10 ms·

What's Wrong with the iOS 7 Icons?

179 points by ianstormtaylor 13y ago

38leinad 13y ago
someone saw the "ios in the car" icon? http://cdn.iflowreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/apples-ios-in-the-car-app_100430079_l.jpg http://cdn.iflowreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/apples... To me, this is the most ugly icon I have ever seen. ever!
- ianstormtaylor 13y ago
  Hahaha pretty much agreed, it was right next to the Multitasking and Siri icons on their promotion page. That's what happens when you combine the "straight from the tube" green with pure black and tack on a purely resized Siri icon.
- _progger_ 13y ago
  It looks like a dev did this one, not a designer :))).
devindotcom 13y ago
I like that the "Music" icon has perfectly chosen colors... coincidentally, those are nearly the exact same ones used in the Zune branding and app: http://i.imgur.com/Mzw6bta.png http://i.imgur.com/Mzw6bta.png Really, though, I do not like almost any of the new icons. I love the flat thing, and I reskinned my Android phone with the minimal MIUI icon set (quite well done), but Apple just did it wrong.
- Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
  Here we go again. Not to be cynical, but that's just unfair. Apple has plenty of time improve their icons before iOS 7 releases to the public, assuming they acknowledge it wasn't a brilliant idea to outsource design to the local children's art school.
  - zeckalpha 13y ago
    Will they though?
  - omni 13y ago
    They've already released their icons to the public in the form of an incredibly public keynote. Criticism is entirely fair at this point. If they redesign them, then great. We'll talk about that, too.
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    It's really not unfair at all.
  - ionforce 13y ago
    It's absolutely not unfair. Even to the beta Apple has invested a ton of time putting their UI designs front and center. If they didn't want them to be the travesty they are now they would have made them differently. It's hard to believe that there's any other reason the icons look this way other than through intention. And then the question becomes about Apple's taste level.
    - ankitml 13y ago
      you didnt get flying_dwarf's sarcasm..
      - 3327 13y ago
        He should stick to reddit this is HN - a somewhat different community where decent and concise answers are held higher than "smart" sarcasm...
    - alexqgb 13y ago
      "It's hard to believe that there's any other reason the icons look this way other than through intention." Perhaps this will enlighten you. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-icons-apple-s-marketing-department http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...
- serginho 13y ago
  Don't wanna bother but for the first look it reminded me some of MS icon. After some minutes I've found it. MS SQL Server http://www.ironpaper.com/current/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/MS-SQL-server-icon.jpg http://www.ironpaper.com/current/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/...
smnrchrds 13y ago
"This new iteration of iOS was supposed to save us from the unnecessary skeuomorphism that Jobs and Forstall loved." I don't understand. What is wrong with skeuomorphism? I am not a designer or anything, but I liked the old iOS 6 UI.
- mathattack 13y ago
  I'm not positive in general, but I can see there being issues when the items being modeled are dated. It also seems like there's a general trend against the concept. But I'm not a designer as well.
- namank 13y ago
  Nothing wrong with it. It's just time to move on, boeing 777 came after the glider; 7 came after 6; this comes after skeuomorphism.
  - tsunamifury 13y ago
    Not at all. Flat is not a better design than Sku. Sku was just a way to fake static 3D lighting and dimension, and flat is the needed halfstep to get to realtime 3D rendering for the OS. Pure flat design is IMO inferior, but necessary.
    - namank 13y ago
      Skeuomorphism was important to transition users from physical objects to virtual objects in a meaningful way. It enabled you and I to understand what tap/touch/pinchNzoom etc are. Now that we know what virtual objects are about, we can move to a design scheme that's made for virtual objects. I inherently don't like the phrase 'Flat Design' - there is so much more to this.
      - tsunamifury 13y ago
        This is understood. The point I'm making is that I believe flat is not inherently better or even good. Its a fad right now that apple is using for a good half step to a realtime 3D UI. Sku was teaching designers to fake dimension by hand, flat will aid them to getting to the point of texturing real 3D objects. And if you think iOS7 doesn't still use 3D space to make skumorphic metaphors you haven't looked at Safari' tabs yet.
omonra 13y ago
As an Android user, I find the whole brouhaha over the new IOS look rather ridiculous - because I have no idea what Android stock icons even look like. I've been using a shell for many years (doesn't matter which - can't even recall name now) which comes with its own icons. So to me this sounds as childish (ie Apple treating its customers as children who can't be trusted with picking their own icons) - as if my laptop had a set of preconfigured directory names and I could not rename them myself. It's rather telling that all these people take the concept that icons on their pocket computer are G-d given and immutable, like a law of nature and that the most they can do is whine if they don't like them.
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
  That's one of the major (real) differences between the iOS and Android camps... while so much of the divide is just silly, I think it's reasonable to say that Android users more often expect and utilize options regarding how the OS looks and behaves than iOS users, who are used to a stable, familiar, cohesive, consistent experience (as mandated by Apple for iOS developers). If Google ran its ship the same way with regard to hammering UI guidelines down everyone's throat, this would likely happen there as well. I don't know which is better or worse, but the two are certainly different, and it's either created a divide or pointed out a difference between people who strongly prefer one over the other.
  - omonra 13y ago
    Yep, agreed. What I find funny is that the people who are writing these articles are advanced users and not some grandmother who needs protection. Ie - if you are either a designer who deeply cares about how your icons look - don't be a sheep and customize your pocket computer the way you want.
- _progger_ 13y ago
  The strong selling point of iOS is consistency and order across all concepts. To me Android is like a mutagenic factory sewage - anything is possible for better of worth.
Steko 13y ago
A whole article on iOS 7 (beta) icons without mentioning the much maligned Safari one?
abruzzi 13y ago
oddly, I am in almost complete disagreement with this article. The only point of agreement is I hate the camera icon (the full camera looks clunky. they should just use a diaphram shutter.) The other icon I hate is the new music icon. The music notes look wrong. The note heads aren't the correct oval shape, but more of a blobish rectangle. iOS6 wasn't great either because the beam was too thick, and the noteheads were too horizontal (the left of the notehead should be a bit lower than the right), but for some reason it just wasn't that noticeable.
- Terretta 13y ago
