Launchpad

Raised as a usability problem by 28 people on Hacker News over 18 years (2009–2026), in 23 threads.

People raised many different problems with Launchpad, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.

Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.

The newest 28 complaints

Text field doesn't focus fast enough, so typed characters get lost and must be re-typed2026-08-30
Icons take seconds to appear and sometimes lag behind when scrolling2026-04-27
Default icon grid is too sparse on external displays, can't make it denser2025-09-27
Finding the right app icon by looking around is tedious and hard to remember2025-09-16
Poly aftertouch is so sensitive it's almost impossible to use at any setting2022-07-10
Navigating Launchpad takes too much effort, and it can't be customized enough2021-06-29
Has to keep searching for the right path to a project's code2020-07-08
Commenter dislikes Launchpad and finds Finder app listing crude, though it works for them2020-06-15
UI is cluttered and confusing to navigate2017-06-12
Launchpad felt incredibly confusing to the commenter2017-06-12
Project page is confusing for newcomers2017-06-10
Confusing UI makes it hard to find repo code, navigating in circles2016-10-25
Things are hard to find and don't work as expected2013-10-21
Launchpad's UI is very confusing to the commenter2013-08-19
Interface is horrible to use2012-12-20
Role of some bug statuses was very unclear and still confusing2012-10-10
Users were tricked into clicking Launchpad links and couldn't tell the source code link was there for years2012-10-10
Can't control which apps get added; arrangement resets after installing apps2012-02-17
Launchpad takes the user completely out of their current context, which is distracting2011-10-02
Can only drag one app at a time, making organizing apps a pain2011-09-07
Confusing to navigate; unclear where to click and what labels mean2011-06-02
Viewers must jump through many hoops to reach pushed code2011-03-08
Pages take ages to load and the user can never find anything2011-03-08
No hierarchy; hard to find where to download releases and binaries2011-03-08
Took almost 10 minutes to figure out how to view OpenStack code2010-08-16
Interface needs significant user experience improvements2010-07-24
Can't figure out how to track third-party projects; interface is strange2009-07-21
Getting to a project's source code takes too many clicks; interface feels user hostile2009-07-21