14 ms·

iOS 7

289 points by acrum 13y ago

shawnjan8 13y ago
So, this update might actually get me to switch back to iOS from Android. Anyone else?
- untog 13y ago
  The UI I could take or leave. Apps finally being able to process in the background- that's something else. But by and large, it feels like they're catching up to Android, but not surpassing them.
- jjsz 13y ago
  Not really, I promised myself I won't go back to using iOS as a phone OS. For the next iPad Mini it'll be great but I'll just wait for Paranoid Android to innovate and get the HTC One Mini's successor. I admit though, that Android is going to be behind doing a full revamp like this.
- i_am_good 13y ago
  You're gonna switch just because they changed the UI? Aren't all of those new features available on Android? Plus, Google must be cooking some good stuff for next Android, so you should hold your horses :)
- frewsxcv 13y ago
  I'm actually curious what would make you switch, considering I didn't see anything they introduced that Android doesn't already have
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  If its any comfort, you can probably get a home screen replacement to look exactly like ios6.
- hadem 13y ago
  I was thinking the exact opposite. I have been thinking about switching to Android for some time now. I think it is safe to say that I'll be switching to Android for sure now. I was not impressed with a lot of the changes to iOS 7 and think a lot of them are down right ugly (icons, blurred background everywhere).
drinchev 13y ago
I love the update on their website too... They've managed to flatten everything.
Watabou 13y ago
Some of the apps like Weather, notification center, Stocks look brilliant, other seem too white. Why is it so damn white?
- leviathant 13y ago
  Weather appears to be a de-branded Yahoo Weather, but instead of local backgrounds pulled from flickr, there are generic animated backgrounds. I hope Yahoo Weather continues to exist.
  - alistairstead 13y ago
    exactly!
  - alistairstead 13y ago
    exactly!
btipling 13y ago
The choice of colors and gradients look terrible. They made iOS look worse. They swung too far away from skeuomorphic design. Even the art on the icons, without considering the colors, look like an amateur drew them. Look at the SDK icon: http://i.imgur.com/JXw7KQA.png http://i.imgur.com/JXw7KQA.png That is ugly. So is the iTunes icon, so is the Safari icon. Not a fan.
- ookblah 13y ago
  Totally agree, when you see the screenshots all you see is white. I understand moving away from skeuomorphism but it doesn't feel distinctive anymore.
  - kibibu 13y ago
    As opposed to the Generic Blue Square icons Apple used for everything previously? iOS < 7 had totally non-distinctive icons for Safari, Mail, App Store, Weather and Stocks. I don't think a lack of distinction compared to previous editions is a valid complaint here.
- megablast 13y ago
  This SDK icon is only to be used for the presentation. They certainly have gone for a very bright look.
- frewsxcv 13y ago
  The Mail and Newsstand are my least favorite
- pazimzadeh 13y ago
  The Settings icon is terrible as well, compared to the current one. http://cl.ly/PYkr http://cl.ly/PYkr
  - hpagey 13y ago
    yea, I might faint if I look at it long enough.
- 13y ago
theboywho 13y ago
I'm sorry, is this windows phone ?
volandovengo 13y ago
Very unimpressed. They put lipstick on a pig. iOS was in need of a big update and this isn't it!
- rimantas 13y ago
  Whatever you wanted it was not what iOS needed.
emp_ 13y ago
The flat trend was widely expected since Ive's comment, the Windows Aero overlays were kind of ironic in a silly way, a great direction nonetheless.
pimeys 13y ago
I really can't believe they released this. The pictures are sometimes full of everything, the colour choices are especially weird (white and blue, why?) and overall I really understand Jobs' and Forstall's vision of the iOS UI better than Ive's.
- alex_doom 13y ago
  It's basically Helvetica vs Faux Leather. They did say it would be polarizing.
- rgbrgb 13y ago
  The color choice is one of the least weird things in this announcement. White and blue have been Apple's (and most of the internet's) go to colors for a decade.
Zaheer 13y ago
Looks a lot like Windows Metro interface.
- joeblau 13y ago
  That's what I was thinking. I've had WinMo8 for about 6 months and a lot of the interface reminded me of applications on my device. It was WinMo8 with a splash of Android. edit: And Apple made Bing the default search engine! http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/apple-slips-default-bing-integration-on-ios-7/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/apple-slips-default-bing-in...
- wcfields 13y ago
  My thoughts exactly. It's like Google's UI and Microsoft's Metro had a one night stand, then 9 months later dropped it off at the front-steps of the Jailbreak Orphanage.
badclient 13y ago
Wow. Apple basically took all the shitty parts of Google's design philosophy and scaled it to epic proportions of fail. Take a look at the text screenshot. It is hard to tell where I should touch to start typing. It is hard to tell where the buttons are. Overall, this is incredibly shitty UI.
- janlukacs 13y ago
  oh, but with transparency you get to see the context :))
- SEMW 13y ago
  > Take a look at the text screenshot. It is hard to tell where I should touch to start typing. My guess is, the text box below the message list, which in the same place as it is in every sms app on every modern phone platform, and which is the exact same shape as the text box was in the old iOS sms app (http://i.imgur.com/jSGZADn.png http://i.imgur.com/jSGZADn.png), and which has the word 'send' next to it. That's just a guess, though. I could be wrong.
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  - badclient 13y ago
    yep, that's why I said it's hard to tell, not impossible;)
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tiredoffps 13y ago
Not liking the design. The flat design mocks that were made by random people on Dribbble are better. The gradient in the mail icon is too much. It's like someone's first design in Photoshop back in 2000.
ampsonic 13y ago
I actually like the new look, a few of the icons seem off, but I bet they grow on me. The transparency and layers makes a ton of sense to me. Really love control center, I can't wait to have easy access to my brightness. New Photos app looks amazing. Airdrop will be fantastic. New background / multitasking is a huge win. Biggest let down, no inter-app communication improvements. I think that's a huge problem on iOS now, one I was hoping would be addressed.
- cheald 13y ago
  The control center on the lockscreen is pretty hilarious to me. I can't wait to put my friends' iphones into airplane mode when they aren't looking, and see how long it takes them to figure it out.
- janlukacs 13y ago
  Can you please explain why transparency makes sense to you?
  - ampsonic 13y ago
    Maybe I won't like it in practice, but they sold me on "providing context."
    - revelation 13y ago
      You can barely see anything through that. Watch the parts where hes scrolling through photos, it's just a massive blur. Olde' Vista Aero did this better.
      - mortenjorck 13y ago
        Aero Glass showed exactly why UI translucency isn't a good idea. It made every single window title bar noisy and hard to read. At least iOS 7 cranks up the blur radius.
- volandovengo 13y ago
dakrisht 13y ago
Parallax is a nice touch. At first glance, iOS 7 looks like a hybrid of Android and WebOS. Especially the card multi-tasking approach. Notification center is cleaner but the colors are all over the place. Lock screen is pure Android (animated wallpapers, etc.) They might have made it too flat actually. A lot of text everywhere (the user will definitely get confused on what to tap and what not to tap) Cupertino might be used to UI but a lot of "ordinary" people are still pretty clueless when it comes to interacting with devices whether physical or virtual. The Safari icon is simply atrocious, although the new Mac Pro looks like a really expensive trash can - I CANNOT believe Ive designed that product. It is just godawful. Flashlight app? OK cool (RIP Flashlight app people) Activation lock is a neat feature, probably a top-5. Oh yeah, and photo filters - PHOTO FILTERS!!! They even included a square Instagram-like camera UI. Are you kidding me? Apple did a great job of selling a BRAND much less so than selling great new products and features.
- cheald 13y ago
  Activation lock is definitely the coolest bit in there, but from a technical perspective, what does that mean? You're still talking about client-enforced security; will jailbreaks (/similar classes of exploits) be able work around it? This one is a big question mark, since it means that the device is either really locked down, or activation lock is just a marketing bullet point that won't mean much in reality. I'm not sure which of those choices I prefer.
  - dakrisht 13y ago
    Not sure. They might have (assuming) built it into the firmware... But there are always ways to get around things.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    And what about resale? Will I need to specifically transfer my ownership via Apple?
    - cheald 13y ago
      That was my second thought. Seems like a great way to screw people over via Craigslist.
6thSigma 13y ago
Apple is continuously playing catch up with iOS rather than innovating like they were known for in the Jobs era. Most of these features are just copies of other popular apps/operating systems that came out over a year ago.
- dakrisht 13y ago
  Couldn't agree more with this statement. WebOS + Android into one and the fanboys clapping
  - josho 13y ago