  Had to scroll down a long way to find this comment, but I agree with you that these suggested alternatives are not necessarily improvements. The "poor color choice" Calculator, for example, his alternative is worse than iOS 7 which is worse than iOS 6. Dark keys with a colored totals key are recognizable as a calculator at a glance. No idea what his suggested alternative is smoking. My main takeaway from this article, like the many other "here's what they should have done" write-ups is: "This is harder than it looks."
- leoc 13y ago
  > The note heads aren't the correct oval shape Just like the camera and other elements in the design https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883125 the shape of the notes is a pastiche of an (I think) roughly mid-'60s commercial-art style.
cosmicm 13y ago
I've spent a bit of time with the icons and I like them. iOS is just so different now that it takes a bit to settle in. I think many people judge too quickly sometimes without using it.
kevinbluer 13y ago
Agreed. I can't shake the feeling that, while a UI / UX refresh was absolutely necessary, this lack of polish and consistency would have never made the light of day with Jobs at the helm. And the gloss on the Game Center icon is just downright bizarre!
corresation 13y ago
This is presented as a an objective take, yet it is entirely subjective subject matter. While I do take issue with the inconsistency of the new iOS icon design (gradients going each direction, residual depths and multi-generational design philosophies mixed together), in this case the proposed "better" icons simply aren't better...in my opinion....because it's subjective. And then there's this- Just like you don’t want to use pure black, you also never want to use “straight from the tube” colors. They come off as tacky and cheap. (followed by some thing about bros and neon) All colors are "straight from the tube" in this medium. There is no additional complexity or uniqueness with any variation of reds, greens and blues. Applying what can only be considered colour hipsterism diminishes the message enormously. Maybe the colors simply aren't right among their peers, or for the purpose, but the notion that they're simply too easy or "bro-ish" is silly.
- lifeformed 13y ago
  I would consider the computer equivalent "straight from the tube" colors to be one of these: #000 #F00 #0F0 #FF0 #00F #F0F #0FF #FFF
- Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
  He never presented his blog post as objective. The word objective is nowhere to be found. You misinterpreted.
  - corresation 13y ago
    I think you're confused about what objective and subjective mean. It doesn't mean that you declare that doth now maketh an objective statement. Instead it's a manner of speaking where subjective evaluations are instead stated as if they are fact. Hamburgers are better than hot dogs. Dogs are better than cats. Okay, bad examples, because those are objective truths. How about- Yellow is better than blue. It was clear enough, after the whole hipster "not like bros" nonsense, with the "Actually if we’re being completely honest, its colors look like they were pulled straight out of Windows Metro. (And that’s not a good thing!)" bit. Microsoft has a lot of designers. I'll bet a bunch of them will objectively make statements of claimed factual truth if given the chance. Metro has a lot of designer boosters (indeed, many in the iOS camp are boosters of the overall mix of design found in Metro). But instead of apparently realizing that they have a particular impression, the blog author is under the confused delusion that they have observations of fundamental truth. Maybe it's a narrative exercise to make an argument more convincing, but alas, such yields the sort of reply that I made.
chasing 13y ago
Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything in here. And I also imagine that the icons (and general new "flat" look) will get refined over the next months/years. Also, though many of the icons are a bit odd (and some, like the calculator and camera, frankly suck), upon use, iOS 7 really does feel like a natural improvement upon past version of iOS and not some attempt to make iOS more like Windows Mobile or Android. I'm excited that Apple's shaken things up a bit visually. It'll force app makers (self included) to think in fresh ways about their interfaces. Which will lead to more novelty, innovation, and (hopefully) better products.
- bornhuetter 13y ago
  Some people are upset about the look of iOS, Android and WP converging, but I'm quite happy about it. At the moment many apps get written to fit the iOS style and when they are ported over to Android they look horrible. I think now many cross platform apps are going to start looking a lot better.
  - ankitml 13y ago
    add nyan cat's rainbow style to wp/android app and you get a iOS 7 app
cloudwalking 13y ago
After using iOS 7 for a few days I can say that the icons are the least of our worries. Using ONLY color to differentiate clickable things is a travesty for colorblind people. I'm colorblind and iOS 7 is proving really frustrating. The weather app, for example, is almost impossible for me to read.
- namank 13y ago
  Do the accessibility options help?
  - sinnerswing 13y ago
    They do. People just wants to bitch and whine about iOS 7. :)
    - markkanof 13y ago
      Why should they be necessary though? Presumably the original commenter was indicating that iOS 6 and earlier worked well for him/her in their default state. So how is it better to make the default state in iOS 7 less usable thus requiring the use of accessibility settings for a larger group of people?
      - sinnerswing 13y ago
        Get an Android phone. problem solved.
      - bconway 13y ago
        The OP indicated he is colorblind. This very likely isn't the first or the last time he will need to break out the high-contrast option.
    - shock-value 13y ago
      Maybe this is just bitching and whining, but as far as I am concerned iOS 7 is another "Apple Maps"-style upgrade disaster if they don't make a lot of UI changes. I really think people are going to hate it. I know it's just a beta, but I had the same hopes that Apple Maps would be improved during its beta (and commented to people that Apple was going to have big problems if it didn't) and look where that went. It's a shame too because they added a lot of good things like the new notifications layout, Siri improvements, control pane slide-out, etc.
_progger_ 13y ago
It seems they can't go full non-skeuomorphic without looking like a WP rip-off? Finding new symbols for abstract concepts is even harder though, some will stay until we have brain-computer interfaces that will give us new senses.
- sp332 13y ago
  Microsoft didn't invent the flat rectangle. What about the new iOS looks specifically like Windows Phone 8?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Microsoft didn't invent the flat rectangle. They did, however, create a set of design principles for user interfaces for computer applications (inspired in large part by particular pre-computing graphic design styles, but also including particular principles for providing affordances and feedback for interactive applications within that graphic style.)
    - sp332 13y ago
      Yeah, and iOS isn't following most of them. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/windowsphone/design/hh202915%28v=vs.105%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/windowsphone/design/... I didn't look at every single one, but having used Windows Phone 7&8 for over a year, and scrutinized the released slides from iOS 7, I don't see any place where they are especially similar.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > Yeah, and iOS isn't following most of them. I didn't mean to suggest that it was, I was trying to suggest a better focus for discussions of whether iOS design was following Microsoft in any substantial way than either "flat rectangles", or even "what bits seem generally similar to Win 8".
