13 ms·

iOS 7 before and after screenshots

213 points by satjot 13y ago

soulclap 13y ago
Steve Jobs is turning in his grave. All of these look so random and interchangeable to me that it could probably even have effects on the common 'iOS first' mentality. What was so special about the iPhone again?
mixmastamyk 13y ago
Don't care for the white backgrounds everywhere. Going to be even more difficult to use at night. Wish there was a way to choose a theme, like we had in the 90's.
- escoz 13y ago
  Themes don't work; Windows Phone has two choices and a lot of developers simply support only of them.
  - nigelsampson 13y ago
    Yes and No :-) Most utility apps that aren't supporting an existing brand will often support both themes. However I've noticed that apps that are already branded will go along with only the theme that works best with their brand.
  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    The way themes have worked historically is that the application isn't consulted.
- fdkz 13y ago
  Use the home button triple-click trick for night reading. http://lifehacker.com/5957534/invert-your-phones-colors-for-easier-night-reading http://lifehacker.com/5957534/invert-your-phones-colors-for-... Another thing that really helps is f.lux for iphone: http://justgetflux.com/ios.html http://justgetflux.com/ios.html But this sadly requires jailbreaking.
  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    Thanks, I do remember that. There is the problem though of those apps which use a dark theme, that therefore become light upon negative view. Hence, why I'd prefer a single theme enforced.
pnathan 13y ago
Fascinating. The new designs seem to look very W8 Metro. I confess an idle curiosity as to why the art style shift and if there's a genuine change in design philosophy (e.g., Modern vs. Romantic type watershed moments) or if it's just a flavor of the day shift (I can often date websites and books by their visual design elements, but it doesn't mean that there was a fundamental philosophy shift).
- achughes 13y ago
  With Metro I think that Microsoft did something really unique, it had a digital design language that spoke to a lot of UI designers. Thats not to say they executed it particularly well, because even if it looks good that doesn't mean it is particularly easy to navigate. It didn't look like any UI that had come before it mostly because it striped everything out of the design, and it that way it was really interesting. Designers had still be struggling with the move from page design to digital design and flat seemed like a good answer. Side note: Its interesting that everybody is shouting about it looking like Android when they should really be saying that everything looks like Metro
digiru 13y ago
I personally like the new flat designs a lot better.
habosa 13y ago
Most of these look MUCH better after the redesign. And, surprisingly, they look a lot like Android apps. For years and years Apple was way ahead of Android on app design, but now I think an app that follows the iOS 7 design guidelines and the Android design guidelines will look about the same.
- thejulielogan 13y ago
  Apple used to set the standard. It is sad to see them falling into derivative design, yet I do love the 1950's cosmonaut spaceship concept behind it.
  - dopamean 13y ago
    It's sad? Really?
    - thejulielogan 13y ago
      Yes. Apple designs should be inspired from other fields (Russian cosmonaut style, 1950s minimalism, etc.) rather than being derivative of another phone's style. If iOS 7 is not so derivative, they should speak to that so every article doesn't pin it as "Much [of] iOS 7 design inspiration came from others"
- consultant23522 13y ago
  While I think individual several of the apps look better after the redesign I liked the consistency of UI between apps that the before shots gave. The after shots kind of remind me of running KDE apps in a Gnome desktop environment or something. They seem too radically unique to provide a good user experience to the system as a whole.
  - habosa 13y ago
    I agree but for a platform where all apps Run as full screen you can get away with less consistent design as long as the ux is good. The apps will never be run side by side.
pavlov 13y ago
The "after" screenshots don't seem to have anything in common anymore. Some of the apps look like Android, some look like Windows Phone, some look like Palm webOS. The previous iterations at least shared a few button styles and navigation bar styles, but now it seems like everyone has taken the opportunity to reinvent those too. It's certainly ok by me that app developers are taking more liberties in making their apps look unique. But if I were running the iOS show at Apple, I'd probably be worried about this development: if the visual presence of the OS disappears entirely from apps, it becomes that much less scary to pick up an Android phone because the apps won't look any different there.
- badman_ting 13y ago
  Perhaps, but overall it seems like bad strategy to avoid doing something because you're afraid it might help competitors. You do whatever you think is the best thing. Plus, Apple has been doomed for a long time now. Ditto the iPhone and iOS. And yet...
- jjcm 13y ago
  To be fair it's a new style language. It's going to take time for people to normalize on designs. Eventually I think that there will be a more homogeneous experience, but right now everyone is trying to feel it out and explore. Design follows trends, but right now there aren't any trends to follow in ios7.