    Really, you don't see the refinements? At first glance the multitasking UI looks like Palm's. But, if you listen to the keynote there is a whole lot of logic built on how it's done. Unlike my understanding of Palm/Android the apps are not continuously running and draining battery. Instead the OS chooses when to give the app cycles. E.g. the heuristic explained is something like: The radio is on and there is a strong connection, the phone just went into standby, so before powering down the radio give the most frequently used apps a few cycles to update their content. To me that seems utterly brilliant. My phone retains its battery life while the apps stay up to date. To me that is brilliant design and why I appreciate Apple products.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      > To me that seems utterly brilliant. My phone retains its battery life while the apps stay up to date. To me that is brilliant design and why I appreciate Apple products. Apple is a lot like the old Mercedes: simultaneously innovative and conservative. Mercedes used to have a lot of new features in R&D years before the competition, but would still roll some things out after the competition, after they got it right.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      > To me that seems utterly brilliant. My phone retains its battery life while the apps stay up to date. To me that is brilliant design and why I appreciate Apple products. Apple is a lot like the old Mercedes: simultaneously innovative and conservative. Mercedes used to have a lot of new features in R&D years before the competition, but would still roll some things out after the competition, after they got it right.
simonbarker87 13y ago
I watched the key note with my girl friend - she is technical but still very much has a girls perspective and can be taken as a good representation of her friends. She flipping loves this redesign and I'm pretty certain my not techie iPhone/iPad using parents will too - and that, is was really matters to Apple, that 98% of their market will love it and not just the 2% of us who build for their platform. I like most of it, the colours are a bit much for me but in the main it will be refreshing to move on to something new. I have been toying with moving to Android but this redesign is enough to keep me on board - if I'm going to have to learn a new OS I may as well plump for the one most similar to what I already know
- shardling 13y ago
  Also, it seems borderline crazy to think you can judge how well the colors will work from a screenshot. I've never thought a screenshot of a mobile device's screen felt even remotely like holding the thing in my hand.
  - simonbarker87 13y ago
    Agreed, my "the colours are a bit much for me" is an initial reaction. I'm sure my opinion will change once I get it in my hand as will many others I'm sure
  - bennyg 13y ago
    I've never thought a screenshot of a mobile device's screen felt even remotely like holding the thing in my hand. Exactly why it's foolish to only test mobile development on the Simulator/Emulators. I never use the Simulator for app development - it's not even remotely close to the same experience.
  - HeyImAlex 13y ago
    If you have an iPhone you can basically see how it looks already; just go to apple.com and watch the example videos from your phone.
- inovator 13y ago
  I am the 2% and I still love it
DTE 13y ago
Although clearly not completely resolved, there are a number of really interesting ideas at play. The programmatic and reactive color schemes that we first saw in iTunes for album art, for example is really nice. The parallax effect looks fun but it will have to be subtle enough to not be gimmicky after a week or two.
mrbill 13y ago
Still not moving back from Android (love my Nexus 4, 7, and 10) but this will be nice to play with on the iPad Mini I picked up a couple of weeks ago so I can stay current on iOS and help Mom with stuff remotely. It's interesting to see how iOS and Android each go back-and-forth swiping features from each other (or from popular accessory apps; Apple's the worst at doing that).
crazygringo 13y ago
Oh God why. I've got nothing against flat design done well, but this just makes everything so much harder to SEE. Look at the example screen for "Control Center" -- it looks like a geometric indistinguishable mess. The line around buttons is the same as the line dividing sections is almost the same as the line in sliders. The example screen for weather shows thin white text against a light blue background, which I can barely make out on my monitor, let alone on a phone. If anything, phones need extra affordance as what is a label and what is tappable, since we have fat fingers, hold phones faraway where things are small, and often in bright sunlight where there's little contrast we can make out. Phones need extra contrast, not less. I'm really not one for hyperbole, but Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave. This isn't about an aesthetic choice, it's just about common-sense usability and quality control. That weather app looks completely useless in the real world, and the fact that Apple's internal processes have allowed this to be launched does not bode well.
- rabino 13y ago
  Why don't you wait until you have a freakin' phone in your hand and try it?
  - jlarocco 13y ago
    Because once the upgrade is installed there's no going back?
    - bennyg 13y ago
      Then use one of your friends that has the developer account, or wait till it's on every phone in the Apple Store. Either way, the point is to reserve judgment until you use it. Just like everything else.
      - tripzilch 13y ago
        Then why do they show it. "That is iOS7." "It appears to be different from iOS6." "That's an iPhone!" "I see that Apple made this." "Well this discussion is getting a little bit too heated for me, I think I will go and reserve my judgement somewhere else for a minute."
janlukacs 13y ago
First feeling when i saw the icons: Shock! I still can't believe they came up with this mix of ios+windows+android UI. The whole thing looks like the phone of a 16y old girl. with candy on top. and syrup. As for the OS part, i think i no longer understand versioning.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  But all the pundits will still lap this shit design up ...because its Apple. They've got some of the best designers on Earth, I just can't believe this is what they came up with for UI.
pizza 13y ago
This looks like it's going to make a lot of nerds angry.
- misnome 13y ago
  Everything Apple does always makes a lot of nerds angry.
_pius 13y ago
The black iPhone is dead.
ben1040 13y ago
So they sold the 4th generation iPod Touch up until twelve days ago, but they won't support iOS 7 on it? http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/features/ http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/features/
Osiris 13y ago
It appears that they still haven't changed the keyboard layout. You'd think in 7 revisions that they'd make some adjustments to the keyboard. I am not a fan of the always uppercase.
shinratdr 13y ago
I love how people are simultaneously describing it as un-original and a ripoff while also invoking Android, WebOS, Windows Phone and Windows 7 Aero as to what it's "ripping off". Maybe it's actually original? If you think this is Windows Phone, you've never spent any time on that platform. Windows Phone is defined by solid colour tiles and typography. iOS 7 isn't, at all.
- spangborn 13y ago
  Just a guess, but I think they're more referring to WP's lack of depth in the UI - everything is flat.
  - shinratdr 13y ago
    True, but this also isn't the case. Flat is just a quick descriptor for the icons, when really "simple" would be more apt. It's really not flat in practice.
marknutter 13y ago
I can't even read these comments. They swing too wildly from people loving the redesign to hating it. Apple was never, ever, going to be able to live up to everybody's aesthetic standards.
- itg 13y ago
  Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
- itg 13y ago
  Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
- itg 13y ago
  Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
- itg 13y ago
  Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
bosky101 13y ago
i don't think you can distinguish between ios/metro/android designs any more. the recent design shrieks of adolescence. who here predict a wave of apps that go back to earlier designs?
electrichead 13y ago
I still can't get over the choice to push in Bing. I know that both companies are hoping that the collaboration is going to equal good things for both of them but really, it is likely going to go the other way.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  That's another really baffling choice. Microsoft must be paying Apple a bundle in kickbacks in order to make Bing the default search. Trying to unite against Google? Yahoo and Bing did the same thing. I'm sorry, Bing still sucks, no matter how their commercials try to convince me otherwise.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  That's another really baffling choice. Microsoft must be paying Apple a bundle in kickbacks in order to make Bing the default search. Trying to unite against Google? Yahoo and Bing did the same thing. I'm sorry, Bing still sucks, no matter how their commercials try to convince me otherwise.
usaphp 13y ago
The more I read comments on HN the more I wonder - what kind of project does the company has to release in order to get a positive comments from HN readers. It just looks like there is a bunch of losers who hate everything that other people do and complain about everything they see, instead of just being happy for something...
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  > what kind of project does the company has to release in order to get a positive comments from HN readers[?] A good one?
ahsanhilal 13y ago
1. The multi-tasking, switching between apps thing is exactly as it is in the android. 2. The tabbed view in safari pretty much mimics Chrome So much for apple creating their own distinctive UI/UX. I don't think you can convince a lot of people that Apple does things differently or 'in their own unque way' that easily with this update for ios. And I say this as someone who owns and develops for iOS only.
51Cards 13y ago
http://movies.apple.com/media/us/ios/ios7/f34c5445-5a9c-4b3a-9556-8efe89147559/shared_controlcenter/shared_controlcenter_keyframe.jpg http://movies.apple.com/media/us/ios/ios7/f34c5445-5a9c-4b3a... To me, that looks just like the Samsung UI. (yes, Samsung copied the icon layout but you could still tell them apart... now Apple seems to have come the rest of the way to Samsung's side)
- protitap 13y ago
  Some of that text is so hard on the eyes. How could they not have put a shadow behind the white text?
hoops 13y ago
On the theme that the "medium is the message"... The tone of the voiceover is of one taking oneself a little to seriously, I think. What's more I felt it overbearing and that it occluded the message. Are others liking the "medium" here?
bane 13y ago