  - _progger_ 13y ago
protitap 13y ago
I think what's wrong with the icons can be summed up by the following: • Inconsistency • Unnecessary complexity I don't have much of a problem with the colours. The icons are only half the problem though. Both the text and icons do not stand out enough against the background, and the text and icons seem too close together. The homescreen just looks half finished.
- czhiddy 13y ago
  > The homescreen just looks half finished. Shocking, right? Things looks half finished in a pre-release beta. What were they thinking?
  - lurkinggrue 13y ago
    By the looks of the icons: I like candy.
- cheald 13y ago
  I don't even think that unnecessary complexity is the issue. If the icons were consistently complex, it'd be fine! You have a wildly varying base palette, a wild variety of light sources (that's what a gradient indicates, remember!), and a wild variety in complexity (contrast "phone" with "settings"). The net result is an icon package that feels haphazardly thrown-together by multiple teams of wildly variant skill levels who didn't communicate at all. Even if all the icons looked like Passbook or Safari, it'd be better than the current setup, because it would at least be consistent.
uptown 13y ago
The thing I realized after installing iOS7 was how few of the stock icons still resided on my home screen. Sure, some of the required ones need work - but when mixed with a well-chosen background, and mixed in with the other app icons from my collection - the overall aesthetic isn't as jarring.
joejohnson 13y ago
"Drawing from the fashion world, there was a period of time where you’d find hipsters around town wearing neon clothing, but they’ve long since passed neon onto the bros. Never take fashion advice from the bros." Man, this guy sounds like a real expert.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Even if he were literally a baby, the only thing that would matter is whether the points he makes are sound.
RivieraKid 13y ago
I quite like the icons.
miguelrochefort 13y ago
For some reasons, the icons look much better individually than together on the Home Screen. I guess this proves the "Design by committee" theory.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  Design by multiple, inexperienced, poorly coordinated committees, to be precise. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-icons-apple-s-marketing-department http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...
tambourine_man 13y ago
I can't decide which one is worse, Safari or Settings. Apple's always had quality control issues, but when the main theme of the keynote is iOS 7's new look, and the first thing they show you are those icons, it makes me think that they are having serious execution issues. Even if they improve them later (one can hope), it's a lost chance to wow us, which has always been Apple's thing and the whole reason for the keynote.
- adventured 13y ago
  There's nobody at the top furiously rattling the cage until all the designs are up to par. Jobs of course reviewed every aesthetic, and was more than willing to live by that sword and die by that sword (if it wasn't good enough, it shouldn't ship; he made a few mistakes on that front, but it was a core theme non-the-less).
andrewgleave 13y ago
If this is really an issue, the large, talented group of designers at Apple will fix it before GM. They are employed by probably the most design-sensitive company around precisely because they're at the top of their game – they won't be oblivious to blundering inconsistencies. If it's not, it will be forgotten about within days of the OS's release by nearly all users.
- aroman 13y ago
  This five thousand times. This is precisely my sentiment on the matter. I'm not such a fanboy as to believe Apple's infallible, but I do firmly believe they'll know when they've screwed up. You can bet there are plenty of people running around Apple gauging the public reaction to iOS7. If they think it's really a major pain point for the public, they'll do something about it. Otherwise, it won't really matter. Remember when the iPad came out and thought it was a rushed joke with an awful name?
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    Counterpoint: one thing that history's greatest designers have most certainly not done is pay a lot of attention to the public's immediate reaction. It will make them look worse, in a way, if we see them making a lot of concessions to popular outrage. The core look and feel of the UI was something they really should have taken the time to get right the first time, before going public. It's hard to save face in this business.
doctorpangloss 13y ago
They chose grey because the icons will be slightly semi-transparent in the final build and will take on color from your background. In that sense, it's a pretty brilliant design. The change to the camera icon makes a lot of sense if you've ever watched a first-time phone user looking for the Camera app. Differences between music, video and photos again seems to emphasize their very different bodies of users. They actually do very different things because they service very different needs—people who buy music in iTunes or pirate it (as opposed to using Pandora, etc.), people who buy movies in iTunes or pirate them (as opposed to using HBO Go), and people who want to show their photos to someone. None of these use cases require personality and it seems like putting personality in a software icon meant to be universally understood is a bad idea.
toyg 13y ago
Personally, I've never liked the Camera and Safari icons -- somehow my brain never associated "round thingie" with "taking a picture" and "compass" with "reading web pages" (remember the old Netscape light-tower? I've always thought that was so weird). In that sense, I kinda like the new Camera more than the old one (although Ian's suggestion to make it dynamic is great). I agree 100000% on the Videos icon. It's a relic: when every Mac user was a pro video-maker using video-editing tools every day, I guess it made sense to keep it consistent. I don't come from that background, so that icon never felt natural; I agree that a "Play button" would be so much better. The idea of making icons dynamic is great and would go some way towards compensating for the lack of real-time home-screen apps. Newsstand proves that it can be done, and Apple should probably use it a bit more, battery be damned. There is a risk in opening such an API to third parties, that developers will start blinkifying their icons to jump at you, transforming one's home screen in a giant flashy billboard; but it would certainly be a nice touch for homegrown system icons.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  <blink>In-app purchases 50% off!</blink>
- alxndr 13y ago
  I completely disagree on the dynamic icons. When I want to play some music, I know I'm looking for a two-eighth-note icon on a pink-orange background, and I don't want that background to change to black cause I listened to Dark Side last.
  - toyg 13y ago
    One of the aims of dynamic icons is to avoid having to actually tap on them, if the required information is simple enough to be displayable in the icon itself (e.g. weather, stock). Apps that want to encourage launch could modify just half the icon, or a quarter, or none.
    - lessnonymous 13y ago
