17 ms·

iOS 7

• bcks 13y ago
  Why yes, I would like to enhance text legibility: http://i.imgur.com/5XhQsM9.png http://i.imgur.com/5XhQsM9.png
  • bluthru 13y ago
    I agree, the default type is too thin to use for body text. I have a real problem with the gmail app doing just this.
  • mikeash 13y ago
    What a bizarre setting. If that's "enhance text legibility", then the "off" position is "make text harder to read, please"?
    • sp332 13y ago
      "Off" means "prettier".
      • Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
        Prettier? "Off" means "Make my font look as ugly as Parse's logo".
        • sp332 13y ago
          You realize it's the same font slightly bolder, right? Are you sure you scaled the image 100% to compare them, and your browser didn't shrink the image down to fit in your window or something?
      • mikeash 13y ago
        Good design gives you a peak of usability and aesthetics. If you need a switch to let you prefer one over the other, then I think you've done it wrong.
        • sp332 13y ago
          Usability and aesthetics are both subjective. For some portion of the population, you will always be "doing it wrong."
    • Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
      You just made the most important comment in this entire thread. This should be the top post. Apple: your move.
  • rogerbraun 13y ago
    This seems like a compromise. Someone knew that the standard text was somewhat hard to read, so he tried to change the standard setting, but someone with more power wanted to keep it. So they implemented the larger size as an option.
    • Coincoin 13y ago
      They could have named the option "Make text bolder" instead.
    • epochwolf 13y ago
      It's not larger, it's bolder.
  • snowwrestler 13y ago
    If I built iOS 7, I would have created these settings specifically for the dev beta and instrumented them. Knowing that 58% of dev users turn on the extra legibility setting is good info for how heavy to make the text in the production release.
• bane 13y ago
  I've been waiting for blog posts like these, the ones that used to criticize everything that wasn't Apple until Apple starts to do them also, and now they're the best thing ever.
  • jacobparker 13y ago
    Is this really the most interesting comment you could think to leave? Author of the blog: an interesting and insightful read, thank you.
  • sheri 13y ago
    Your comment adds nothing other than expose your bias. Do you have any constructive criticism of the article itself?
• ryanstout 13y ago
  Hopefully I'm not the only one that thinks this is going to kill usability. The reason old people can figure their way around <=iOS6 is that everything that can be tapped looks like a button. A more "mature" audience isn't what apple's good at appealing to. This article seems to sum up some of my other complaints fairly well: http://wolfslittlestore.be/tasteless/ http://wolfslittlestore.be/tasteless/
  • mintplant 13y ago
    I'm volunteering at a center that teaches senior citizens various computer skills. One of the courses we teach is on how to use their iPhones. I'm dreading the moment that iOS7 is released: all of these people are going to have to start right back at the beginning in their understanding.
    • ja27 13y ago
      I think Apple would be happy to lose all the "silver surfers" and regain their cool with teens, tweens, and young adults. Teens don't want the same phone that their grandmother has and they don't want the same tablet they're forced to use at school.
      • lukifer 13y ago
        I think it's a simple calculus: at the moment, the silver surfers don't have elsewhere to go. Worse case scenario, they'll buy a Nexus tablet that will sit on the shelf, and/or limp along with their old tech (possibly after convincing their nephew to "fix" their iPad by reverting the OS). Meanwhile, young people are highly ripe for bailing out of iOS, now that Samsung has some cool factor, Android's software/gaming ecosystem is growing richer, and the golden manacles have been feeling tight on the tech-savviest generation. (Guess who's doing all the jailbreaking? It ain't the boomers.) Old folks may be the bread and butter today, but I think Apple knows that iOS is at a crossroads when it comes to winning the future. (I may be futilely rooting for the open web, but I've still got my popcorn.)
      • gurkendoktor 13y ago
• methodin 13y ago
  It is certainly possible to de-clutter without making it look like complete shit. It's the odd decisions all over that just don't make sense, for example using red for primary actions or providing no contrast. Those are basic things even non-designers would know. I think the reason for the backlash, and rightly justified, is that these seemingly capricious design decisions would seem to underpin a larger fundamental flaw with the overall direction - one that Apple historically is not known for. You can justify the goal, which is of course a good one, but there is not way in hell you can justify the implementation.
  • angrydev 13y ago
    This is my issue with the redesign. I'm all for less clutter but I really don't think this is how apple should go about doing it. On the whole it looks far uglier than the previous style, and that's what most people care about. I think they have not reached a balance of minimalistic while being pleasing to the eye.
• drivebyacct2 13y ago
  So now that Apple has moved on it's acceptable to call the old UI dated and ugly. Cool, glad we can be honest about it now.
  • bane 13y ago
    and it seems like just a few months ago people were quickly rebutting this simple fact. Of course we went from old and tired, to ugly and nearly unusable so...
• illicium 13y ago
  > In the field of user experience, there’s a huge and unhelpful overemphasis on similarity, familiarity, and the ability to formally reason about interfaces. People are more nuanced. We respond based not only on experience or reason, but also on emotion and intuition. So, it's okay to sacrifice similarity and familiarity because you can force people to understand a UI through emotion and intuition? Without familiar cues, a user will have to blindly poke around the interface until they understand it, and then rely on that experience to use it in the future. There's nothing wrong with a visual overhaul (even if it does make the system look like a cheap Android reskin), but it's not right to throw users off the deep end of the pool because they are used to interactive elements that look... interactive.