I was hoping this would be cool to help apple get over the incredibly tired skeumorphism fetish Apple's stuck in. but seriously meh... it's like somebody discovered the 2 and 3 color gradient fill in illustrator and called it a day the new airdrop stuff is cool, but no substitute for a proper intent architecture and the backgrounds are now all white meh
hoops 13y ago
On the theme that the "medium is the message"... The tone of the voiceover is of taking oneself a little too seriously, I think. What's more I felt it overbearing and that it occluded the message. Are others liking the "medium" here?
hoops 13y ago
On the theme that the "medium is the message"... The tone of the voiceover is of one taking oneself a little too seriously, I think. What's more I felt it overbearing and that it occluded the message. Are others liking the "medium" here?
jonhmchan 13y ago
I realize that a lot of people will be focusing on the UI redesign for iOS 7, but the standout thing for me was automatic updates from the App Store. I think it's a huge thing for developers. One of the biggest pains I think we face as developers is software fragmentation. So far Apple has done a very good job of having users update versions of iOS and keeping consistent with hardware specifications - it's probably one of the top three main drivers for why I develop primarily for iOS (sometimes solely for iOS). I'm thinking this reinforces that build-for-iOS-first mentality for developers. If the quality of apps is such a large factor in what's keep users loyal to the platform, this is an important point.
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- Florin_Andrei 13y ago
  > the standout thing for me was automatic updates from the App Store Also makes a lot of sense from a user's perspective. Click-to-update is so last decade.
  - whatusername 13y ago
    Except for limited banwidth connections. I don't want my copy of Baldurs gate on my iPad deciding to update itself while connected to a 3G hotspot
    - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
      It's not hard to have switch somewhere in the settings, enabling/disabling auto-updates over cellular.
- rgbrgb 13y ago
  I couldn't agree with you more. There was huge version fragmentation for my apps, and this is going to totally take care of that. I had been thinking about doing some kind of hybrid web view thing to compensate for the lack of automatic updates. This is a huge win for me personally as well because I have like 24 app updates all the time. Still, it would be nice to have more composability in apps. I'm working on a UI plugin / framework for apps and I really wish that I could do incremental updates without developers having to redeploy their entire app. If only you could include app dependencies so that when you downloaded an app that used Dropbox, for example, it would download Dropbox too. That way, when Dropbox wanted to update their SDK, they could just push an update to their app instead.
LandoCalrissian 13y ago
The parallax effect is pretty cool.
scopendo 13y ago
Sadly, for those families where the iPad is just another shared computing device, it would appear that there is still no multi-user support. Bummer.
tenpoundhammer 13y ago
This comment thread is why the internet is bashing so hard on HN. This is so extremely negative and hyperbolic, It's hard to understand. There are certainly things to be criticized in iOS 7, but invoking a plea to the holy lord for answers, is a bit extreme. Can't we at least temper our criticisms with a few things we found positive and a good attitude? Let me give it a try. I am really excited about the control panel. It has a lot of very useful features that will save me time and frustration. However, I am concerned that the design of the control panel is busy and may make it difficult to make the correct selection quickly, we'll see.
- jonhmchan 13y ago
  I have to agree. I was pleasantly surprised by the UI changes for iOS 7, as I think the developers at WWDC were as well (a standing ovation, no less - even from fanboys)
- jonhmchan 13y ago
  I have to agree. I was pleasantly surprised by the UI changes for iOS 7, as I think the developers at WWDC were as well (a standing ovation, no less - even from fanboys)
- midnitewarrior 13y ago
  This isn't Apple's UI, it's everybody who owns an iDevice's UI, and it looks like people are taking this redesign quite personally...time to switch? :/
  - alexcroox 13y ago
    I think I'd still prefer to look at iOS7 everyday than the turd of an interface that Android ships with
    - ebzlo 13y ago
      Honestly, theyre starting to look very similar.
pinaceae 13y ago
has to be a homerun. the last time the entire neckbeard web went apeshit like that was when they announced the iPad. and the iPhone before that. practically all forums are useless right now, including here. guess that a lot of people also only see the screenshot, have not watched the screencast. iOS looks different in movement, the animations, parallax effect, etc. all add up. the under the hood stuff is super, multitasking, app updates, per app vpn, etc. like christmas. iOS7 will trigger a redesign of our own iPad app, it is a welcome agent of change as our (corporate) customers will not be able to hold these upgrades to iOS back as they did with Windows.
- scrumper 13y ago
  The nuts and bolts do indeed look pretty exciting. I can't wait to put it on my dev iPad tonight and start hacking away on my app. Unlike my competition, I went 'flat' out of necessity when I launched last year (I found I could write 'bezierPathWithRoundedRect' a lot easier than I could draw a button in PixelMator). Who knows, maybe my app will look fresher in an iOS 7 context. It already looks utterly different to its competition (synthesizer apps), which are universally retro and skeuomorphic. Thanks to Apple for vindicating my laziness! (Apologies to real designers: I do know there's more to flat design than not bothering to draw textures).
  - chrisbolt 13y ago
    The beta is only for the iPhone/iPod Touch.
  - eclipxe 13y ago
    Not available on iPad yet.
    - scrumper 13y ago
      Just got home and found that out; shame, but I don't mind waiting.
- scrumper 13y ago
  The nuts and bolts do indeed look pretty exciting. I can't wait to put it on my dev iPad tonight and start hacking away on my app. Unlike my competition, I went 'flat' out of necessity when I launched last year (I found I could write 'bezierPathWithRoundedRect' a lot easier than I could draw a button in PixelMator). Who knows, maybe my app will look fresher in an iOS 7 context. It already looks utterly different to its competition (synthesizer apps), which are universally retro and skeuomorphic. Thanks to Apple for vindicating my laziness! (Apologies to real designers: I do know there's more to flat design than not bothering to draw textures).
jamestkirk 13y ago
developer.apple.com is down since launch. Can I download iOS7 elsewhere?
mixmastamyk 13y ago
Don't mind the flatness. As someone who uses their ios devices mostly at night, I'm not looking forward to everything having a white background though. I wish there was a theme that could be enforced on all apps that could be swapped at appropriate times. You know, like Windows 3.1 in 1990.
- zrail 13y ago
  Or if something like f.lux[1] was built in from the start. f.lux is the entire reason why I jailbreak my phone. [1]: http://justgetflux.com http://justgetflux.com
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- hsshah 13y ago
  Just use the 'Invert Color' option. Configure Triple Click for it. I use it all the time. And with this new design, it will be even better in this scenario. Personally, I don't think I will like the super flat design though. They are swinging the pendulum into the other extreme.
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  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    I do use that actually. But since there is no standard theme, it still means you will go from dark to light to dark blinding yourself in the process. Also triple click is hard to do right consistently, and since I have to do it over and over. :/
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lbebber 13y ago
I would like to try it before commenting, but goddamn, do those icons look ugly. What the hell are those gradients?
bhauer 13y ago
iOS 7 = iOS + Metro + Android = iMetroid. Not bad looking in my opinion, if a little bit weak on color choices.
mongol 13y ago
Feels like KDE4, in a way. I think the graphical approach KDE took with KDE4, with new icons for example, made it look worse. It feels very much like Apple is no longer leading in the design department.
twoodfin 13y ago
The biggest surprise for me was the apparent introduction of a "double tap" action to switch between apps in the new multitasking view. I couldn't understand what the advantage of that was over a single tap. Has Apple used "double tap" in iOS before? It seems like something they'd studiously avoided in the past.
- scott_s 13y ago
  Double clicking the home button brings up the recently opened apps.
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- ajanuary 13y ago
  Double and triple click have been used for quite a while now http://www.flickr.com/photos/adurdin/4944720731/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/adurdin/4944720731/lightbox/
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    I don't mean the home button. I mean tapping the screen. I just remembered it's used for the keyboard capslock, anywhere else?
    - ajanuary 13y ago
      I don't think that's double tapping, I think it's just not picking up taps properly while the items are still in motion due to the momentum in the scroll. The first time he seems to be able to single tap.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
luisivan 13y ago
These gradients on icons just look ugly. Really ugly. And the interface is too ethereal, too much blurry. Some things are really cool, some aren't.
nu2ycombinator 13y ago
ios7 flat ui reminds me latest ugly gmail ui.
ary 13y ago
Some here have said that iOS 7 has gone too far in the "flat" direction, but my feeling is that the move is an intentional repositioning on Apple's part. Removing most of the "texture" from the user interface has (outside of aesthetic concerns) been done primarily so that it can be added back in a new way in the future. Ever since I saw this demo video for Senseg [1]: http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-50115714.html http://news.cnet.com/1606-2_3-50115714.html I've thought long and hard about how Apple might use this in future iOS devices. This clean slate design feels to me like the first step to something more. I personally hope it has a lot to do with haptic feedback as adding another user interface dimension to these types of devices would be incredible. [1] http://senseg.com/ http://senseg.com/
