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> The move from skeuomorphic design in iOS 6 to the stark minimalism of iOS 7 sparked similar debates about usability and aesthetic merit. [...] Yet within two
by paxys 1y ago
> The move from skeuomorphic design in iOS 6 to the stark minimalism of iOS 7 sparked similar debates about usability and aesthetic merit. [...] Yet within two years, the entire industry had adopted flat design principles, from Google's Material Design to Microsoft's Metro language.
That's quite a rewrite of history considering Windows Phone and Microsoft's Metro interface launched a full three years before Apple's move to a flat design in iOS 7.
- neuroelectron 1y agoThis is happening a lot. If you talk to ChatGPT about any company it has quite a rosy picture to paint of just about everyone. Probably trying to convince companies to integrate advertising.
- chimeracoder 1y ago> That's quite a rewrite of history considering Windows Phone and Microsoft's Metro interface launched a full three years before Apple's move to a flat design in iOS 7. Even Android had moved to a flatter design pattern 1-2 years before iOS. While Material Design wouldn't be released until 2014, you can see them moving in that direction from Gingerbread to Jelly Bean, particularly when looking at the system components and first-party apps, since this was before the concept of a unified design language across third-party apps had been formalized. At the time Apple introduced their flat design in June 2013, they were the odd ones out. In fact, I remember a Daring Fireball article posted in spring 2013 (a few months before WWDC) praising Apple for leading the pack in flat design, and HN excoriating it for making what was at the time a clearly preposterous claim.
- dmoy 1y ago> Even Android had moved to a flatter design pattern 1-2 years before iOS. While Material Design wouldn't be released until 2014, you can see them moving in that direction from Gingerbread to Jelly Bean Indeed: https://www.behance.net/gallery/4315369/Google-Project-Kennedy?locale=en_US https://www.behance.net/gallery/4315369/Google-Project-Kenne...
- outofpaper 1y agoOh that was a beautiful time for Google interfaces. google had subtle and clean lines. Things worked well and we weren't overwhelmed with advertising let alone AI Slop.
- Marazan 1y agoYes, that was absolute peak Guber live-revisionism-in-action and when I basically stopped reading him entirely.
- nntwozz 1y agoPlease link said DF article praising Apple for leading the pack in flat design.
- chimeracoder 1y agoDid you try searching for it? The first result on Google for "daringfireball.net flat design 2013" is https://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomorphism https://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomo... Tack on site:news.ycombinator.com, and you'll find the top comment too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5081618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5081618
- nntwozz 1y agoCheers. Gruber does mention Metro: The lack of skeuomorphic effects and almost extreme flatness of the “modern” (née Metro) Windows 8 interface is remarkably forward-thinking. It’s meant to look best on retina-caliber displays, not the sub-retina displays it debuted on (with Windows Phone 7.x) or the typical PC displays of today. That said, I think there’s a sterility to Metro that prevents it from being endearing. It epitomizes “flat” design, but I don’t think it’s great design.
- sheepscreek 1y agoFWIW, I always liked the Windows Phone OS design. Its text first minimalism was refreshingly useful. It was a big leap ahead from Windows Mobile. I think it had something worthwhile to offer.
- sunflowerfly 1y agoMicrosoft gave up on a phone operating system far too early.
- paxys 1y agoNah they just joined the race too late. Remember that Steve Ballmer was laughing at and dismissing the iPhone when it launched ("it's too expensive, no one will use it, it doesn't even have a keyboard"). Microsoft continued pushing Windows Mobile at that time and even spent $1B+ acquiring Danger and releasing Kin (remember that disaster?). Then Windows Phone 7 finally launched in 2010 and was rebooted again in 2012 with Windows Phone 8. By that time the mobile OS market was a duopoly, and neither users nor developers nor manufacturers cared for a third platform.
- DrBenCarson 1y agoThey were already working on Windows Phone when Ballmer said that. That’s why he said it. They were targeting a lower cost segment. Android, courtesy of being open source, was just able to move much faster I think if they had just open sourced the OS, like Android, instead of killing it, Windows Phone could have been a decent Android competitor
- sheepscreek 1y agoI think so. Heck, why don’t they open source it now? Although my guess is it’s a lot of low level C++ that I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. But I’ve been surprised before. What if they used dotnet?
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- Hyperboreanal 1y agoiPeople reject your reality and substitute their own. When Apple makes a mistake, it was really a genius 4D chess move and everyone will copy them and also it wasn't really a mistake, we just have to trust the plan.
- eddythompson80 1y agoIt's not just that. When Apple adopts a trend or implement a modern feature/flow that they are not the first to, like flat UIs, wearables, VR, etc they do put in earnest effort to polish and distinguish their experience compared to others. Something their competitors don't put a ton of weight in. This pushes people in general to believe that the "Apple way" is somewhat better just because it's different or at least has some mysterious merit. iPeople even more so tan the general public.