• larrykubin 13y ago
  Ah, so if I don't like it, I'm not a "mature consumer" and don't understand digital surfaces.
  • publicfig 13y ago
    I don't think that's what it said at all.
• grandalf 13y ago
  I can't believe anyone likes the old one. I think the IOS audience just might be getting a bit old and stodgy.
  • Afforess 13y ago
    What happened to the Don't fix what isn't broken mantra?
    • aroman 13y ago
      Said no one at Apple ever? I'm being facetious of course, but really, Apple changes their designs up on the regular, even if it isn't "broken". See: the iMac product line.
      • gurkendoktor 13y ago
        I absolutely disagree. The whole reason I'm using Apple products is that their software has always been incrementally refined, never "revolutionised", like Windows 8 or Ubuntu's Unity or whatever. OS X 10.0 and OS X 10.9 look almost the same and so do iOS 1 and iOS 6. If the form factor of my Mac changes, it does not make any app on the system look ancient, and it does not negatively affect usability.
  • damoncali 13y ago
    They could have toned down the affordances and gloss without totally removing the cues. They went to far to fast IMO. The market is not techies in Silicon Valley.
  • Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
    Ha! Those exact words are going to bite Apple so hard when iOS 7 is released. Old people love ornamentation. My 91 year old grandmother can barely distinguish buttons on her iPhone 4, I pity how she'll use iOS 7.
    • 90002 13y ago
• Aloisius 13y ago
  It reminds me of the Windows Phone. The specifics of the UI are different, but the philosophy behind the UI seems to be the same. It seems inevitable, when I first saw the original WP7, I thought it made the iPhone look old and that one thing that Apple does not like is looking dated.
  • sp332 13y ago
    Microsoft also has a better term for their philosophy than "flat". They call it "authentically digital".
• dylangs1030 13y ago
  I'm glad someone wrote a blog post like this. It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum. Android copies from iOS and vice versa - they each follow the cultural trends of smart design. I would much rather see blog posts like this - where the author considers the iOS in its own right instead of insisting on nitpicking what's original. Now I can actually see the innovation that went into designing the iOS 7 interface. And as someone typing this comment on iOS 7 beta, I've come to a deeper appreciation of what's already in my hands. It's not helpful to accuse large design houses and engineering teams of copying each other. That's like saying supercars aren't original because they universally use sleek, aerodynamic ("sexy") design features. No, that's just what sells and what makes sense. It's a natural maturation and trend towards intelligent design. It's just iteration. It's true that touch interfaces no longer need to be "taught" really. We intuitively know that gestures will do things in the same way (and more efficiently) than buttons. It's all about reducing cluttered design and adding more functionality without reducing usable space. I'm glad we're moving towards this.
  • runjake 13y ago
    > It's getting to be somewhat annoying how many people are whining about Windows Phone and Android similarities. Design and engineering decisions are not made in a vacuum. I agree, but the similarities are being pointed out precisely because Apple (and their major pundits like Marco and Gruber) makes a big deal about how others have borrowed ideas from them. For example, the infamous "Redmond/Mountain View, start your photocopiers" lines, and Marco/Gruber's frequent quips like "Hmm, I've seen something like this before..." in regards to something Google or Samsung has done. Apple's smugness is what's getting them, not their borrowing of ideas, itself.
    • Domenic_S 13y ago
      Borrowing ideas is only a big deal if you're ripping on those you borrow from. Like if someone from Apple were to say "MS just can't do design right, Metro is terrible start to finish" and then they borrow from Metro, that's newsworthy. Following current design trends and adding a splash of your own flavor to them... that's status quo, isn't it?
• hawkw 13y ago
  I for one think the icon design (especially Safari) looks great.
  • daughart 13y ago
    I can't tell if you're trying to troll or not, but I, too, think that the new icons are at least as good as, if not better than, the old ones. The old Safari icon reminded me of the Netscape Navigator 2.0 splash screen.
• Domenic_S 13y ago
  > The thing is, we’ve grown up. We don’t require hand-holding to tell us what to click or tap. [...] iOS 7 foregoes borders, instead relying on colour to indicate interactivity Relying on color to indicate interactivity... like we've done on the web forever? That's been a best practice since I-don't-know-when. I disagree with the "we've grown up" idea. I'm not sure there's a Platonic ideal for UI/X, but clearly we're moving away from the idea (created by whom?) that a touchscreen phone needs to harken back to its button-clad counterparts. Think about it, we've made calls, drawn pictures, posted Facebook updates, & sent emails with our computers for ages, why is the phone interface so different? The new design is a function of current style combined with a smidgen of better understanding about HCI. Everyone and their grandma was putting plastic shines on their buttons in 2008, now everyone is going "flat".
  • Afforess 13y ago
    >Relying on color to indicate interactivity...That's been a best practice since I-don't-know-when. I guess screw color-blind people then.
    • daughart 13y ago
      Colorblind people can tell the difference between color and black, which is how color is used to indicate interactivity in iOS7.
    • jquery 13y ago
      I'm colorblind and as long as the contrast is good (i.e., it doesn't really on red/green differences) it's not a problem per se. But the thin font might present a challenge because it reduces effective saturation.