mcintyre1994 13y ago
Two things I hope to see in Android here, multitasking UI and tabbed notifications. After Google poached WebOS staff, their card UI is really nice and pretty Palm-like. For some reason they haven't shamelessly stolen the WebOS multitasking UI like Apple just have. I really hope they do, because it'd fit Android perfectly. That notification bar is really nice too, although it seems to be missing quick actions like Android has. 'Today' and 'missed' tabs seem like a good idea though, I'd like to see them on Android, and I'm sure Google could use Now to make the 'today' one seriously useful.
- cheald 13y ago
  What do you mean? Android has a perfectly servicable multitasking UI already. https://developer.android.com/design/media/ui_overview_recents.png https://developer.android.com/design/media/ui_overview_recen...
  - mcintyre1994 13y ago
    Heh, this comment failed to post when HN was constantly erroring, and I posted a much more toned down version. I just prefer the orientation and layout of the webOS and iOS ones, especially on a tablet.
unsigner 13y ago
This is what the home screen reminds me of (NSFW): http://oglaf.com/rainbowcake/ http://oglaf.com/rainbowcake/
wamatt 13y ago
There has been much talk of Microsoft as the model of a floundering corporate, stagnant and lacking leadership. So, and this is perhaps a small detail, it does seem somewhat interesting, that both Google and now Apple, appear to have adopted Microsoft's flat UI approach.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
New multitasking is really nice, Google should have kept that orientation etc instead of how they did it. The notifications look good too, although they seem to be missing quick actions?
freewizard 13y ago
Let's prepare class suit against Apple on our sight loss.
smiddereens 13y ago
This is an absolute outrage! WAH!
freewizard 13y ago
Let's prepare class suit against Apple on our sight loss.
freewizard 13y ago
Let's prepare class suit against Apple on our sight loss.
freewizard 13y ago
Let's prepare class suit against Apple on our sight loss.
freewizard 13y ago
Let's prepare class suit against Apple on our sight loss.
encoderer 13y ago
All I have to say about the redesign is: What looks cheap in still may seem anything but when its animated on a retina screen with the weight of the device in your hand. Even now, it looks a lot better in video than in still.
sktrdie 13y ago
The part that most worries me is that this doesn't seem like such a different interface from things I've already seen. What happened to the "Think Different" Apple?
piyush_soni 13y ago
Aah ... It tastes Android :)
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eightyone 13y ago
I'll have to use the UI on a device to determine if I like it or not. All the blue, pink, and white reminds me of Flickr. I'm disappointed we didn't get custom default apps or the ability to set a custom search engine. I want to use DuckDuckGo with Safari.
billirvine 13y ago
The iOS 7 examples look like something My Little Pony puked up in a general configuration of something similar to Windows Phone 8. Maybe Bronies are the target market?
billirvine 13y ago
The iOS 7 examples look like something My Little Pony puked up in a general configuration of something similar to Windows Phone 8. Maybe Bronies are the target market?
brown9-2 13y ago
Interesting that all of the demo pictures are with the white iPhone.
tehwalrus 13y ago
I... I like it. I did breifly try to use Android last year (very expensive mistake) and they've nicked the two or three good things from the nexus / flat blue 'droid theme, plus FINALLY a fast way to turn wifi and bluetooth on and off, like on the droids. I'm interested to see how long it takes the old UI to look antiquated to me. Isn't human reaction to fashion interesting? :)
United857 13y ago
And still no official WebGL support...
inthewind 13y ago
One thing that I find a little jarring is going from a dark background to a light background. It might not be so much of an issue on a small device / screen, but it's the kind of thing that you feel in your eyes - if say you were looking at it in the dark. I'd probably rather one, or the other. Or be able to flip between the two styles.
mrmagooey 13y ago
I feel like Control Center is Apple finally taking onboard the fact that SBSettings is one of the main reasons people jailbreak their phones. It's been interesting to see all the jailbreak features that came out like 5 years ago slowly making their way into iOS (e.g. multitasking, interactive lockscreen). Not that they really 'worked' on iPhone3 mind you, but they did exist.
Chirael 13y ago
Nice video but pretty surprised to see people reading off cue cards instead of talking directly to the viewer. Comes off as a little unpolished and jarring. I just kept wanting is say, hey, I'm over HERE, not off camera - who's over there that you keep talking to instead of me?
nu2ycombinator 13y ago
IOS7 settles it. Jony Ive is a best industrial designer but medicore UI designer.
pallinder 13y ago
A couple of things after having played around with it on my iphone 5 for a while. 1. It "feels" slower, might be because it's not 100% optimized yet, but what I suspect is causing this feeling is the new animiations. Everything just feels sluggish, kind of like using an android feels to me. 2. It appears harder to locate things in apps. 3. The paralax animiations arent all that obvious and doesnt add as much depth as I initially thought it would. 4. Some of the app redesigns are really nice (address book for instance). 5. The thin font is really hard to see sometimes. 6. The new design of the notification view is really nice. That's it for now.
harel 13y ago
Looks like Apple on Anderoids
mindblink 13y ago
[In a small voice] I like the changes.... [run and hide]
josephagoss 13y ago
I really like it.... I suppose coming from a art background as well as a computer science background gives me a different perspective. Its a good way of keeping up with the new trend of flat design without losing the iOS look and feel, my biggest fear for Apple is that they would have made a rip off of windows mobile, but here they haven't, they have made a really good balance.
dsego 13y ago
the icon gradients look amateurish and the safari icon is just horrendous.
dylangs1030 13y ago
What I'm excited about: 1. Being able to change WiFi, brightness and other "Settings" options from the home screen. 2. An animated weather app with cooler design and more information. Those are two really big things for me. I don't even focus on the flat design right now - those functions on the home screen are part of why I jailbreak. Now, if they could have Messages send popup notifications for new texts, this would be even better.
timsaunders 13y ago
Interesting that Siri, doesn't know what Google is?? Looks like Bing is going to make some traction amongst search engines.
oliyoung 13y ago
Looking forward to seeing https://news.layervault.com/ https://news.layervault.com/ doing code reviews.
Spectral 13y ago
This honestly just looks like they are taking a bunch of apps, each with their own individual uses, and deciding which ones they want to include as part of the core package and over glorifying their uses. I can see a lot of these features being cool at first, but quickly to be turned off and remained unused in order to conserve battery. Nice presentation and seems like it'll do well selling to the general public, but doesn't seem to amount to much actual material benefits when you think it through. Of course, this is all still speculation so we shall see.
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grandalf 13y ago
I can't believe everyone is going negative about this. In my opinion, the skeuomorphic aspects of IOS (and OSX) are among the biggest technology related annoyances I experience in 2013. Imagine if Google Voice appeared as an antique telephone in the lower corner of the gMail app, and if each message was displayed as an envelope addressed with comic sans. Flat design is simply, objectively better. The version shown today will likely evolve subtlety as Apple puts its unique stamp on flat.
JosephHatfield 13y ago
I'm definitely not a fan of the new colors. Here are two screenshots I took of iOS 7 installed on my iPhone 5. The Apple app colors are too garish for me and white against gray is a bad combination for people with 50+ vision. http://imgur.com/P8WxfcJ,Fec5RAH#1 http://imgur.com/P8WxfcJ,Fec5RAH#1
protez 13y ago
Suddenly, Android and WP no longer look so lame. Apple may have improved its UI/UX of iOS, but only at the cost of losing its distinctive taste. The inspiration from the original design would continue along the third-party apps and some of them would gain significant users just for its non-flat graphic theme.
_pmf_ 13y ago
Looks very Windows 3.11-ish. Cluttered (crammed, even) screen estate and limited multitasking.
codex 13y ago
For ease of recognition, the positive and negative spaces of a given form should be about equal in area. In this respect iOS 7 fails miserably. It's as if they've forgotten hundreds of years of collective design wisdom.
dexcs 13y ago
It's time for a 7.1 like microsoft did it with windows... I can't believe that steve controlled all this and pushed it in the right direction. And now apple takes the same route to the ground....
tekst 13y ago
Flat, Rich Text ,Gentle Beam, mess up, etc
nnq 13y ago
Metro done right! (well, much better at least) > distinct functional layers help establish hierarchy and order and the use of translucency give you a sense of your context ...when the MS design guys ditched Aero style aesthetics of skeumorphism and transparency, they actually threw the baby with the bath water, they didn't realize that layering and transparency are the missing ingredient for adding order and hierarchy to flat design. yeah, avoiding hierarchy and "flat is better than nested" are good ideas, but for any non trivial GUI you need some order and hierarchy, and transparency is the only thing left to use for this after ditching skeumorphism. as usual, Apple gets design right! (though kind of late...)