      After reading the article, the last thing I wanted was dynamic icons. But your take on it makes sense. I don't want 'photos' to show me the latest photo I took as that could have been days ago and now finding the photos app is really difficult. But if just part of the icon changed to indicate something, like your stock folio position (without the red/green background idea) then it works both ways. The icon always looks generally the same - it's a graph - but it changes to indicate some data point that may save opening the app. That said, how would the icons update if you don't open the app. Each app's developer would either have to send out an icon update notification or would have to provide some level of running the app on a regular basis to regenerate the icon.
websitescenes 13y ago
Why is that I disagree with every article from Ian Storm Taylor? Media Queries are not hacks and the new IOS7 looks slick to me. Real world characteristics were used for a long time as a crutch. It helped the non tech savvy connect to technology, because they were utilizing things they recognized from the real world. Fast forward and now people don't need this crutch. Flat design and minimalism are proof of that. Don't be scared of change.
- ianstormtaylor 13y ago
  Not sure, although it seems like you didn't read the article. Also you don't disagree with _every_ article of mine because I argued exactly what you are arguing in this comment a couple years back: http://ianstormtaylor.com/skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/ http://ianstormtaylor.com/skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/
  - websitescenes 13y ago
    hahaha, I'm probably am still upset about the media queries.
    - websitescenes 13y ago
      ok, so I read the article and I see what you are saying now. Knee jerk reaction on my part. I guess they should have removed more of the real world references than they did.
      - ianstormtaylor 13y ago
        :p no worries. It's true though that some of the real world icons are still necessary for the quick mental connection with the apps purpose.
serginho 13y ago
I will just add a stolen high ranked comment from one of the collective blogs. iOS 7 Jelly Bean
ankitml 13y ago
iOS 7 is geo bootstrap for mobile http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/ http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/
alexqgb 13y ago
Some people may think "Wow, this travesty looks like design by committee". Others may say "No, no, this looks like design by multiple, competing committees with no clear direction or coordination." As it turns out, the latter camp is correct. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-icons-apple-s-marketing-department http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...
- threeseed 13y ago
  Did you even read the article you linked to ? Allegedly, the branding/marketing teams first designed the icons and the other teams coordinated their designs based on those icons. I don't know if you've actually used iOS7 but there is quite clearly a direction. It's a little unfocused in places but it's clear.
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    Of course I read it. And the key passage (to my mind) was this one: "We’ve also been hearing that there wasn’t a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design."
adventured 13y ago
"Even designing just one simple, clean, good-looking icon is not an easy task. Multiply that by 25 and there was a ton of work to do in the 8 months since Forstall was booted, which led to certain things being overlooked" Well that's dramatizing more than just a little bit. Apple has $143 billion in the bank, a nearly unlimited budget, a design obsession, and they had over half a year. Clearly the time it takes to create a nice icon was not the problem (regardless of if it was 25 icons or 250 icons).
phil 13y ago
I agree with this: I freaked out in the beginning because I thought the crummy icons were representative of Apple screwing up the entire new design direction for iOS. But now that I’ve seen the rest of iOS, I’m not that worried. After a couple days with the beta, it's pretty obvious that Apple didn't, like, FIRE their UI designers or anything. There are a few strange choices, but most of the new OS feels like an improvement when you use it.
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, but you can add Music and iTunes and more subtly Maps too.) 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. (I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone say anything about this yet. I thought designers were attuned to and familiar with things like this? It's weird to see professionals not considering any influences on the iPhone's new style apart from other smartphone OSes and skins from the past 5 years.) Regarding the OP, Camera is fairly consistent with the other icons as it's based on the same flavour of retro. The same is true of Game Center. You can see how the colours imitate the dodgy colour values from colour printing about the '60s.
gfodor 13y ago
I think the bikeshed should be blue, and have less of a gradient along the roof.
jammi 13y ago
People are already criticizing alpha-quality software icons. These are the current ones, and many of them are still going to change: http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/14/apple-website-mistake-reveals-alternate-ios-7-icons-with-tweaks-to-weather-passbook-and-more/ http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/14/apple-website-mistake-reveals-...
ameen 13y ago
Ian has nailed down what's exactly wrong with iOS 7's icons. But misses a very important point - The redesign has largely been pointless. Windows Phone chose "Flat design" and ran with it, the "Live Tile" was invented - More interactive, informative minimal icons. Also it brought over some beautiful uniformity, a design language that actually worked. iOS 7 does nothing of that sort, and IMO is a redesign for the sake of a redesign. Infact, it goes ahead and destroys everything that was great about its previous iterations - Accessible, Simple, Functional, etc. To say the least, Apple Design[1] has failed colossally, they could and should learn a lot from Microsoft and Google designers. [1] - Not the same as Apple Designers, since I'm damn well sure that no Interface designer worth his salt would ever allow iOS 7 to happen. I'm sure past design leads on iOS and even Forstall are having a chuckle over this mess.
- andorekandore 13y ago
  I get the strong feeling that, as you say, its a redesign for the sake of redesign..... but I think, more to it than that, is Ive’s distaste for anything Forestall, and this is his crusade to remove any last vestige of “him” from iOS... Thats just my subjective opinion, but it comes across strongly from everything I’ve read and heard..... I don’t really care one way or the other, but I hope for their sake they can improve what they’ve shown and pull off something insanely great (though I’m not holding my breath).
  - ameen 13y ago
    Once you start getting vengeful there's no going back. And if I must say so myself, Apple has failed at Flat icon design - Heck, even the DesignModo guys had better icons than the ones Apple put out. Apple seems to be losing its edge. I'd be looking keenly at how the next version of Android shapes up, and if HTC continues its awesome hardware design, there's no reason not to get their next phone.
crazygringo 13y ago
For anyone who isn't aware, you should read Vic Gundotra's story about Jobs insane level of perfectionism regarding the original iPhone icons: https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/gcSStkKxXTw https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/gcSStkKxXTw To me, at least, the original post is all about how that level of perfectionism is no longer being enforced at Apple.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Did anyone notice where he (effectively) asked for Android widgets? Good luck.