  - petercooper 13y ago
    Previously, wasn't it just follow Apple's style guide or go home? If so, what's happened in iOS 7? Are Apple just being far more lax in enforcing a style guide or is the style guide out of the window now?
    - publicfig 13y ago
      Nope, that wasn't really the case before. There were plenty of apps that deviated from Apple's styles, it's just that their UI tools made it easy to design your own app with your own interface. I think we'll see a lot of apps that look like stock iOS apps once the app makers that have been holding off/don't have a UI Team realize they need to update their apps to match the modern visual style.
canthonytucci 13y ago
We shouldn't forget that these are all iterations on existing designs, and that at least partially the improved readability/understandability(there's a better word that is escaping me here) is in part due to this in addition to the flatness. It isn't just "flat" that's doing it here, a lot of these examples are also making better choices with whitespace and data presentation in addition to downplaying gradients (chatter moving to cards and ditching the tabbar for example).
untog 13y ago
Few of these look better, IMO. And I'm definitely not seeing a lot of consistency in design. That said, many of them weren't great in the first place anyway. One clear trend: getting rid of the bottom tab bar. I will mourn that loss - the top left corner is the least accessible place on the screen, and Apple saw fit to put the most important button (Back) there. The bottom bar was a very accessible shortcut in many apps. Although many faulted Android for having a back button, it's actually incredibly convenient to have it accessible in all apps.
- HNLogInShit 13y ago
  The new tab bar is spindly, low-contrast crap with no clear demarcation between it and the rest of the screen above it. If you had glyphs amongst the scrolling screen content above it, there would be NO distinction. The iOS 7 GUI is an unmitigated debacle.
- udfalkso 13y ago
  iOS7 has a swipe from the left gesture that will trigger the back event, for apps that support it. Long overdue imo and it helps some with what you're describing.
  - robbles 13y ago
    The issue with "swiping" gestures in general is that most users will never learn about them. Even if you introduce them visually in some kind of intro walkthough, they're too easy to forget. The underlying problem that makes them a bad interaction paradigm, in my opinion, is that they have no affordances whatsoever. You just can't tell by looking at the UI that swiping left/right/up/down is going to have an effect.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      The affordances for swiping through Springboard seem to work pretty well. More important than the dots is the physicality of the animation. You can wiggle the current screen back and forth with a small motion and transition with a more dramatic one, but either way there's a clear directness to the interaction. All swiping should work that way, and Apple is emphasizing the importance of "physical" dynamics in iOS 7.
zybler 13y ago
Personally, I like the redesigned "flat" app design. However, in the case of Photo Investigator, it seems that the "flat" design is worse off. The buttons are no longer visible due to the cluttered background.
jasonlotito 13y ago
I realize this means nothing, but I love coming to the comments here, and the top 3 comments are effectively: 1. Hate it. 2. Meh. 3. Love it. Yes, I'm summarizing, but I just found it highly amusing.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  Different people have different tastes. I don't think anyone who hates it is wrong, but I'm glad I'm not in that set! Super-excited for tomorrow.
  - jasonlotito 13y ago
    Oh, of course, and I didn't mean to imply anything about those people either. I was liberal with their interpretations. I just found it amusing and got a good chuckle out of it. =)
kstenerud 13y ago
I don't like most of the "after" shots. It's now a lot harder to see what is a button/control and what is just decoration.
- kcbanner 13y ago
  I like them. The information is much more clear.
  - HNLogInShit 13y ago
    How? In some cases they added new information to the screen, but that has nothing to do with the iOS 7 motif. Otherwise, the "information" is generally obscured and no longer distinguished from controls.
  - camus 13y ago
    no it's not , especially when you cant tell the difference between what is a button and what is not a button.
  - guynamedloren 13y ago
    Really? Tell me how this is more clear: http://grab.by/qmAu http://grab.by/qmAu I don't know which button state is worse, selected or unselected. I can't read either of them in the iOS7 version.
    - adnrw 13y ago
      That's definitely not clearer, but that's because it's a poor design decision by the developer. Here's a screenshot of Apple's (just-out-of-Beta) Find My iPhone on iCloud.com showing exactly the same scenario but designed properly: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/709013/Screenshots/fmi-ios7.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/709013/Screenshots/fmi-i... It's much clearer, and in my opinion looks much better than the original toggle shown in the "before" screenshot there.
