Apple Reminders - at place, on day, but not before time (NOT)

Apple's iPhone / MacOS reminders with time and place sound like a good idea - but they have  been so damned annoying, occurring at the wrong time, that I have been disabling them.

It's the usual "AND/OR" confusion.  The usual UI/UX designer hubris "Users want to keep it simple, so we won't give them the feature that I, the omniscient UIX/UX designer, can't imagine needing in my limited imagination".  Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Use Reminders on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support: "With Reminders, you can set notifications that alert you when reminders are due, or when you arrive or leave a location."
'via Blog this'

Investigating the annoying notifications that occur when I do not want them:



E.g. I want to be reminded  to pay bills on the weekend, typically any time after 6pm on an evening, or whenever I arrive home on the weekend.



But Apple keeps reminding me at the wrong time- like, I get reminded to pay bills when I am working during the day on Friday.



I would insert a screen clipping, but Blogger does not make it easy to upload images.  (In fact, I think that Blogger only uploads URLs or images, i.e. by reference, not by value.)



The MacOS reminder dialog says

remind me
[x] on a day (with day and time, which I have set to 6pm)
[x] at a location
  [ ] Leaving [x] Arriving
On DATE you will be reminded when you arrive at this location, or by 6pm that day at the latest.
repeat  Every Week

So I can't complain too much.

• The web page documentation correctly says "OR", both in the MacOS dialog and in the web page clipped above.
• But in the iPhone screen, there is no "OR".

The iPhone Reminder app screen looks like

Pay bills

Remind me on a day YES
Alarm Fri, date, time
Repeat WEEKLY 

Remind me at a location YES
Location  Arriving: Home

I think that I assumed that these separate controls, on a day and at a location, were AND'ed together --- because such ANDing  is, I think, more common in user interfaces.  E.g. most email rule systems AND the conditions, at least in the first generation.



Of course, what I really want is dependency, and event based.  (Hmm, look at some temporal and event based notations.)

• AT or AFTER date-time
• create new reminder one week later
• DO: remind me at that date-time
• THEREAFTER
• WHEN arriving home DO: remind me

Of course, I might have wanted the slightly different structure

• AT or AFTER date-time
• create new reminder one week later
• DO: remind me at that date-time IF I am at home
• THEREAFTER
• WHEN arriving home DO: remind me

We really need standard languages and notations for such compound constraints.



Even at the level of code.



But also at the level of UI.



Possibly graphical - e.g. nested boxes.