iOS 7

289 points by acrum 13y ago

shawnjan8 13y ago

So, this update might actually get me to switch back to iOS from Android. Anyone else?

untog 13y ago
The UI I could take or leave. Apps finally being able to process in the background- that's something else. But by and large, it feels like they're catching up to Android, but not surpassing them.
jjsz 13y ago
Not really, I promised myself I won't go back to using iOS as a phone OS. For the next iPad Mini it'll be great but I'll just wait for Paranoid Android to innovate and get the HTC One Mini's successor. I admit though, that Android is going to be behind doing a full revamp like this.
i_am_good 13y ago
You're gonna switch just because they changed the UI? Aren't all of those new features available on Android? Plus, Google must be cooking some good stuff for next Android, so you should hold your horses :)
frewsxcv 13y ago
I'm actually curious what would make you switch, considering I didn't see anything they introduced that Android doesn't already have
smrtinsert 13y ago
If its any comfort, you can probably get a home screen replacement to look exactly like ios6.
hadem 13y ago
I was thinking the exact opposite. I have been thinking about switching to Android for some time now. I think it is safe to say that I'll be switching to Android for sure now. I was not impressed with a lot of the changes to iOS 7 and think a lot of them are down right ugly (icons, blurred background everywhere).

drinchev 13y ago

I love the update on their website too... They've managed to flatten everything.

Watabou 13y ago

Some of the apps like Weather, notification center, Stocks look brilliant, other seem too white. Why is it so damn white?

leviathant 13y ago
Weather appears to be a de-branded Yahoo Weather, but instead of local backgrounds pulled from flickr, there are generic animated backgrounds. I hope Yahoo Weather continues to exist.
- alistairstead 13y ago
  exactly!
- alistairstead 13y ago
  exactly!

btipling 13y ago

The choice of colors and gradients look terrible. They made iOS look worse. They swung too far away from skeuomorphic design. Even the art on the icons, without considering the colors, look like an amateur drew them. Look at the SDK icon: http://i.imgur.com/JXw7KQA.png http://i.imgur.com/JXw7KQA.png That is ugly. So is the iTunes icon, so is the Safari icon. Not a fan.

ookblah 13y ago
Totally agree, when you see the screenshots all you see is white. I understand moving away from skeuomorphism but it doesn't feel distinctive anymore.
- kibibu 13y ago
  As opposed to the Generic Blue Square icons Apple used for everything previously? iOS < 7 had totally non-distinctive icons for Safari, Mail, App Store, Weather and Stocks. I don't think a lack of distinction compared to previous editions is a valid complaint here.
megablast 13y ago
This SDK icon is only to be used for the presentation. They certainly have gone for a very bright look.
frewsxcv 13y ago
The Mail and Newsstand are my least favorite
pazimzadeh 13y ago
The Settings icon is terrible as well, compared to the current one. http://cl.ly/PYkr http://cl.ly/PYkr
- hpagey 13y ago
  yea, I might faint if I look at it long enough.
13y ago

theboywho 13y ago

I'm sorry, is this windows phone ?

volandovengo 13y ago

Very unimpressed. They put lipstick on a pig. iOS was in need of a big update and this isn't it!

rimantas 13y ago
Whatever you wanted it was not what iOS needed.

emp_ 13y ago

The flat trend was widely expected since Ive's comment, the Windows Aero overlays were kind of ironic in a silly way, a great direction nonetheless.

pimeys 13y ago

I really can't believe they released this. The pictures are sometimes full of everything, the colour choices are especially weird (white and blue, why?) and overall I really understand Jobs' and Forstall's vision of the iOS UI better than Ive's.

alex_doom 13y ago
It's basically Helvetica vs Faux Leather. They did say it would be polarizing.
rgbrgb 13y ago
The color choice is one of the least weird things in this announcement. White and blue have been Apple's (and most of the internet's) go to colors for a decade.