    - r00fus 13y ago
      I think the new (iOS7) design is better simply because the transparent box on the non-selected buttons allow me to see more map.
glhaynes 13y ago
Some of these don't seem "iOS 7ish" at all. Content in shaded boxes (within yet more shaded boxes!) is very much not the iOS 7 way. And strong lines separating content are rarely a good fit with the new look. The ones that seem like they "get" it look much better to my eye. Lighter, cleaner, simpler, more open.
ebbv 13y ago
Maybe it's just me but a lot of these apps look really shoddy and half assed. I can't believe these are real apps that people expect customers to pay for.
- kybernetyk 13y ago
  Well, it's flat design. While with the pre-7 design you could have substance - really polished apps that shine by using textures, lighting, shadows, etc. with flat you only really have colored rectangles to show. And as you can't make more appealing colored rectangles than your competition everything starts to look the same.
  - camus 13y ago
    that's one of the problems of flat design ,it's so flat and dull it's hard to remember anything about it. Which app shown here feels like it has an identity? none.
grbalaffa 13y ago
The segmented control in "Photo Investigator" is completely illegible post-update.
Kiro 13y ago
Are people really redesigning their whole apps just to fit iOS 7 better or what's going on?
- corresation 13y ago
  There are some who believe that iOS 7 represents a grand reset of the app market, and a new land grab is afoot. Personally I question that: Most users have no clue about iOS 7, and quite simply don't care. One day they'll get a system update notice, and from then forth every now and then apps will change incrementally. I don't see users changing apps just to get a new general style.
lukio 13y ago
Everything is so flat. But I like it tho. :) Simple and cool.
mortenjorck 13y ago
My first reaction was that there was no curation, no filter here, given the broad range of UI quality (both before and after), but then I realized this collection was even more interesting because of it. While Hipmunk, for example, clearly has a team of UX and UI designers, and RecordOrders is almost certainly the design work of a single Cocoa programmer, I'd say the latter actually improved by a greater margin. Hipmunk already had a very nice pre-7 approach which they translated expertly to the new design language, but RecordOrders' awkward color fields and cramped buttons benefit greatly from the enforced minimalism.
chasing 13y ago
These mostly look average at best, downright bad at worst. Before and after. And, kids: "Making something look like iOS 7" does not absolve you from your duty to use good UX and to think about the "why" behind your visual design. Shitty design skinned to look like iOS 7 remains shitty design.
- HeyItsJames 13y ago
  My thoughts exactly. A lot of these designs came down to putting lipstick on a pig. Yep, it's still a pig.
deleted 13y ago
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Edvik 13y ago
One thing I'm seeing on Hipmunk specifically is lower contrast and lack of shading has to be made up for by white space - the after seems to have a lot less information on screen, while still being (at least in my perspective) harder to read at a glance.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Almost universally, the trend in mobile (and, if Microsoft gets its way, desktop) is toward using more pixels to display less information. It sucks. I wish the kids would get off that particular lawn.
HeyItsJames 13y ago
I consider myself rather forward-facing developer when it comes to design, and have, as a general rule, enjoyed the new interface design choices in iOS7. However, I'm worried that this Oddysean journey into "flat design" is counter-intuitive to some basic UI principles. I find that the bottom toolbar is harder to read now, and requires more eye-scanning to figure out what the different icons do. It's not as pronounced and grounded anymore. Also, the top navigation is less intuitive, and more subtle. I'm also finding information and text presentation to suffer as well. As much as I hated the beveled edges and skeumorphic design of the previous iOS, it was much easier to navigate. I'm sure companies and designers will work some of these early-stage kinks out of the interfaces, but I can definitely see a drop UI flow quality and information presentation with the move to this new interface design.
- foolfoolz 13y ago
  the shadows and gradients were very good and directing your eyes on what is import and what is not important. the flat design gives more elements equal footing. instead of the interfacing being able to accentuate the important areas to look at, you now have to know the app (or screen) and know where to look.
hadem 13y ago
I can't be the only person to think that iOS 7 does not look good. Right? A lot of the "after" screenshots do not look any better. I'd say some of the after screenshots look worse!
jamesaguilar 13y ago
For me, this is good. Generally speaking, I like the right side more, although there were one or two (notably Salesforce and Hipmunk) which I thought regressed a little. In both cases, the lower information density on the right hand side is the problem.
taopao 13y ago
Some of them look like they're from my e-ink Nook.
_random_ 13y ago
Wow, who ported all those Metro-style apps from WP?
bparsons 13y ago
Everything looks a lot more like Android now. I am interested to see if Kit-Kat makes any significant stylistic changes.