- frollogaston 1y agoYeah this is usually how it goes, like with fingerprint unlock. But flat design was well-established outside of Apple before.
- dylan604 1y agothat's what iPeople-haters like to say. people panned the trashcan pro. people panned the butterfly keyboard. people panned the removal of sd card reader from laptops. people call out apple, but that doesn't fit the iPeople-haters narrative, so it's best to just ignore it
- bhaney 1y ago> people panned the trashcan pro. people panned the butterfly keyboard. people panned the removal of sd card reader from laptops. Those things all sucked and deserved to be panned, but we all remember plenty of people defending them too.
- intothemild 1y agoActually. The charge port for the mouse on the bottom is genius. In this essay I will.....
- frollogaston 1y agoYeah, I distinctly remember calling iOS 7 a copy of Android design when it came out, in a bad way. I want an iPhone, not an Android.
- zaphirplane 1y agoYou and your “facts”. stop ruining the story time
- huhkerrf 1y agoThere's a weird amnesia in tech journalists that occurs when Apple does something and it's suddenly the first time it's been done. My hunch is that it's because they use iPhones as their daily drivers and don't really use other devices except in passing. So for them it is new and the first time it's been done.
- prox 1y agoYou see this flippin’ everywhere. That song you like and think is new? Probably a cover or sample that goes back decades. We have an inherent recency bias, totally natural of course. But this is where you do journalism and research stuff.
- vachina 1y ago> tech journalists > don't really use other devices Sometimes I feel like I might as well read the spec sheets myself than read “reviews” written by these people
- npteljes 1y agoI think if a layman picks a niche, and really goes into it, then the layman has a fair chance beating the professional in that specific niche. So, you are not wrong with this feeling at all. What professionals have in their favor is a higher level overview of the subject, and experience with similar subjects. Usually this means that while they might not know a niche in an out by heart, they can discover it very quickly, or consider things that are not fitting into that specific niche. Also, these journalists might not be professionals at all.
- illiac786 1y agoThat is also true in medicine, as a side note. If you have a specific combination of conditions, or a rare condition, you will know more about it than doctors. The good ones know this and accept it. The bad ones are offended you know more than they do in this area – or simply go into denial. In the end, each body is a niche, which each one is uniquely positioned to know better than anyone else. But it’s hard to accept, for medical personal sometimes, and often for the patients themselves. They tend to want the doctor to be the all-knowing god.
- DidYaWipe 1y agoYep. This is another semi-fawning, apologistic article full of made-up assertions. It ignores the fact that there has been a welcome step back from the derelict wasteland of "flat design" that users have endured for far too long. Flat design is often cited as a reaction to absurd levels of skeuomorphism, which Apple certainly WAS a leader in. Remember the "felt" surfaces of Game Center, the "paint" upon which was inexplicably a control? And the "leather" binding of Notes? Then there's this: "In AR, visual affordances work differently. A button that casts realistic shadows and responds to virtual lighting feels more "real" when floating in your living room than a flat, colored rectangle." That makes it a SHITTY control, which will get lost in the visual noise of the real environment. This UI sucks for the same reason that sports-stats graphics that are tracked onto real surfaces in TV coverage suck: They don't stand out. It's that simple. So after years of "flat" design where nothing was demarcated as a control and users were apparently supposed to click on every pixel and every character on the screen in a hunt for hidden goodies, this article celebrates Apple's plan to create the same problem in AR using OVERLY-decorated controls. Not to mention the stupidity of crippling computer, tablet, and phone UI for the sake of a "VR" UI. This isn't just dumb from a practical standpoint, but from a technical one as well. There's no reason that the control library can't be rendered differently on different devices. So, if this (admittedly poorly-substantiated opinion piece) is right about the motivation behind Apple's exhumation of the "transparent" UI fad that died 20 years ago, we can only lament the end of desktop usability... which Windows flushed vigorously with Microsoft's brain-dead attempt to dumb its UI down for touchscreens years ago.
- fxtentacle 1y agoLucky for you, Valve has sold millions of SteamDecks. The result is that the majority of mainstream Windows software now works well in Proton == Wine on Linux. And despite people constantly whining about it, GNOME is ultra fast, has great shortcuts, and it looks kinda like the pinnacle of UI design, which IMHO was Windows XP.
- aboardRat4 1y agoGnome doesn't support system tray by default.
- oblio 1y agoThis is also a history rewrite. The recent MS UIs in at least the last 5 years are doing exactly the same thing. Fairy sure I saw some Windows AR demo about it a few years back.
- oblio 1y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mixed_Reality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mixed_Reality The Win 10 UI was starting to be adapted for AR back in 2015...