179 points by ianstormtaylor 13y ago

someone saw the "ios in the car" icon? http://cdn.iflowreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/apples-ios-in-the-car-app_100430079_l.jpg http://cdn.iflowreader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/apples... To me, this is the most ugly icon I have ever seen. ever!

ianstormtaylor 13y ago
Hahaha pretty much agreed, it was right next to the Multitasking and Siri icons on their promotion page. That's what happens when you combine the "straight from the tube" green with pure black and tack on a purely resized Siri icon.
_progger_ 13y ago
It looks like a dev did this one, not a designer :))).

devindotcom 13y ago

I like that the "Music" icon has perfectly chosen colors... coincidentally, those are nearly the exact same ones used in the Zune branding and app: http://i.imgur.com/Mzw6bta.png http://i.imgur.com/Mzw6bta.png Really, though, I do not like almost any of the new icons. I love the flat thing, and I reskinned my Android phone with the minimal MIUI icon set (quite well done), but Apple just did it wrong.

Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
Here we go again. Not to be cynical, but that's just unfair. Apple has plenty of time improve their icons before iOS 7 releases to the public, assuming they acknowledge it wasn't a brilliant idea to outsource design to the local children's art school.
- zeckalpha 13y ago
  Will they though?
- omni 13y ago
  They've already released their icons to the public in the form of an incredibly public keynote. Criticism is entirely fair at this point. If they redesign them, then great. We'll talk about that, too.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  It's really not unfair at all.
- ionforce 13y ago
  It's absolutely not unfair. Even to the beta Apple has invested a ton of time putting their UI designs front and center. If they didn't want them to be the travesty they are now they would have made them differently. It's hard to believe that there's any other reason the icons look this way other than through intention. And then the question becomes about Apple's taste level.
  - ankitml 13y ago
    you didnt get flying_dwarf's sarcasm..
    - 3327 13y ago
      He should stick to reddit this is HN - a somewhat different community where decent and concise answers are held higher than "smart" sarcasm...
  - alexqgb 13y ago
    "It's hard to believe that there's any other reason the icons look this way other than through intention." Perhaps this will enlighten you. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-icons-apple-s-marketing-department http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...
serginho 13y ago
Don't wanna bother but for the first look it reminded me some of MS icon. After some minutes I've found it. MS SQL Server http://www.ironpaper.com/current/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/MS-SQL-server-icon.jpg http://www.ironpaper.com/current/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/...

smnrchrds 13y ago

"This new iteration of iOS was supposed to save us from the unnecessary skeuomorphism that Jobs and Forstall loved." I don't understand. What is wrong with skeuomorphism? I am not a designer or anything, but I liked the old iOS 6 UI.

mathattack 13y ago
I'm not positive in general, but I can see there being issues when the items being modeled are dated. It also seems like there's a general trend against the concept. But I'm not a designer as well.
namank 13y ago
Nothing wrong with it. It's just time to move on, boeing 777 came after the glider; 7 came after 6; this comes after skeuomorphism.
- tsunamifury 13y ago
  Not at all. Flat is not a better design than Sku. Sku was just a way to fake static 3D lighting and dimension, and flat is the needed halfstep to get to realtime 3D rendering for the OS. Pure flat design is IMO inferior, but necessary.
  - namank 13y ago
    Skeuomorphism was important to transition users from physical objects to virtual objects in a meaningful way. It enabled you and I to understand what tap/touch/pinchNzoom etc are. Now that we know what virtual objects are about, we can move to a design scheme that's made for virtual objects. I inherently don't like the phrase 'Flat Design' - there is so much more to this.
    - tsunamifury 13y ago
      This is understood. The point I'm making is that I believe flat is not inherently better or even good. Its a fad right now that apple is using for a good half step to a realtime 3D UI. Sku was teaching designers to fake dimension by hand, flat will aid them to getting to the point of texturing real 3D objects. And if you think iOS7 doesn't still use 3D space to make skumorphic metaphors you haven't looked at Safari' tabs yet.

omonra 13y ago

As an Android user, I find the whole brouhaha over the new IOS look rather ridiculous - because I have no idea what Android stock icons even look like. I've been using a shell for many years (doesn't matter which - can't even recall name now) which comes with its own icons. So to me this sounds as childish (ie Apple treating its customers as children who can't be trusted with picking their own icons) - as if my laptop had a set of preconfigured directory names and I could not rename them myself. It's rather telling that all these people take the concept that icons on their pocket computer are G-d given and immutable, like a law of nature and that the most they can do is whine if they don't like them.

obviouslygreen 13y ago
That's one of the major (real) differences between the iOS and Android camps... while so much of the divide is just silly, I think it's reasonable to say that Android users more often expect and utilize options regarding how the OS looks and behaves than iOS users, who are used to a stable, familiar, cohesive, consistent experience (as mandated by Apple for iOS developers). If Google ran its ship the same way with regard to hammering UI guidelines down everyone's throat, this would likely happen there as well. I don't know which is better or worse, but the two are certainly different, and it's either created a divide or pointed out a difference between people who strongly prefer one over the other.
- omonra 13y ago
  Yep, agreed. What I find funny is that the people who are writing these articles are advanced users and not some grandmother who needs protection. Ie - if you are either a designer who deeply cares about how your icons look - don't be a sheep and customize your pocket computer the way you want.
_progger_ 13y ago
The strong selling point of iOS is consistency and order across all concepts. To me Android is like a mutagenic factory sewage - anything is possible for better of worth.

Steko 13y ago

A whole article on iOS 7 (beta) icons without mentioning the much maligned Safari one?

abruzzi 13y ago

oddly, I am in almost complete disagreement with this article. The only point of agreement is I hate the camera icon (the full camera looks clunky. they should just use a diaphram shutter.) The other icon I hate is the new music icon. The music notes look wrong. The note heads aren't the correct oval shape, but more of a blobish rectangle. iOS6 wasn't great either because the beam was too thick, and the noteheads were too horizontal (the left of the notehead should be a bit lower than the right), but for some reason it just wasn't that noticeable.