- tjbiddle 13y ago
  I doubt Android will be making any more large style changes - Google has finally found an identity for Android, and 4.0 made large changes that the majority of the Android user base seem to be happy with ( I know I am ). Regardless, I think both iOS7 and Android both look very pleasant now.
- minor_nitwit 13y ago
  I think they will follow the updated card style Google designs we've seen in Google Now, Google Keep, etc.
crazygringo 13y ago
Wow. Hipmunk is a great example, in my opinion, of how flat can be bad by removing so many visual cues. The old one is easy to see, understand, and instantaneously "grok", because of the depth cues and shading. The new one is a mess of plain colored boxes, where you have to spend time figuring out what is a header, what is a row, etc. -- it's not instantly obvious. The prices are clearly clickable on the left, on the right I'd never guess they were (if they are). So much flatness just makes the screen to hard to figure out.
- teaneedz 13y ago
  Hipmunk really makes the problems of flat design stand out. There is a common belief that simpler design means better UE. The things that are being tossed out in flat design are the things that often made good designs intuitive in the first place though. Many designers are reaching incorrect conclusions about simplicity and the whole KISS principle. The whole KISS principle doesn't require throwing out pixels and properties in the name of "a trend". Good UE is memorable and intuitive - and is often lacking in the many flat designs I've been seeing lately. I really fear that flat design trend is making products less emotional, memorable and usable.
  - telcodud 13y ago
    It'll be interesting to hear the views from Hipmunk designers or engineers, if any, lurking on HN.
  - auganov 13y ago
    The problem seems to be some people tend to do more than flatten their designs dimensionally (as in gradients, bevels, specular highlights etc). They also 'flatten' the design as in reducing contrast, reducing lines/borders and other ways of separating and organizing information/data. That's the problematic part to me. Hipmunk did that here. SeatGeek is an example of almost pure dimensional flattening. It's pretty much the same. Just feels a bit cleaner and more elegant. Especially notice how they replaced the shadow with a grey border. The shadow played the role of a separator. Thus they replaced it with a flat separator. What the other kind of a 'flattener' might do is just throw away the separator completely. And that is where you can screw up.
ianferrel 13y ago
I'd say most of these are arguable which is better. Except for Photo Investigator. The before picture has readable buttons on the bottom. The after picture is pretty much completely unreadable.
cheshire137 13y ago
Wow, that Photo Investigator after shot is terrible: http://a2.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/cc/ad/2c/ccad2c57-de45-45f5-9d0d-63e43020a54f/screen568x568.jpeg http://a2.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/cc/ad/2c/ccad2c57-d... Are we supposed to read that glaring hot red on a cluttered map background?
- daddykotex 13y ago
  I agree
  - Kizckster 13y ago
    Looks like they aren't dogfooding their product...
adcuz 13y ago
iOS 7, now with less design.
pearjuice 13y ago
So how hard was it for the developers to support iOS 7? If they used the correct core UI elements, the transition was seamless[~], right? Because with Android (until recent versions) such a major update in UI would have been a disaster (not that develoeprs care much, there aren't even strict UI guidelines). [~] edit: -smoothless | +seamless
- baddox 13y ago
  Smoothless?
  - camus 13y ago
    I guess he meant seamless.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
I feel like Apple learned the wrong lesson from the huge flap last year that suddenly jammed "skeuomorphism" into all our vocabularies. There's nothing wrong, IMHO, with UI that looks like a polished, compact control panel. The problem was UI that looked like a rodeo in an office-supply warehouse. I do like Android's "floating cyberspace icons" approach, but I liked Apple's "UFO hi-fi panel" look too, and it's a shame to see a former design leader becoming such a follower. On the other hand, it's delicious irony to see an enthusiastic tosser of look-and-feel lawsuits reduced to stealing from the same people they've been suing, so it balances out.
- teaneedz 13y ago
  Basically, my same thoughts too. Everything's is being beaten with the flat design stick these days. This nails it. > There's nothing wrong, IMHO, with UI that looks like a polished, compact control panel. The problem was UI that looked like a rodeo in an office-supply warehouse.
- EGreg 13y ago
  Yeah, it's pretty terrible! Whoever derided "skeumorphism" didn't appreciate the Steve Jobs-led Apple approach to make computers feel familiar and provide cues for ease of use. This is just ... terrible for the ecosystem!