Zaheer 13y ago

Looks a lot like Windows Metro interface.

joeblau 13y ago
That's what I was thinking. I've had WinMo8 for about 6 months and a lot of the interface reminded me of applications on my device. It was WinMo8 with a splash of Android. edit: And Apple made Bing the default search engine! http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/apple-slips-default-bing-integration-on-ios-7/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/apple-slips-default-bing-in...
wcfields 13y ago
My thoughts exactly. It's like Google's UI and Microsoft's Metro had a one night stand, then 9 months later dropped it off at the front-steps of the Jailbreak Orphanage.

badclient 13y ago

Wow. Apple basically took all the shitty parts of Google's design philosophy and scaled it to epic proportions of fail. Take a look at the text screenshot. It is hard to tell where I should touch to start typing. It is hard to tell where the buttons are. Overall, this is incredibly shitty UI.

janlukacs 13y ago
oh, but with transparency you get to see the context :))
SEMW 13y ago
> Take a look at the text screenshot. It is hard to tell where I should touch to start typing. My guess is, the text box below the message list, which in the same place as it is in every sms app on every modern phone platform, and which is the exact same shape as the text box was in the old iOS sms app (http://i.imgur.com/jSGZADn.png http://i.imgur.com/jSGZADn.png), and which has the word 'send' next to it. That's just a guess, though. I could be wrong.
- deleted 13y ago
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- badclient 13y ago
  yep, that's why I said it's hard to tell, not impossible;)
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tiredoffps 13y ago

Not liking the design. The flat design mocks that were made by random people on Dribbble are better. The gradient in the mail icon is too much. It's like someone's first design in Photoshop back in 2000.

ampsonic 13y ago

I actually like the new look, a few of the icons seem off, but I bet they grow on me. The transparency and layers makes a ton of sense to me. Really love control center, I can't wait to have easy access to my brightness. New Photos app looks amazing. Airdrop will be fantastic. New background / multitasking is a huge win. Biggest let down, no inter-app communication improvements. I think that's a huge problem on iOS now, one I was hoping would be addressed.

cheald 13y ago
The control center on the lockscreen is pretty hilarious to me. I can't wait to put my friends' iphones into airplane mode when they aren't looking, and see how long it takes them to figure it out.
janlukacs 13y ago
Can you please explain why transparency makes sense to you?
- ampsonic 13y ago
  Maybe I won't like it in practice, but they sold me on "providing context."
  - revelation 13y ago
    You can barely see anything through that. Watch the parts where hes scrolling through photos, it's just a massive blur. Olde' Vista Aero did this better.
    - mortenjorck 13y ago
      Aero Glass showed exactly why UI translucency isn't a good idea. It made every single window title bar noisy and hard to read. At least iOS 7 cranks up the blur radius.
volandovengo 13y ago

dakrisht 13y ago

Parallax is a nice touch. At first glance, iOS 7 looks like a hybrid of Android and WebOS. Especially the card multi-tasking approach. Notification center is cleaner but the colors are all over the place. Lock screen is pure Android (animated wallpapers, etc.) They might have made it too flat actually. A lot of text everywhere (the user will definitely get confused on what to tap and what not to tap) Cupertino might be used to UI but a lot of "ordinary" people are still pretty clueless when it comes to interacting with devices whether physical or virtual. The Safari icon is simply atrocious, although the new Mac Pro looks like a really expensive trash can - I CANNOT believe Ive designed that product. It is just godawful. Flashlight app? OK cool (RIP Flashlight app people) Activation lock is a neat feature, probably a top-5. Oh yeah, and photo filters - PHOTO FILTERS!!! They even included a square Instagram-like camera UI. Are you kidding me? Apple did a great job of selling a BRAND much less so than selling great new products and features.

cheald 13y ago
Activation lock is definitely the coolest bit in there, but from a technical perspective, what does that mean? You're still talking about client-enforced security; will jailbreaks (/similar classes of exploits) be able work around it? This one is a big question mark, since it means that the device is either really locked down, or activation lock is just a marketing bullet point that won't mean much in reality. I'm not sure which of those choices I prefer.
- dakrisht 13y ago
  Not sure. They might have (assuming) built it into the firmware... But there are always ways to get around things.
- r00fus 13y ago
  And what about resale? Will I need to specifically transfer my ownership via Apple?
  - cheald 13y ago
    That was my second thought. Seems like a great way to screw people over via Craigslist.

6thSigma 13y ago

Apple is continuously playing catch up with iOS rather than innovating like they were known for in the Jobs era. Most of these features are just copies of other popular apps/operating systems that came out over a year ago.

dakrisht 13y ago
Couldn't agree more with this statement. WebOS + Android into one and the fanboys clapping
- josho 13y ago
  Really, you don't see the refinements? At first glance the multitasking UI looks like Palm's. But, if you listen to the keynote there is a whole lot of logic built on how it's done. Unlike my understanding of Palm/Android the apps are not continuously running and draining battery. Instead the OS chooses when to give the app cycles. E.g. the heuristic explained is something like: The radio is on and there is a strong connection, the phone just went into standby, so before powering down the radio give the most frequently used apps a few cycles to update their content. To me that seems utterly brilliant. My phone retains its battery life while the apps stay up to date. To me that is brilliant design and why I appreciate Apple products.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    > To me that seems utterly brilliant. My phone retains its battery life while the apps stay up to date. To me that is brilliant design and why I appreciate Apple products. Apple is a lot like the old Mercedes: simultaneously innovative and conservative. Mercedes used to have a lot of new features in R&D years before the competition, but would still roll some things out after the competition, after they got it right.
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    > To me that seems utterly brilliant. My phone retains its battery life while the apps stay up to date. To me that is brilliant design and why I appreciate Apple products. Apple is a lot like the old Mercedes: simultaneously innovative and conservative. Mercedes used to have a lot of new features in R&D years before the competition, but would still roll some things out after the competition, after they got it right.

simonbarker87 13y ago

I watched the key note with my girl friend - she is technical but still very much has a girls perspective and can be taken as a good representation of her friends. She flipping loves this redesign and I'm pretty certain my not techie iPhone/iPad using parents will too - and that, is was really matters to Apple, that 98% of their market will love it and not just the 2% of us who build for their platform. I like most of it, the colours are a bit much for me but in the main it will be refreshing to move on to something new. I have been toying with moving to Android but this redesign is enough to keep me on board - if I'm going to have to learn a new OS I may as well plump for the one most similar to what I already know

shardling 13y ago
Also, it seems borderline crazy to think you can judge how well the colors will work from a screenshot. I've never thought a screenshot of a mobile device's screen felt even remotely like holding the thing in my hand.
- simonbarker87 13y ago
  Agreed, my "the colours are a bit much for me" is an initial reaction. I'm sure my opinion will change once I get it in my hand as will many others I'm sure
- bennyg 13y ago
  I've never thought a screenshot of a mobile device's screen felt even remotely like holding the thing in my hand. Exactly why it's foolish to only test mobile development on the Simulator/Emulators. I never use the Simulator for app development - it's not even remotely close to the same experience.
- HeyImAlex 13y ago
  If you have an iPhone you can basically see how it looks already; just go to apple.com and watch the example videos from your phone.
inovator 13y ago
I am the 2% and I still love it