Terretta 13y ago
Had to scroll down a long way to find this comment, but I agree with you that these suggested alternatives are not necessarily improvements. The "poor color choice" Calculator, for example, his alternative is worse than iOS 7 which is worse than iOS 6. Dark keys with a colored totals key are recognizable as a calculator at a glance. No idea what his suggested alternative is smoking. My main takeaway from this article, like the many other "here's what they should have done" write-ups is: "This is harder than it looks."
leoc 13y ago
> The note heads aren't the correct oval shape Just like the camera and other elements in the design https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883125 the shape of the notes is a pastiche of an (I think) roughly mid-'60s commercial-art style.

cosmicm 13y ago

I've spent a bit of time with the icons and I like them. iOS is just so different now that it takes a bit to settle in. I think many people judge too quickly sometimes without using it.

kevinbluer 13y ago

Agreed. I can't shake the feeling that, while a UI / UX refresh was absolutely necessary, this lack of polish and consistency would have never made the light of day with Jobs at the helm. And the gloss on the Game Center icon is just downright bizarre!

corresation 13y ago

This is presented as a an objective take, yet it is entirely subjective subject matter. While I do take issue with the inconsistency of the new iOS icon design (gradients going each direction, residual depths and multi-generational design philosophies mixed together), in this case the proposed "better" icons simply aren't better...in my opinion....because it's subjective. And then there's this- Just like you don’t want to use pure black, you also never want to use “straight from the tube” colors. They come off as tacky and cheap. (followed by some thing about bros and neon) All colors are "straight from the tube" in this medium. There is no additional complexity or uniqueness with any variation of reds, greens and blues. Applying what can only be considered colour hipsterism diminishes the message enormously. Maybe the colors simply aren't right among their peers, or for the purpose, but the notion that they're simply too easy or "bro-ish" is silly.

lifeformed 13y ago
I would consider the computer equivalent "straight from the tube" colors to be one of these: #000 #F00 #0F0 #FF0 #00F #F0F #0FF #FFF
Flying_Dwarf 13y ago
He never presented his blog post as objective. The word objective is nowhere to be found. You misinterpreted.
- corresation 13y ago
  I think you're confused about what objective and subjective mean. It doesn't mean that you declare that doth now maketh an objective statement. Instead it's a manner of speaking where subjective evaluations are instead stated as if they are fact. Hamburgers are better than hot dogs. Dogs are better than cats. Okay, bad examples, because those are objective truths. How about- Yellow is better than blue. It was clear enough, after the whole hipster "not like bros" nonsense, with the "Actually if we’re being completely honest, its colors look like they were pulled straight out of Windows Metro. (And that’s not a good thing!)" bit. Microsoft has a lot of designers. I'll bet a bunch of them will objectively make statements of claimed factual truth if given the chance. Metro has a lot of designer boosters (indeed, many in the iOS camp are boosters of the overall mix of design found in Metro). But instead of apparently realizing that they have a particular impression, the blog author is under the confused delusion that they have observations of fundamental truth. Maybe it's a narrative exercise to make an argument more convincing, but alas, such yields the sort of reply that I made.

chasing 13y ago

Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything in here. And I also imagine that the icons (and general new "flat" look) will get refined over the next months/years. Also, though many of the icons are a bit odd (and some, like the calculator and camera, frankly suck), upon use, iOS 7 really does feel like a natural improvement upon past version of iOS and not some attempt to make iOS more like Windows Mobile or Android. I'm excited that Apple's shaken things up a bit visually. It'll force app makers (self included) to think in fresh ways about their interfaces. Which will lead to more novelty, innovation, and (hopefully) better products.

bornhuetter 13y ago
Some people are upset about the look of iOS, Android and WP converging, but I'm quite happy about it. At the moment many apps get written to fit the iOS style and when they are ported over to Android they look horrible. I think now many cross platform apps are going to start looking a lot better.
- ankitml 13y ago
  add nyan cat's rainbow style to wp/android app and you get a iOS 7 app

cloudwalking 13y ago

After using iOS 7 for a few days I can say that the icons are the least of our worries. Using ONLY color to differentiate clickable things is a travesty for colorblind people. I'm colorblind and iOS 7 is proving really frustrating. The weather app, for example, is almost impossible for me to read.

namank 13y ago
Do the accessibility options help?
- sinnerswing 13y ago
  They do. People just wants to bitch and whine about iOS 7. :)
  - markkanof 13y ago
    Why should they be necessary though? Presumably the original commenter was indicating that iOS 6 and earlier worked well for him/her in their default state. So how is it better to make the default state in iOS 7 less usable thus requiring the use of accessibility settings for a larger group of people?
    - sinnerswing 13y ago
      Get an Android phone. problem solved.
    - bconway 13y ago
      The OP indicated he is colorblind. This very likely isn't the first or the last time he will need to break out the high-contrast option.
  - shock-value 13y ago
    Maybe this is just bitching and whining, but as far as I am concerned iOS 7 is another "Apple Maps"-style upgrade disaster if they don't make a lot of UI changes. I really think people are going to hate it. I know it's just a beta, but I had the same hopes that Apple Maps would be improved during its beta (and commented to people that Apple was going to have big problems if it didn't) and look where that went. It's a shame too because they added a lot of good things like the new notifications layout, Siri improvements, control pane slide-out, etc.