- nu2ycombinator 13y ago
  I doubt they learned their lesson yet.
tolmasky 13y ago
I wish they would have been more consistent with their screenshots (at least per app). Its kind of annoying to compare what is clearly an iPhone 4-sized screenshot (with no status bar) to an iPhone 5-sized screenshot with status bar.
- Kizckster 13y ago
  Get over it.
AaronMT 13y ago
One thing I noticed a lot of these updates are forgetting to include are changes to use the stock keyboard available in iOS7. It pains me to see the default iOS6 keyboard still used in iOS7 in focus in inputs. Devs, please remember to make the changes necessary so that the new keyboard is used in your application.
EGreg 13y ago
I am not sure it has improved for the better. And the "after" screenshots seem to have less familiar UI elements in common.
neovive 13y ago
The comparisons are pretty striking. Apple really set the standard for smartphone design and it took competitors quite a while to catch up. I have an Android phone and iPad and I think both design approaches have their benefits and drawbacks. It was probably easier to design an app using the iOS 6 and lower defaults and have it look nice, while the completely flat design requires careful use of whitespace and color and differentiate the various UI sections and elements. In the long-term, best practices will be better documented and flat designs won't be a problem.
escoz 13y ago
I finished updating my app to iOS7 and I think it looks way better than most items in that page: http://pic.twitter.com/QSruUkzMzr http://pic.twitter.com/QSruUkzMzr
- satjot 13y ago
  could you send us before and afters - we'll include them
querulous 13y ago
apps that mostly use standard controls look much better to me (instapaper, quip, punjabi dictionary, stamps for direct mail) but anything with significant custom controls looks terrible. a bunch of them look like they belong on android. i guess that's cause for optimism as it means apps can look great and designers should eventually manage to get a feel for the platform
thechut 13y ago
Most look like Android apps to me, whats not showing here is that most of these have shifted to using left side pull out menus, just like Android. More cross platform design consistency is a good thing in my opinion.
kybernetyk 13y ago
The Hipmunk app got really confusing. 4square also looks not as good as the pre-7 version IMHO.
city41 13y ago
I feel like the befores are significantly better. The gradients and heavier weights divide up the space better, and let you easily find the natural boundaries. In the afters almost everything blends together.
sigzero 13y ago
I updated to the GM last week. I like it. I think it is a great first step.
nnnnni 13y ago
Whoa, a cell phone number was included in one of the screenshots? That can't be good. (Cobook Contacts) Also, the interface for Photo Investigator is horrible. It's really hard to read the buttons at the bottom!
- nekopa 13y ago
  The number is for the CEO of cobook. Lead by example I guess.
aidos 13y ago
That Yahoo Weather app looks like that on my iOS 4? 5? (ancient, whatever it is).
LiweiZ 13y ago
I have to say the game has just started. Just like my previous comment on another thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6387986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6387986): As I wrote in my past blog(http://mattzlw.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/ios-7-beta-ux-thinki... http://mattzlw.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/ios-7-beta-ux-thinki...): "Making users think which part of the iOS application I am in less, instead, a more strong feeling in one single place Apple provides." Apple made their move. Whether the rebalance can be reasonably achieved or not, how and when remain uncertain. I do think, in terms of graphic design choices, it seems to have fewer variables. But, perhaps this is where a more dynamic 2D physics UI engine comes to help. I also would like to add: A playful, responsive, hence visually less heavy UI system may wait ahead. But I don't think it could be the same scale of positive feeling like the original iOS UI brought to us years ago. That was like achieving from 0% to 65%. This time, 75% to 85% maybe? Both are not easy jobs to do though. And Apple's continuous effort on this at a systematic level is a good thing for users.
clauretano 13y ago
here's what the updated Zillow app that Tim Cook featured looks like http://www.zillowblog.com/2013-09-10/coming-soon-zillow-apps-for-ios-7/ http://www.zillowblog.com/2013-09-10/coming-soon-zillow-apps... disclosure: Z employee
jakebellacera 13y ago
I think that the inconsistency of these designs is important. It reminds me of when the App Store was first opened for the public and the v1.0 of the apps we use today were launching. Apple has, effectively redone their entire ecosystem, design-wise, with iOS7. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, especially once the designs start to become a bit more consistent.
gfodor 13y ago
iOS 7 is less about how it looks and more about how it feels. Hence screenshots are a poor medium for criticism compared to iOS 6.