  • headShrinker 13y ago
    > Relying on color to indicate interactivity I disagree. We reply on context and content to indicate interactivity. Color has been a pseudo indicator and is now inaccurate at best and misleading at worst. Just take a look at the header of this comment; the username timestamp and link are all the same color, yet only two of the three are actually links or clickable at all. Thus, the content and the context indicate clickability, not color. This is why UI design is harder than everyone thinks.
• msoad 13y ago
  New design is nice. What makes me wonder is that Apple used all their resource for past 6 months for this graphical redesign and no new future came out of iOS teams. That seems inefficient.
• antidaily 13y ago
  The thin fonts and thin border icons are just ugly in my opinion. They dont represent clarity or a lighter feel; they look cheap. I like flat design. It's possible to create beautiful flat icons: http://asianmack.com/homescreens http://asianmack.com/homescreens iOS7 just doesnt get that aesthetic right. I've only been using it for two days but I doubt I'll change my mind.
• czhiddy 13y ago
  When did HN become such a cesspool of snarky low-quality comments? Every time I see a Glass/iPhone/WindowsPhone/etc article nowadays, I prepare myself for a deluge of shitty YouTube-caliber posts. Embarrassing.
  • pault 13y ago
    They're just slightly more obnoxious than the deluge of comments lamenting the decline of hacker news comments.
  • Afforess 13y ago
    Pot, meet kettle.
  • Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
    Like you.
• kraemate 13y ago
  I cant believe how quickly UI and design have fallen now that Jobs is gone. Things like childish gradients and terrible icons. Don't even get me started on the contrast -- light text on fluorescent green background and the really thin font. I could only draw one conclusion from the comparison of iOS 6 vs 7 --- it's as if Apple has done everything possible to make it unusable. Steve would probably have fired the tasteless "designer" who came up with this utterly broken redesign.
  • daughart 13y ago
    People on here are nuts. How are the new gradients any different than the old gradients?! Any more "childish"?! (Look at the Messages app for example.) Is there any consistency between the old Voice Memos, Apple Store, Videos, iTunes, and Stocks apps? Do these icons really strike you as fundamentally better than the new ones?
    • Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
      > People on here are nuts. Funny, I think people who LIKE this design are nuts. People are nuts indeed! > How are the new gradients any different than the old gradients?! OMG?!?111 Well, it's not that the gradients are different, it's that the colors are bright and vivid and each icon has little distinction from the next. Oh, and it looks like something my 6-year-old nephew would draw with his colored pencil set.
      • daughart 13y ago
        I appreciate that you cleverly responded to my incredulity being expressed via interrobang with an internet-styled typo, but I still find your argument unconvincing. If you look at the icons I mentioned, Voice Memos, Apple Store, Stocks, Videos, iTunes, Game Center, etc., they too are bright and vivid and have small inconsistencies. Why is the radial effect different between Apple Store and iTunes? Why is the light source for Videos different from Stocks? The only difference between these icons and the new ones is that the old ones looked like they were designed by a self-important designer, thinking, "How much arbitrary detail can I pack in this icon?", rather than your extremely talented nephew.
• kraemate 13y ago
  I cant believe how quickly UI and design have fallen now that Jobs is gone. Things like childish gradients and terrible icons. Don't even get me started on the contrast -- light text on fluorescent green background and the really thin font. I could only draw one conclusion from the comparison of iOS 6 vs 7 --- it's as if Apple has done everything possible to make it unusable. Steve would probably have fired the tasteless "designer" who came up with this utterly broken redesign.
• smacktoward 13y ago
  iOS 7 foregoes borders, instead relying on colour to indicate interactivity Good thing there aren't people out there who are color-blind, then... Oh, wait.
  • fudged71 13y ago
    That's me! I was browsing the new UI guidelines and couldn't understand what was and what wasn't a link/action in the screenshots that they used for examples! And I shouldn't need to turn on accessibility services for slight colorblindness... the design should accomodate for us. The navigation looks lik the same color as the "Home" and "Phone" labels. Are those actions?
    • inthewind 13y ago
      I'm worried about this. My experience of Windows mobile is Windows 8 on a tablet, and I had pretty much nothing but contempt for it. And failed to see anything stylish about it at all! I want links/buttons/actions to stand out. That doesn't mean it has to look like a button. It could be text with a halo, a shadow, or an effect that comes into play as you begin to interact with the device so the controls jump out at you, or are overlayed or something. Don't just present raw text at me. Though having said that, I'm sure Apple will make it work, where others haven't. iOS 6 looks pretty infantile by comparison, but the new screenshots and icons don't look that nice or that cohesive either. (I was hoping that they might just drop the old school 'i' from iOS and just call it Apple mobile OS or something, it grates my ears and eyes, the name is like soo 1999.) The thing that I notice from the stills is that the typeface appears quite weak. I had the same issue with Windows 8, my eyes just can't read it comfortably, I'm not sure why that is - and it looks more diluted now - and there is less contrast in general. Though perhaps it will look okay on a retina display.