_progger_ 13y ago

It seems they can't go full non-skeuomorphic without looking like a WP rip-off? Finding new symbols for abstract concepts is even harder though, some will stay until we have brain-computer interfaces that will give us new senses.

sp332 13y ago
Microsoft didn't invent the flat rectangle. What about the new iOS looks specifically like Windows Phone 8?
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Microsoft didn't invent the flat rectangle. They did, however, create a set of design principles for user interfaces for computer applications (inspired in large part by particular pre-computing graphic design styles, but also including particular principles for providing affordances and feedback for interactive applications within that graphic style.)
  - sp332 13y ago
    Yeah, and iOS isn't following most of them. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/windowsphone/design/hh202915%28v=vs.105%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/windowsphone/design/... I didn't look at every single one, but having used Windows Phone 7&8 for over a year, and scrutinized the released slides from iOS 7, I don't see any place where they are especially similar.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Yeah, and iOS isn't following most of them. I didn't mean to suggest that it was, I was trying to suggest a better focus for discussions of whether iOS design was following Microsoft in any substantial way than either "flat rectangles", or even "what bits seem generally similar to Win 8".
- _progger_ 13y ago

protitap 13y ago

I think what's wrong with the icons can be summed up by the following: • Inconsistency • Unnecessary complexity I don't have much of a problem with the colours. The icons are only half the problem though. Both the text and icons do not stand out enough against the background, and the text and icons seem too close together. The homescreen just looks half finished.

czhiddy 13y ago
> The homescreen just looks half finished. Shocking, right? Things looks half finished in a pre-release beta. What were they thinking?
- lurkinggrue 13y ago
  By the looks of the icons: I like candy.
cheald 13y ago
I don't even think that unnecessary complexity is the issue. If the icons were consistently complex, it'd be fine! You have a wildly varying base palette, a wild variety of light sources (that's what a gradient indicates, remember!), and a wild variety in complexity (contrast "phone" with "settings"). The net result is an icon package that feels haphazardly thrown-together by multiple teams of wildly variant skill levels who didn't communicate at all. Even if all the icons looked like Passbook or Safari, it'd be better than the current setup, because it would at least be consistent.

uptown 13y ago

The thing I realized after installing iOS7 was how few of the stock icons still resided on my home screen. Sure, some of the required ones need work - but when mixed with a well-chosen background, and mixed in with the other app icons from my collection - the overall aesthetic isn't as jarring.

joejohnson 13y ago

"Drawing from the fashion world, there was a period of time where you’d find hipsters around town wearing neon clothing, but they’ve long since passed neon onto the bros. Never take fashion advice from the bros." Man, this guy sounds like a real expert.

devindotcom 13y ago
Even if he were literally a baby, the only thing that would matter is whether the points he makes are sound.

RivieraKid 13y ago

I quite like the icons.

miguelrochefort 13y ago

For some reasons, the icons look much better individually than together on the Home Screen. I guess this proves the "Design by committee" theory.

alexqgb 13y ago
Design by multiple, inexperienced, poorly coordinated committees, to be precise. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-icons-apple-s-marketing-department http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...

tambourine_man 13y ago

I can't decide which one is worse, Safari or Settings. Apple's always had quality control issues, but when the main theme of the keynote is iOS 7's new look, and the first thing they show you are those icons, it makes me think that they are having serious execution issues. Even if they improve them later (one can hope), it's a lost chance to wow us, which has always been Apple's thing and the whole reason for the keynote.

adventured 13y ago
There's nobody at the top furiously rattling the cage until all the designs are up to par. Jobs of course reviewed every aesthetic, and was more than willing to live by that sword and die by that sword (if it wasn't good enough, it shouldn't ship; he made a few mistakes on that front, but it was a core theme non-the-less).

andrewgleave 13y ago

If this is really an issue, the large, talented group of designers at Apple will fix it before GM. They are employed by probably the most design-sensitive company around precisely because they're at the top of their game – they won't be oblivious to blundering inconsistencies. If it's not, it will be forgotten about within days of the OS's release by nearly all users.

aroman 13y ago
This five thousand times. This is precisely my sentiment on the matter. I'm not such a fanboy as to believe Apple's infallible, but I do firmly believe they'll know when they've screwed up. You can bet there are plenty of people running around Apple gauging the public reaction to iOS7. If they think it's really a major pain point for the public, they'll do something about it. Otherwise, it won't really matter. Remember when the iPad came out and thought it was a rushed joke with an awful name?
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Counterpoint: one thing that history's greatest designers have most certainly not done is pay a lot of attention to the public's immediate reaction. It will make them look worse, in a way, if we see them making a lot of concessions to popular outrage. The core look and feel of the UI was something they really should have taken the time to get right the first time, before going public. It's hard to save face in this business.

doctorpangloss 13y ago

They chose grey because the icons will be slightly semi-transparent in the final build and will take on color from your background. In that sense, it's a pretty brilliant design. The change to the camera icon makes a lot of sense if you've ever watched a first-time phone user looking for the Camera app. Differences between music, video and photos again seems to emphasize their very different bodies of users. They actually do very different things because they service very different needs—people who buy music in iTunes or pirate it (as opposed to using Pandora, etc.), people who buy movies in iTunes or pirate them (as opposed to using HBO Go), and people who want to show their photos to someone. None of these use cases require personality and it seems like putting personality in a software icon meant to be universally understood is a bad idea.

toyg 13y ago

Personally, I've never liked the Camera and Safari icons -- somehow my brain never associated "round thingie" with "taking a picture" and "compass" with "reading web pages" (remember the old Netscape light-tower? I've always thought that was so weird). In that sense, I kinda like the new Camera more than the old one (although Ian's suggestion to make it dynamic is great). I agree 100000% on the Videos icon. It's a relic: when every Mac user was a pro video-maker using video-editing tools every day, I guess it made sense to keep it consistent. I don't come from that background, so that icon never felt natural; I agree that a "Play button" would be so much better. The idea of making icons dynamic is great and would go some way towards compensating for the lack of real-time home-screen apps. Newsstand proves that it can be done, and Apple should probably use it a bit more, battery be damned. There is a risk in opening such an API to third parties, that developers will start blinkifying their icons to jump at you, transforming one's home screen in a giant flashy billboard; but it would certainly be a nice touch for homegrown system icons.

devindotcom 13y ago
<blink>In-app purchases 50% off!</blink>
alxndr 13y ago
I completely disagree on the dynamic icons. When I want to play some music, I know I'm looking for a two-eighth-note icon on a pink-orange background, and I don't want that background to change to black cause I listened to Dark Side last.
- toyg 13y ago
  One of the aims of dynamic icons is to avoid having to actually tap on them, if the required information is simple enough to be displayable in the icon itself (e.g. weather, stock). Apps that want to encourage launch could modify just half the icon, or a quarter, or none.
  - lessnonymous 13y ago
    After reading the article, the last thing I wanted was dynamic icons. But your take on it makes sense. I don't want 'photos' to show me the latest photo I took as that could have been days ago and now finding the photos app is really difficult. But if just part of the icon changed to indicate something, like your stock folio position (without the red/green background idea) then it works both ways. The icon always looks generally the same - it's a graph - but it changes to indicate some data point that may save opening the app. That said, how would the icons update if you don't open the app. Each app's developer would either have to send out an icon update notification or would have to provide some level of running the app on a regular basis to regenerate the icon.