DTE 13y ago

Although clearly not completely resolved, there are a number of really interesting ideas at play. The programmatic and reactive color schemes that we first saw in iTunes for album art, for example is really nice. The parallax effect looks fun but it will have to be subtle enough to not be gimmicky after a week or two.

mrbill 13y ago

Still not moving back from Android (love my Nexus 4, 7, and 10) but this will be nice to play with on the iPad Mini I picked up a couple of weeks ago so I can stay current on iOS and help Mom with stuff remotely. It's interesting to see how iOS and Android each go back-and-forth swiping features from each other (or from popular accessory apps; Apple's the worst at doing that).

crazygringo 13y ago

Oh God why. I've got nothing against flat design done well, but this just makes everything so much harder to SEE. Look at the example screen for "Control Center" -- it looks like a geometric indistinguishable mess. The line around buttons is the same as the line dividing sections is almost the same as the line in sliders. The example screen for weather shows thin white text against a light blue background, which I can barely make out on my monitor, let alone on a phone. If anything, phones need extra affordance as what is a label and what is tappable, since we have fat fingers, hold phones faraway where things are small, and often in bright sunlight where there's little contrast we can make out. Phones need extra contrast, not less. I'm really not one for hyperbole, but Steve Jobs must be rolling in his grave. This isn't about an aesthetic choice, it's just about common-sense usability and quality control. That weather app looks completely useless in the real world, and the fact that Apple's internal processes have allowed this to be launched does not bode well.

rabino 13y ago
Why don't you wait until you have a freakin' phone in your hand and try it?
- jlarocco 13y ago
  Because once the upgrade is installed there's no going back?
  - bennyg 13y ago
    Then use one of your friends that has the developer account, or wait till it's on every phone in the Apple Store. Either way, the point is to reserve judgment until you use it. Just like everything else.
    - tripzilch 13y ago
      Then why do they show it. "That is iOS7." "It appears to be different from iOS6." "That's an iPhone!" "I see that Apple made this." "Well this discussion is getting a little bit too heated for me, I think I will go and reserve my judgement somewhere else for a minute."

janlukacs 13y ago

First feeling when i saw the icons: Shock! I still can't believe they came up with this mix of ios+windows+android UI. The whole thing looks like the phone of a 16y old girl. with candy on top. and syrup. As for the OS part, i think i no longer understand versioning.

johnjlocke 13y ago
But all the pundits will still lap this shit design up ...because its Apple. They've got some of the best designers on Earth, I just can't believe this is what they came up with for UI.

pizza 13y ago

This looks like it's going to make a lot of nerds angry.

misnome 13y ago
Everything Apple does always makes a lot of nerds angry.

_pius 13y ago

The black iPhone is dead.

ben1040 13y ago

So they sold the 4th generation iPod Touch up until twelve days ago, but they won't support iOS 7 on it? http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/features/ http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/features/

Osiris 13y ago

It appears that they still haven't changed the keyboard layout. You'd think in 7 revisions that they'd make some adjustments to the keyboard. I am not a fan of the always uppercase.

shinratdr 13y ago

I love how people are simultaneously describing it as un-original and a ripoff while also invoking Android, WebOS, Windows Phone and Windows 7 Aero as to what it's "ripping off". Maybe it's actually original? If you think this is Windows Phone, you've never spent any time on that platform. Windows Phone is defined by solid colour tiles and typography. iOS 7 isn't, at all.

spangborn 13y ago
Just a guess, but I think they're more referring to WP's lack of depth in the UI - everything is flat.
- shinratdr 13y ago
  True, but this also isn't the case. Flat is just a quick descriptor for the icons, when really "simple" would be more apt. It's really not flat in practice.

marknutter 13y ago

I can't even read these comments. They swing too wildly from people loving the redesign to hating it. Apple was never, ever, going to be able to live up to everybody's aesthetic standards.

itg 13y ago
Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
itg 13y ago
Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
itg 13y ago
Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.
itg 13y ago
Looks like the "polarizing" prediction was right. Reactions I've seen from most people are either "I love it" or "This is terrible". I'm going to wait until it's in my hands and can play around with it.

bosky101 13y ago

i don't think you can distinguish between ios/metro/android designs any more. the recent design shrieks of adolescence. who here predict a wave of apps that go back to earlier designs?

electrichead 13y ago

I still can't get over the choice to push in Bing. I know that both companies are hoping that the collaboration is going to equal good things for both of them but really, it is likely going to go the other way.

johnjlocke 13y ago
That's another really baffling choice. Microsoft must be paying Apple a bundle in kickbacks in order to make Bing the default search. Trying to unite against Google? Yahoo and Bing did the same thing. I'm sorry, Bing still sucks, no matter how their commercials try to convince me otherwise.
johnjlocke 13y ago
That's another really baffling choice. Microsoft must be paying Apple a bundle in kickbacks in order to make Bing the default search. Trying to unite against Google? Yahoo and Bing did the same thing. I'm sorry, Bing still sucks, no matter how their commercials try to convince me otherwise.

usaphp 13y ago

The more I read comments on HN the more I wonder - what kind of project does the company has to release in order to get a positive comments from HN readers. It just looks like there is a bunch of losers who hate everything that other people do and complain about everything they see, instead of just being happy for something...

snogglethorpe 13y ago
> what kind of project does the company has to release in order to get a positive comments from HN readers[?] A good one?

ahsanhilal 13y ago

1. The multi-tasking, switching between apps thing is exactly as it is in the android. 2. The tabbed view in safari pretty much mimics Chrome So much for apple creating their own distinctive UI/UX. I don't think you can convince a lot of people that Apple does things differently or 'in their own unque way' that easily with this update for ios. And I say this as someone who owns and develops for iOS only.

51Cards 13y ago

http://movies.apple.com/media/us/ios/ios7/f34c5445-5a9c-4b3a-9556-8efe89147559/shared_controlcenter/shared_controlcenter_keyframe.jpg http://movies.apple.com/media/us/ios/ios7/f34c5445-5a9c-4b3a... To me, that looks just like the Samsung UI. (yes, Samsung copied the icon layout but you could still tell them apart... now Apple seems to have come the rest of the way to Samsung's side)

protitap 13y ago
Some of that text is so hard on the eyes. How could they not have put a shadow behind the white text?

hoops 13y ago

On the theme that the "medium is the message"... The tone of the voiceover is of one taking oneself a little to seriously, I think. What's more I felt it overbearing and that it occluded the message. Are others liking the "medium" here?

bane 13y ago

I was hoping this would be cool to help apple get over the incredibly tired skeumorphism fetish Apple's stuck in. but seriously meh... it's like somebody discovered the 2 and 3 color gradient fill in illustrator and called it a day the new airdrop stuff is cool, but no substitute for a proper intent architecture and the backgrounds are now all white meh

hoops 13y ago

On the theme that the "medium is the message"... The tone of the voiceover is of taking oneself a little too seriously, I think. What's more I felt it overbearing and that it occluded the message. Are others liking the "medium" here?

hoops 13y ago

On the theme that the "medium is the message"... The tone of the voiceover is of one taking oneself a little too seriously, I think. What's more I felt it overbearing and that it occluded the message. Are others liking the "medium" here?

jonhmchan 13y ago

I realize that a lot of people will be focusing on the UI redesign for iOS 7, but the standout thing for me was automatic updates from the App Store. I think it's a huge thing for developers. One of the biggest pains I think we face as developers is software fragmentation. So far Apple has done a very good job of having users update versions of iOS and keeping consistent with hardware specifications - it's probably one of the top three main drivers for why I develop primarily for iOS (sometimes solely for iOS). I'm thinking this reinforces that build-for-iOS-first mentality for developers. If the quality of apps is such a large factor in what's keep users loyal to the platform, this is an important point.