      • kryten 13y ago
        The Metro interface works well for a phone format device. Literally everyone I know picks up my Lumia and just uses it as if they've been using it for years. It just makes sense and is really intuitive. Also, apart from a big chunk of 3rd party apps written by morons, it's 100% consistent and smooth as anything even on the shittiest of handsets. I've had at least 4 people I know toss their iOS device in favor of a WP8 handset in the last couple of months. Windows 8 however is a stinking turd. It doesn't work for that in the same way that your metro signs aren't 40' advertising boards. Most of the UI is empty and pointless padding resulting in no visual cues and terrible usability. Go and play with a phone sized device for a bit and see how you get on.
• mgerals 13y ago
  Finally, an author is doing a deeper analysis than complaining about the icon-set or font weight. We'll see how this pans out but maybe this is that "the iPad is just a big iPod Touch" thing all over.
• moogleii 13y ago
  I feel he focuses on the best parts of iOS 7, which I admit are quite nice. But there are definitely a few things that, to me, don't meet the old Apple standards of great usability. Just a few things I noticed: The confusing unlock and initial welcome screen. They lack clear indication on which way to swipe or that you're even supposed to swipe at all (welcome screen). It's a subtle and momentary weakness that is addressed the moment you figure it out, but truly excellent design should avoid such issues; minimalism doesn't mean zeroing things out. The month view being useless for showing upcoming events in the calendar app (the previous version would show you a scroll of upcoming events for the currently selected month). Spotlight is summoned via a downward swipe, but is dismissed by an asymmetric action (either x out your search field to clear your search results, or hit the physical home key). All minor quips, but it's the difference between UI designed by, say, your avg coder who trivializes the UX domain, and UI designed by a truly talented UX guy. But I'm hopeful since it's only the first beta.
• jmduke 13y ago
  Man, iOS 7 feedback is incredibly frustrating for no reason that actually matters. I feel like I spent the past few years falling in love with flat design, on mobile and on the web -- and I read article after article from historically pro-Apple bloggers/authors explaining that no, flat design was fundamentally a bad move: the strongest metaphor is that of the phone as a tool -- that we needed skeumorphism, we need hints for interactivity, we needed polish. And now iOS 7 is out! And I'm excited, because the flat (okay, 'mature') design philosophy that I've been told is a bad idea is finally here -- and now it's suddenly a great leap forward because Apple decided to do it? When Microsoft decided that the average consumer understood what a smartphone was for and no longer needed the physical cues, they were wrong and fools -- but when Ive decides it, its because its time to move to mature and modern? Here's the thing, though: I think iOS 7, on the whole, looks worse than iOS 6. The stock icons look outright ugly; interfaces like the call-answer screen and the calculator look poorly designed, and everything has the sense that it just needs another run or two through the review process. Not that it's irreversibly bad, but I don't think it's executing as well as WP or MIUI are. (With exceptions, of course: I think the translucency paradigm looks great, as well as the changes to the UI Kit.) (People arguing 'its just a beta, it'll obviously change over time': what happened to Apple's relentless pursuit of quality before introducing something to the public? What's the point of secrecy if you're showing off v0.8 and not v1.0?) I imagine actually using the new iOS won't be bad at all. It's just reading about it that frustrates me, which is definitely a sign I should be doing less of it. (I own an iPad, iPhone, and MBA.)
  • shawndumas 13y ago
    FTA: "The thing is, we've grown up. [...] The new iOS is designed for a different environment, and a different maturity of mobile user [...]"
  • jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Most people are saying the same things about Apple as they said about Microsoft with the flat design stuff. This is one of the few positive articles I've seen on HN about iOS 7. I don't understand why you are frustrated reading about this OS when the vast majority of what's been written so far essentially agrees with what you've said. You'd prefer no dissenting articles rather than a handful? Anyway, even if Apple were broadly being lauded for it now, that would be expected. Microsoft pioneered this look in the mobile space. Obviously they were going to catch more flak for it. The first one to try something new always gets criticism from the essentially conservative press and public.
• skc 13y ago
  Must be annoying to be Google or Microsoft right now. There's something odd about all these platitudes for features and design decisions that were lifted from competing platforms. Where were all these posts when Windows Phone or Android introduced these UI/UX ideas?
  • jkubicek 13y ago
    I run primarily in iOS dev circles and everyone I know who has played with a Windows phone has gushed about it. I've always thought it was better than iOS in a lot of ways. For a while I had considered switching phones, but I couldn't deal with the lack of apps (at that time).
• EGreg 13y ago
  I am usually a fan of Jony Ive's design, but this seems to exhibit a lot of windows-envy. When did Apple start copying design from Microsoft? The home-screen icons are probably the worst part of the design. There are certainly good parts as well. But Apple's skeumorphic borders and backgrounds were always distinctively Apple, and contributed to make people love the brand, now the iOS just looks like everything else. Android is flat. Windows is flat. And as people pointed out, what about the colorblind?
  • Yhippa 13y ago
    Cupertino, start your photocopiers!
