.
I did list menu bar entries as a place to learn keyboard shortcuts, though not all of them are even in there. For example, I can't find a menu bar item to show hidden files in Finder, even though that has a shortcut. (Cmd+Shift+Period)
I do agree that Apple still does the menu bar better than anyone else.
In my experience, 9 times out of 10 what this actually means is that they just don't know it's an issue! The type of person who would be confused by, say, the iOS control center, is not necessarily the type of person who would easily identify and raise the issue of it being difficult to do something on their device. They would just be mildly annoyed that they can't figure it out, or that the device "can't do it", and move on to find some other way. You may not realize it if you don't interact with those types of people but they fundamentally do not think like you or I do and what may be an obvious problem-solving process to you (e.g. identify a problem, figure out what tools are at your disposal and whether each could be helpful, check for functionality that could do what you are wanting, ask for help from others if you can't figure it out on your own, etc.) may actually not always be so obvious.
That's why the main way I find out people don't know how to do something is from them seeing me do it with my device and going "what!! I didn't know it could do that!!"