websitescenes 13y ago

Why is that I disagree with every article from Ian Storm Taylor? Media Queries are not hacks and the new IOS7 looks slick to me. Real world characteristics were used for a long time as a crutch. It helped the non tech savvy connect to technology, because they were utilizing things they recognized from the real world. Fast forward and now people don't need this crutch. Flat design and minimalism are proof of that. Don't be scared of change.

ianstormtaylor 13y ago
Not sure, although it seems like you didn't read the article. Also you don't disagree with _every_ article of mine because I argued exactly what you are arguing in this comment a couple years back: http://ianstormtaylor.com/skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/ http://ianstormtaylor.com/skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/
- websitescenes 13y ago
  hahaha, I'm probably am still upset about the media queries.
  - websitescenes 13y ago
    ok, so I read the article and I see what you are saying now. Knee jerk reaction on my part. I guess they should have removed more of the real world references than they did.
    - ianstormtaylor 13y ago
      :p no worries. It's true though that some of the real world icons are still necessary for the quick mental connection with the apps purpose.

serginho 13y ago

I will just add a stolen high ranked comment from one of the collective blogs. iOS 7 Jelly Bean

ankitml 13y ago

iOS 7 is geo bootstrap for mobile http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/ http://divshot.github.io/geo-bootstrap/

alexqgb 13y ago

Some people may think "Wow, this travesty looks like design by committee". Others may say "No, no, this looks like design by multiple, competing committees with no clear direction or coordination." As it turns out, the latter camp is correct. http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-icons-apple-s-marketing-department http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672819/who-designed-ios-7-s-ico...

threeseed 13y ago
Did you even read the article you linked to ? Allegedly, the branding/marketing teams first designed the icons and the other teams coordinated their designs based on those icons. I don't know if you've actually used iOS7 but there is quite clearly a direction. It's a little unfocused in places but it's clear.
- alexqgb 13y ago
  Of course I read it. And the key passage (to my mind) was this one: "We’ve also been hearing that there wasn’t a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design."

adventured 13y ago

"Even designing just one simple, clean, good-looking icon is not an easy task. Multiply that by 25 and there was a ton of work to do in the 8 months since Forstall was booted, which led to certain things being overlooked" Well that's dramatizing more than just a little bit. Apple has $143 billion in the bank, a nearly unlimited budget, a design obsession, and they had over half a year. Clearly the time it takes to create a nice icon was not the problem (regardless of if it was 25 icons or 250 icons).

phil 13y ago

I agree with this: I freaked out in the beginning because I thought the crummy icons were representative of Apple screwing up the entire new design direction for iOS. But now that I’ve seen the rest of iOS, I’m not that worried. After a couple days with the beta, it's pretty obvious that Apple didn't, like, FIRE their UI designers or anything. There are a few strange choices, but most of the new OS feels like an improvement when you use it.

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, but you can add Music and iTunes and more subtly Maps too.) 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. (I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone say anything about this yet. I thought designers were attuned to and familiar with things like this? It's weird to see professionals not considering any influences on the iPhone's new style apart from other smartphone OSes and skins from the past 5 years.) Regarding the OP, Camera is fairly consistent with the other icons as it's based on the same flavour of retro. The same is true of Game Center. You can see how the colours imitate the dodgy colour values from colour printing about the '60s.

gfodor 13y ago

I think the bikeshed should be blue, and have less of a gradient along the roof.

jammi 13y ago

People are already criticizing alpha-quality software icons. These are the current ones, and many of them are still going to change: http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/14/apple-website-mistake-reveals-alternate-ios-7-icons-with-tweaks-to-weather-passbook-and-more/ http://9to5mac.com/2013/06/14/apple-website-mistake-reveals-...

ameen 13y ago

Ian has nailed down what's exactly wrong with iOS 7's icons. But misses a very important point - The redesign has largely been pointless. Windows Phone chose "Flat design" and ran with it, the "Live Tile" was invented - More interactive, informative minimal icons. Also it brought over some beautiful uniformity, a design language that actually worked. iOS 7 does nothing of that sort, and IMO is a redesign for the sake of a redesign. Infact, it goes ahead and destroys everything that was great about its previous iterations - Accessible, Simple, Functional, etc. To say the least, Apple Design[1] has failed colossally, they could and should learn a lot from Microsoft and Google designers. [1] - Not the same as Apple Designers, since I'm damn well sure that no Interface designer worth his salt would ever allow iOS 7 to happen. I'm sure past design leads on iOS and even Forstall are having a chuckle over this mess.

andorekandore 13y ago
I get the strong feeling that, as you say, its a redesign for the sake of redesign..... but I think, more to it than that, is Ive’s distaste for anything Forestall, and this is his crusade to remove any last vestige of “him” from iOS... Thats just my subjective opinion, but it comes across strongly from everything I’ve read and heard..... I don’t really care one way or the other, but I hope for their sake they can improve what they’ve shown and pull off something insanely great (though I’m not holding my breath).
- ameen 13y ago
  Once you start getting vengeful there's no going back. And if I must say so myself, Apple has failed at Flat icon design - Heck, even the DesignModo guys had better icons than the ones Apple put out. Apple seems to be losing its edge. I'd be looking keenly at how the next version of Android shapes up, and if HTC continues its awesome hardware design, there's no reason not to get their next phone.

crazygringo 13y ago

For anyone who isn't aware, you should read Vic Gundotra's story about Jobs insane level of perfectionism regarding the original iPhone icons: https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/gcSStkKxXTw https://plus.google.com/+VicGundotra/posts/gcSStkKxXTw To me, at least, the original post is all about how that level of perfectionism is no longer being enforced at Apple.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Did anyone notice where he (effectively) asked for Android widgets? Good luck.