• deskmonkey 13y ago
  >iOS 7 is a decluttering of the most exciting, profitable, desirable mobile operating system available. It’s a shift away from artefact, and back to essence. It indicates a clarity of vision, and a continued willingness to pursue simplicity ruthlessly. >The new iOS is designed for a different environment, and a different maturity of mobile user: one who recognises simplicity for what Jony Ive believes it is. Not something as pedestrian as familiarity or consistency for its own sake, but rather focus and clarity. Then why does the homescreen look like a high resolution version with garish colors of this from >20 years ago? http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GIF http://images.yourdictionary.com/images/computer/_PROGMAN.GI... If you really want to see "a continued willingness to pursue simplicity ruthlessly." compare the homescreens of Windows Phone with all other mobile platforms including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Jolla, UbuntuOS, Symbian. For example of a real transition, see Windows Mobile to Windows Phone. >Too many interfaces run immediately to the well-worn toolbox of simulation and explicitness, imposing a cognitive straitjacket not only on the user, but also the designer. We too easily forget that the only thing that matters to people are their goals: their own tasks, and content. With limited attention, we want to devote our focus to what’s important, rather than distractions and artifice masquerading as design traditions. I thought "Content over chrome" and "Authentically digital" were Microsoft's buzzwords. >Apple’s philosophy – and particular genius – has always been in sieving the demands of users, technologies and the cultural zeitgeist, and finding the right hundred things to remove for every one thing to keep. It's all hardware design guru Ive's genius, indeed, to come up to speed with state-of-the-art UI design in just 7 months and come out with this, which looks like Android fonts and Metro UI had a baby that was dipped in fluorescent colors. Sure, Android and Windows phone copied a whole lot from iPhone, but I don't see the blogosphere give them credit for, say the one click app installs, and calling them geniuses for doing so.
• tolmasky 13y ago
  You will, however, probably find that it feels more fluid, responsive and modern. Sounds like someone who hasn't actually installed it yet. Perhaps it will feel more fluid and responsive when it ships, but that is not the case today.
  • mullingitover 13y ago
    But at least battery life is also dramatically worse.
    • mjhagen 13y ago
      Look in the dev forum there's a reason for it, not really a fix yet, but at least it's narrowed down. Also, it's a beta and these issues are to be expected at this time.
      • mullingitover 13y ago
        True, and I'm not bitter about it. I think I got it sorted out by eliminating the background updates for stocks and weather, and aggressively killing any apps I'm not using.
• toyg 13y ago
  I don't care about flatness or skeutransmogrification or whatnot, but the damn thing must WORK. Look at his iMessage screen comparison [1]: yes, the old screen looks a bit geocities, but you can actually read text very well; the new screen is almost unreadable. The prime aim of iMessage is to make people read text, not to look cool. It doesn't matter if there are options to thicken the font -- the whole point of OSX/iOS UI was that you should not need options, because defaults should be good enough for most people. This is clearly not the case with what we've seen of iOS7, and that's a problem. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgemmell/9023510971/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattgemmell/9023510971/
  • bennyg 13y ago
    To me, reading messages is a more pleasant experience on iOS 7 compared with previous versions. It's actually one of my favorites of the new stock apps they created. Sure the design is a little lacking, but as far as usability goes - it's actually quite nice.
  • jonahx 13y ago
    +1, the old screen seems much more usable to me as well
    • Yhippa 13y ago
      I wonder what the use case was for fading the chat bubble color as you go later in time? I haven't seen iOS 7 in action yet but I wonder what happens when you scroll up: how do the colors change? At a glance the earlier messages I would have sent look harder to read.
      • bennyg 13y ago
        As the messages move closer to the bottom of the screen they become more opaque. So as you scroll, the things that preside close to the bottom of the actual device, that are on screen at that moment, will be totally opaque.
  • paganel 13y ago
• kfury 13y ago
  I really like the side-by-side comparison, buy why use a dark, non-default background for the iOS 6 home screen and a light one for the iOS 7 home screen? It looks like you're tossing objectivity to push a point.
  • adaml_623 13y ago
    90% of the compared screens don't seem to be a like for like comparison. Seems to be a bit cherry picked.
• lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Is it just me, or do I just fail to get the phone calls and texts and skypes from beautiful sun-kissed models with perfect spelling and fun filled lives? No matter what the design looks like, a message from your boss looks like a message from your boss. Its looks nice, can I get a better signal now.
• jolohaga 13y ago
  Most of these comments are silly including mine.
• Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
  That last sentence is so bigoted. If you don't like flat then you're a child? Right. I don't care about this whole debate, as I like flat and non-flat, and I actually prefer a happy medium. What I wonder is if OS X is going to adopt iOS 7's new look in the upcoming years.
• stdclass 13y ago
  I really like the new designs, but since apple is all about "responsiveness" - they should REALLY reconsider the animation-durations of the different effects. It really slows you down in your usage.
• sp332 13y ago
  I think the point about color is wrong. I like this article in general, but that section misses the point. Color is used to highlight important information, but it doesn't act as a divider between items in a list. The list is divided according to a perfectly-executed typographic hierarchy that lets the eye group lines together in space. https://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/12435/riiiwqlvlq8l.png https://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/12... No color needed.
• habitue 13y ago
  I think it's getting very hard for bloggers to credit Apple with "genius" for making this interface change. It's a solidly done refresh of an aging UI theme, which everyone has to do from time to time because UI themes are fashion, and fashion changes. A good move on Apple's part, but it's not indicative of any particular genius.