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Florin_Andrei 13y ago
> the standout thing for me was automatic updates from the App Store Also makes a lot of sense from a user's perspective. Click-to-update is so last decade.
- whatusername 13y ago
  Except for limited banwidth connections. I don't want my copy of Baldurs gate on my iPad deciding to update itself while connected to a 3G hotspot
  - Florin_Andrei 13y ago
    It's not hard to have switch somewhere in the settings, enabling/disabling auto-updates over cellular.
rgbrgb 13y ago
I couldn't agree with you more. There was huge version fragmentation for my apps, and this is going to totally take care of that. I had been thinking about doing some kind of hybrid web view thing to compensate for the lack of automatic updates. This is a huge win for me personally as well because I have like 24 app updates all the time. Still, it would be nice to have more composability in apps. I'm working on a UI plugin / framework for apps and I really wish that I could do incremental updates without developers having to redeploy their entire app. If only you could include app dependencies so that when you downloaded an app that used Dropbox, for example, it would download Dropbox too. That way, when Dropbox wanted to update their SDK, they could just push an update to their app instead.

LandoCalrissian 13y ago

The parallax effect is pretty cool.

scopendo 13y ago

Sadly, for those families where the iPad is just another shared computing device, it would appear that there is still no multi-user support. Bummer.

tenpoundhammer 13y ago

This comment thread is why the internet is bashing so hard on HN. This is so extremely negative and hyperbolic, It's hard to understand. There are certainly things to be criticized in iOS 7, but invoking a plea to the holy lord for answers, is a bit extreme. Can't we at least temper our criticisms with a few things we found positive and a good attitude? Let me give it a try. I am really excited about the control panel. It has a lot of very useful features that will save me time and frustration. However, I am concerned that the design of the control panel is busy and may make it difficult to make the correct selection quickly, we'll see.

jonhmchan 13y ago
I have to agree. I was pleasantly surprised by the UI changes for iOS 7, as I think the developers at WWDC were as well (a standing ovation, no less - even from fanboys)
jonhmchan 13y ago
I have to agree. I was pleasantly surprised by the UI changes for iOS 7, as I think the developers at WWDC were as well (a standing ovation, no less - even from fanboys)
midnitewarrior 13y ago
This isn't Apple's UI, it's everybody who owns an iDevice's UI, and it looks like people are taking this redesign quite personally...time to switch? :/
- alexcroox 13y ago
  I think I'd still prefer to look at iOS7 everyday than the turd of an interface that Android ships with
  - ebzlo 13y ago
    Honestly, theyre starting to look very similar.

pinaceae 13y ago

has to be a homerun. the last time the entire neckbeard web went apeshit like that was when they announced the iPad. and the iPhone before that. practically all forums are useless right now, including here. guess that a lot of people also only see the screenshot, have not watched the screencast. iOS looks different in movement, the animations, parallax effect, etc. all add up. the under the hood stuff is super, multitasking, app updates, per app vpn, etc. like christmas. iOS7 will trigger a redesign of our own iPad app, it is a welcome agent of change as our (corporate) customers will not be able to hold these upgrades to iOS back as they did with Windows.

scrumper 13y ago
The nuts and bolts do indeed look pretty exciting. I can't wait to put it on my dev iPad tonight and start hacking away on my app. Unlike my competition, I went 'flat' out of necessity when I launched last year (I found I could write 'bezierPathWithRoundedRect' a lot easier than I could draw a button in PixelMator). Who knows, maybe my app will look fresher in an iOS 7 context. It already looks utterly different to its competition (synthesizer apps), which are universally retro and skeuomorphic. Thanks to Apple for vindicating my laziness! (Apologies to real designers: I do know there's more to flat design than not bothering to draw textures).
- chrisbolt 13y ago
  The beta is only for the iPhone/iPod Touch.
- eclipxe 13y ago
  Not available on iPad yet.
  - scrumper 13y ago
    Just got home and found that out; shame, but I don't mind waiting.
scrumper 13y ago
The nuts and bolts do indeed look pretty exciting. I can't wait to put it on my dev iPad tonight and start hacking away on my app. Unlike my competition, I went 'flat' out of necessity when I launched last year (I found I could write 'bezierPathWithRoundedRect' a lot easier than I could draw a button in PixelMator). Who knows, maybe my app will look fresher in an iOS 7 context. It already looks utterly different to its competition (synthesizer apps), which are universally retro and skeuomorphic. Thanks to Apple for vindicating my laziness! (Apologies to real designers: I do know there's more to flat design than not bothering to draw textures).

jamestkirk 13y ago

developer.apple.com is down since launch. Can I download iOS7 elsewhere?

mixmastamyk 13y ago

Don't mind the flatness. As someone who uses their ios devices mostly at night, I'm not looking forward to everything having a white background though. I wish there was a theme that could be enforced on all apps that could be swapped at appropriate times. You know, like Windows 3.1 in 1990.

zrail 13y ago
Or if something like f.lux[1] was built in from the start. f.lux is the entire reason why I jailbreak my phone. [1]: http://justgetflux.com http://justgetflux.com
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hsshah 13y ago
Just use the 'Invert Color' option. Configure Triple Click for it. I use it all the time. And with this new design, it will be even better in this scenario. Personally, I don't think I will like the super flat design though. They are swinging the pendulum into the other extreme.
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- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  I do use that actually. But since there is no standard theme, it still means you will go from dark to light to dark blinding yourself in the process. Also triple click is hard to do right consistently, and since I have to do it over and over. :/
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lbebber 13y ago

I would like to try it before commenting, but goddamn, do those icons look ugly. What the hell are those gradients?

bhauer 13y ago

iOS 7 = iOS + Metro + Android = iMetroid. Not bad looking in my opinion, if a little bit weak on color choices.

mongol 13y ago

Feels like KDE4, in a way. I think the graphical approach KDE took with KDE4, with new icons for example, made it look worse. It feels very much like Apple is no longer leading in the design department.

twoodfin 13y ago

The biggest surprise for me was the apparent introduction of a "double tap" action to switch between apps in the new multitasking view. I couldn't understand what the advantage of that was over a single tap. Has Apple used "double tap" in iOS before? It seems like something they'd studiously avoided in the past.

scott_s 13y ago
Double clicking the home button brings up the recently opened apps.
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ajanuary 13y ago
Double and triple click have been used for quite a while now http://www.flickr.com/photos/adurdin/4944720731/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/adurdin/4944720731/lightbox/
- twoodfin 13y ago
  I don't mean the home button. I mean tapping the screen. I just remembered it's used for the keyboard capslock, anywhere else?
  - ajanuary 13y ago
    I don't think that's double tapping, I think it's just not picking up taps properly while the items are still in motion due to the momentum in the scroll. The first time he seems to be able to single tap.