• therandomguy 13y ago
  That first image says it all for me. We are on a iOS 6 contact page and I want to facetime. There is a button right there. I know I can click on it and what exactly it will do. The contrast on the text is right and my brain is scanning for a section/button to latch on to. It finds it. Okay, change of mind. I don't want to facetime but rather send a message. Brain scanning for "message" button starts and finds it in a fraction of a second (not just visual but the expectation that a related feature will have have a similar way to be invoked). Now iOS7. Scanned for facetime. They don't have it on the contact sheet. Wait... they do. For some reason I didn't register that at all on the first glance. Now message. They definitely don't have it: home, mobile, facetime, iCloud and work. That's it. Wait.. that cannot be right. Re-scan slowly. I see a speech bubble next to mobile phone number. Maybe that is it. I hope it is clickable. Doesn't look like a button.
• namank 13y ago
  This was inevitable. What bothers me is the disconnect between the icons for Safari, Settings, and Compass. They don't mesh with each other.
• leoc 13y ago
  Can some kind graphic designer or art historian pinpoint what the art style (including the colour scheme) of the new app icons is based on? (Most obviously Photos, Camera, Clock, Game Center and Newsstand.) I know that it's a (probably) mid-late '60s colour-printing, cartoon-art or children's-book style (based on cut-outs or stencils?) but I can't identify it any more precisely than that. In a way it's strange that iOS would adopt these icons at the same time that it's ripping out the skeuomorphisms. After all, beyond the complaints about wasted space, distracting textures and so on, the fundamental thing people have against skeuomorphism itself is that it's a put-on, a kind of play-acting. But so is the self-consciously retro and "themed" style which has now been applied to the home screen. I really like the icons, on the whole, though the new default background is too much. But they're too much of a novelty for me to want them at the centre of my life and work - which is where they will be for iPhone users - for (say) ten years. Not that anyone is even contemplating leaving them on the home screen for even four years, of course. But that's just the thing: they may (or may not, flame away) be good design, but they're unequivocally not timeless design. Or really minimal, self-effacing design.
• paulocal 13y ago
  the icons in that mockup are so much better.
• m3mnoch 13y ago
  no. it's not flat. it's not beveled and skeuomorphic. it's splits the middle. that's always bad -- as our friend yoda says, "do, or do not." ios 7 basically says "i can't decide what i want. i don't want to be all textured and stuff because flat is cool! but, i also don't want to go straight-up flat because then i lose all the affordance like metro did. hrm... i know! let's do a little of each!" no, indeed. this will end poorly for apple. m3mnoch.
• dakimov 13y ago
  "Content first, essence, clarity, bla bla bla..." There is such a thing as AESTHETICS that everyone of those rationally-thinking-wannabe designers forget about. People do not wear the same gray robes and do not live in an apartment with bare concrete walls. To feel comfortable a human needs some visual complexity, this is a part of aesthetics. Too much complexity is bad taste, too little is lifeless and primitive. Also, people tend to have different taste. Actually, the worst thing for me about iOS 7 design was that unexpectedly I perceived it as made with bad taste. It could be flat, focused, minimal, stylish — that would be fine, such type of design is not for everyone, but would be fine with me. But the worst thing happened — bad taste. The problem with the design is that it is offensively and illogically colorful, and geometrically disproportional. It is not stylish, and it is not minimal. I am appalled. And what is with the trash can Mac Pro design. Does Johny Ive really have bad taste?
  • rdouble 13y ago
    People do not wear the same gray robes and do not live in an apartment with bare concrete walls. When I lived in the bay area I'd say 50% of my co workers lived in apartments with bare walls and wore the same outfit everyday.
• gfodor 13y ago
  Complaining about icons is a bike shed. Commenting on screenshots and not actually using the OS is transparently dumb. iOS 7 is "Tufte Strikes Back", it's the death of the chartjunk of iOS6. I'd imagine in 5 years we will swing back a bit but for now the next gold rush is on.
• eatitraw 13y ago
  I wonder: where did this pictures come from? It looks to me like someone cleverly designed them to accentuate the (possible) beauty and novelty of the new design. Just look at the first five pictures at the blog post: 1) The left part shows just apple logo. The right one shows a man smiling. 2) The left part contains no pictures at all - just some text, and the right part contain a picture of a nice girl. 3) Both sides of the picture contain a girl smiling. But the girl on the right is definitely looks more open and bright. Heck, even the teeth on the right photo seems more white. 4 & 5) The fifth picture(ios7 collage) contains more smiling people than the fourth picture(ios6 collage). I am pretty sure there is no coincidence.
  • leoc 13y ago
    I think the iOS 6 screenshots are just quickly taken from the author's real phone, while the iOS 7 shots are from Apple's iOS 7 marketing. So it's unsurprising, but not intentional, that the iOS 7 screenshots look more carefully designed to please than the iOS 6 ones.
• hop 13y ago
  After using it for a day -- Great: Picture organization. Airdrop, this will be big. No more search field/page when you slide left on the home screen! Slide up settings is helpful (wish they had a link to settings.app there too. Screenshots of background apps are helpful. App store is back to vertical scrolling for the top charts. Safari top and bottom nav shrink when you are scrolling a site. Not great: New keyboard is harder to see and type on, space bar got smaller. Not a fan of the icons and thin fonts. Wish messages were more compact. Calendar doesn't indicate events at the month view (or i haven't figured out how.) iRadio is a clone of pandora that's less simple. Also, iOS7 now pops up a "This cable is not certified" when I plug in third party lightning cables. Looks like they are stepping up their proprietary authentication. Not a fan of that.
  • r00fus 13y ago
    Are your third party cables MFI certified? (e.g.: I just bought a bunch on monoprice that are MFI, I hope they work in iOS7)
• ianstallings 13y ago
  If our UIs get anymore modern we're not going to have any UI left.
• fieldforceapp 13y ago
  What percentage of these 'complaints' are just anxieties being surfaced? I for one am completely intimidated by the new iOS7 design paradigm: kerning? ligatures? color as a call-to-action? Rounded-rectangle buttons dying an untimely death? Man am I in trouble... (I can almost hear Sir Jony hisself saying, 'keep calm, and carry on') Just signed up for HackDesign and hope to hell they have an iOS7 focused segment soon!! http://hackdesign.org http://hackdesign.org
• crazygringo 13y ago
  > The thing is, we’ve grown up. We don’t require hand-holding to tell us what to click or tap... iOS 7 is an iOS for a more mature consumer... who doesn’t want anything getting in the way of their content. Even though the author is defending this, this hits the nail on the head for why I dislike this style. I do want hand-holding to know what to click or tap. So does my mother. I don't want to have to guess what the designer wanted. I don't want to have a phone that requires me to be a "mature" consumer. I don't want to have to think when using it. And I want things to get in the way of my content -- things that help organize it, delineate it, and let me interact with it in clear and unambiguous ways. I didn't buy my phone to admire pretty pictures of my contacts -- I bought it to tap and swipe my way to getting stuff done quicker. The original quote above isn't really about flat design -- I personally think flat design, done right, is great. The quote is about a different philosophy -- that just happens to have gone hand-in-hand with the new flat design movement. But I don't know what to call it -- an anti-interface movement? A make-the-user-guess movement? Microsoft's been doing this for a few years now; only now has Apple jumped on the bandwagon.
  • gfodor 13y ago
    read Tufte
  • Karunamon 13y ago
    Do you really think that you have to.. well.. think more, given the new design? Look at the old vs the new - the chrome is still there, it's just taken backseat to the content. It's not at all unclear what to click on to accomplish what you want to do. The call screen for instance. It's still immediately obvious what does what.. slide to answer, and a couple of buttons to decline with a note. Settings and contacts screen - the "<" cue on the top left which goes back, similar to every modern web browser. Maybe I'm missing something here, is there a thing or two you can point out that seems harder or more confusing on IOS 7 than 6?
• ohwp 13y ago
  The discussion about style is useless because everybody is different and has a different taste. The only thing that matters is usability. And that's where iOS7 fails. Some examples: On the home screen "Reminders" is barely readable. Receiving a phone call: You can't read the name. Messages: white text on a light background: bad for reading. The weather: barely readable.
• 2mia 13y ago
  You got to love this formula pattern. It implies so clearly that you are stupid and not mature if you feel otherwise. Is there a name for this psychological method? "iOS 7 is an iOS for a more mature consumer, who understands that ... "
• craigching 13y ago
  I'm not sure what I think of the visual aesthetics yet, some of the icons are really bad (e.g. Safari), but I don't know if I'm ready to say I don't like it yet in general. I do actually like the glossy look of the iOS 6 and less icons. One thing I'm concerned about, though, is usability. Getting rid of all the bevels off of buttons and making them not look quite so interactive ... my two year old son knows how to get around already and I wonder how much of that is because things look interactive on the iOS 6 UI. I might have to install the 7 beta and see what he thinks. He knows how to unlock my wife's phone (I have a password on mine) and can get to any app he finds interesting. I suppose the only thing he'll need to overcome is unlocking the phone and then he'll be back where he started.
• anigbrowl 13y ago
  Reminds me a bit of Windows Phone (which I don't own, I'm just going by the visual aesthetic I've absorbed form ads etc.).
• grendelt 13y ago
  I'm just happy to see the Maps icon is getting fixed.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• jgrall 13y ago
  I agree with the author of the article that overall iOS 7 represents a big step forward in terms of design. However, there are some glaring warts that weren't discussed. Most notable among the goofs is the new "Control Center" feature. What's odd is that Apple seems particularly proud of it judging by how frequently it appears in their iOS 7 marketing materials. To be clear, I think that the idea of giving quick access to frequently used controls is a good one. However the current visual design execution of this idea is abysmal. IMHO, the current design of iOS 7 Control Center is a jumbled mess that doesn't seem consistent with the rest of the new design. It violates a bunch of the new design conventions, and conceptually represents a grab-bag of misfit controls that have little reason to be together on the screen at the same time. The controls shown in Control Center don't use the new convention of tinting to a bright color to indicate interactivity, but instead opt for inverting between light and dark to indicate on/off. Additionally, some of the buttons have borders, while others don't. Some are circles, some are rounded rectangles, others are floating in whitespace. Some less important controls (AirDrop) are big, other more important ones (WiFi) are small, and they're all stacked on top of each other in a big jumbled mess. Here's how I propose Apple improve the design of iOS 7's Control Center: - Adopt a consistent control element design: no borders, color hinting etc. - Remove the bottom row of app shortcuts. Except for the flashlight these are not controls, they're links. - Remove AirDrop and Airplay. Not controls either. - Refine that ugly down arrow on the top of the pane. It's too chunky and is encroaching on the icons below. - Increase the opacity on the panel to improve readability.
• Gepsens 13y ago
  So basically they admit that Google has better designers ? Not surprised really. What's next, iGlasses ?
• 6d0debc071 13y ago
  To my mind this really comes down to the question of whether people who want a flat UI already have an Android or Windows Phone. If they have, then I don't see them changing device. What would they do so for? The iphone's worst feature for a while now has been its handset - so they'd pay a penalty in accepting the device and unless the UI has a major advantage I don't see why they would. ( I don't know how many of you get the Samsung adverts from Europe and the like but the iphone gets actively mocked as a fairly out of date dumb device: http://youtu.be/mLd9hjl3Kds http://youtu.be/mLd9hjl3Kds And in use figures it's not doing well outside of the U.S. ) Meanwhile it would alienate all the people who didn't want a flat UI. If people who wants a flat UI have already gone elsewhere I don't see how Apple can do anything but make a loss on this change.
• etler 13y ago
  I don't think there are many people that disagree with the points this guy has brought up. But he doesn't really bring up the things that people actually are complaining about. There are many aspects of the UI that are very garish and not very polished. Sure, the UX might be great but people notice the UI first, and that's where much of the backlash is coming from. I think it's compounded by Apple's history of having their initial UI unveilings showing a much more polished look than they have with iOS7.
• vacri 13y ago
  I don't understand why one 'answer call' screen (the one with the woman) does not have a 'decline' option, and the other (with the man) does have 'decline'. How do you decline a call for the first caller? What's the difference between these two kinds of call?
  • r00fus 13y ago
    If you're talking about the collage with Bridget and Max then: Bridget is from the lockscreen (if you look closely the green button says slide to answer), and is a Phone call. Max is a FaceTime, and is likely when the phone is unlocked. There's already a UI difference in iOS6 for these use cases.
    • vacri 13y ago
      Thanks. Though it seems odd that the 'remind me later' - essentially the 'decline' - isn't particularly notable on the phone call screen. The typical scenario of being in a meeting and needing to decline a call is less facilitated by the second design than by the first, as it's not obvious where to perform the action.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• anuraj 13y ago
  While I loved the general feel of iOS 7, there is too much white on the screen - which makes me increase contrast - and few parts feel less thought out and rough at edges - So overall a welcome change, but needs further work.
• soemarko 13y ago
  I think part of iOS 7 task is to create buzz. And it's doing it successfully (with hundreds of votes and comments on this and Marco Arment's thread). The last few iOS iteration, for lack of a better word, has been boring. At this point, iOS is walking on the similar path to Windows Phone 7. Looking back at WP7, it did generate a lot of buzz, it rallies a lot of MS fan out to become the product's evangelist. Time will tell whether iOS 7 will sell. I bet it will.
• mactitan 13y ago
  WOW. my first real look of the new design.(since most of the experts here are pro iOS 7 I would think it would be a dismal failure - if huge user base didn't exist) Don't get me wrong- i kindof like iOS7 better but if I saw both for 1st time i would guess os7 would have been 1st gen. Reminds me of lo bandwidth dialup days when I couldnt stand when graphics got in way of pure text. Apple must have consumer groups like ford, kellog,etc.. who give their 2 cents. No comments on what steve jobs would handle this (would he actually like the aesthetics - I guess it's the jobless era commencing. MS must be happy.
• 72deluxe 13y ago
  "Gone are embellishments like gloss and bevelled edges, shadows and borders. Visually dead areas that provoke tension rather than inspiring relaxation. Weight that suffocates, rather than open air to breathe." Interesting review but silly comments like this are, well, silly! When I see an area of a screen or GUI, I do not feel tension if there is a "visually dead" area. Does anyone else? How come nobody complained about iOS4 and 5 and 6 in the GUI department? Suddenly they are being seen as old and rubbish, and tension-inducing. Daft writing is sadly colouring an objective review. Having said that, iOS7 does look brighter but some areas look difficult to read. The lack of indication when items are buttons or controls is frustrating, as experienced on Windows 8, aka. Visit To Flatland
  • ianstormtaylor 13y ago
    People have been complaining about skeumorphism and generally outdated looks in the GUI department for iOS 6 for ages, where have you been? The author's comments aren't "silly", they're just an example of an expert talking about his field. Novice programmers don't feel "grimy" when they look at code that should clearly be refactored, but that doesn't mean that programmers who talk about ugly code are "silly" either. If you haven't studied design to a certain extent you probably won't ever be aware of tension in an interface unless it's extremely evident. That does not mean it's not there.
• Bogdanp 13y ago
  I've been using the developer preview version for a couple of days now and I have to say that the experience is pretty nice, except for the fact that the home screen is unusable if you have a light background (white labels on white background, YAY). My main issue with it is how choppy it gets every now and then (I'm running it on an iPhone 4S) but they'll probably fix that by the final release. I've uploaded some screenshots to [1]. 1: http://min.us/mjEw1CkvEbR80 http://min.us/mjEw1CkvEbR80
• hosh 13y ago
  It's not that flat design is a "grown up design". It's that we're establishing a pattern of design fashion, much like the cycle of clothing fashion. We'll come back to skeumorphism eventually.