- mlchild 13y ago
  Yes, agreed, having used it for 3 months on now, it replaces the visual affordances of shadows, shading, and textures with physics and animation. My key learning so far from building something iOS7-native is that the closer you can make it to feeling like a real object, the better.
coin 13y ago
Sadly, I find myself preferring the iOS 6 look
vxNsr 13y ago
All I saw was a lot of bright white, something I try to avoid because it makes my eyes hurt. I kinda annoyed at apple for messing up an interface I really liked, I'm gonna have a hard time recommending it to un-tech savvy friends and family because (in my opinion) all this flatness makes it harder to use... Up until this point I always recommended the iphone to anyone who just wanted a phone that worked, and didn't want to have to worry about bugs, or confusing UI (even though personally I'm a windows phone guy, I can't recommend the OS because it doesn't yet match the full feature set of iOS or Android).
bitcrusher 13y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that things 'feel' different on the phone than they do in screen shots. I was pretty 'meh' about iOS7 until I installed the GM on my phone. It still has some weird spots, but over all it looks a hell of a lot better 'live' than it does in pictures. The transitions effects are nice, the removal of skeuomorphism is awesome and the operation is nice. It is not 'revolutionary' but it is a nice evolution from iOS6
xxdesmus 13y ago
Apple certainly was influenced by Windows Phone. Regardless of the source of that inspiration -- it's definitely an improvement.
- msane 13y ago
  "5 certainly equals 2. Regardless of whether 5 equals 2, 5 is a number!"
DougN7 13y ago
Yuck - looks too much like Windows 8 to me :(
- Aloha 13y ago
  I like how Windows 8 works, just dont like how it looks.
Mikeb85 13y ago
Looks much better. iOS used to look like Mac OS from the mid 90's, now it looks like it belongs in this decade. It does look more Android and WP8 ish, but I consider that a good thing.
- valleyer 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure you must mean "OS X from the mid-2000s" — look at screenshots of System 7 for comparison…
pud 13y ago
Semi-unrelated: To me, this page of screenshots did a better job of helping me discover new iPhone apps -- than any other attempt I've seen. And it's unintentional.
- n0nick 13y ago
  Not totally unintentional, since it was created by a website dedicated to app discovery... But yeah, I discovered some new interesting apps myself :)
vicbrooker 13y ago
The message I'm getting from these examples is that designers will need to invest a lot more effort into UX under iOS 7 compared to 6. To me it seems obvious which teams have spent a lot of time reworking their app to fit the language and who have just slapped on a new coat of paint and hoped for the best. I think approaching my apps from the ground up rather than 'reskinning' the current designs will work best for me. Unfortunately it seems finding ways to take elements away from the UI has stumped a few of these teams for the time being. I'm predicting fairly large teething problems while we all adjust based on this group. There's definitely potential for growth for the guys that can nail it from day one though!
satjot 13y ago
We've continued to add more and more screenshots as they are coming in. Some of the highlights: Venmo, Ted, Foursquare, Seatgeek...
corporalagumbo 13y ago
The number take-away from this for me is wow, Apple wields an awesome power. They move to change design conventions, and boom! - a worldwide ecosystem of designers and developers scramble to retrofit every aspect of their complex applications to match the changes. Microsoft could only dream of having that power. I've been on Windows Phone for over a year now and at this point in time they seem years away from even having anything resembling this sort of following. The difference of course is that one phone feels exciting and dynamic to own, and the other feels completely and utterly barren.
petilon 13y ago
EVERYTHING beautiful is skeuomorphic. The page turn in iBooks, page curl in maps, cover flow, the shred animation in passbook, the date picker in iOS, rotating settings gear (when updating iOS), the Time Machine interface in OS X, photo borders and shadows in iWorks documents, etc. This is not surprising, because our sense of beauty comes from the physical world. So what is the problem with skeuomorphism? Tech enthusiasts would like their phones to look like something from the future, not something from the past. But ordinary everyday people prefer for it to look like things they are already familiar with. Tech enthusiasts worry that the skeuomorphism was getting totally out of hand, particularly where the UI metaphor started limiting functionality (e.g. an address database that's limited to what a Rolodex can do, rather than exploiting what is possible with a computer). But this is not really true. For example, iBooks has instant search, something only possible with a computer. Some people say skeuomorphism looks tacky. This is partly true. Skeuomorphism is hard to do. When done poorly it does look tacky. But when done well it looks very beautiful. By removing all skeuomorphism Apple is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
statictype 13y ago
If you were to show both screens to a person who hasn't seen any of them, I wonder if she would be able to tell which was the improved UI.
gcb1 13y ago
the hipmunk downhill in design show even on the app. 3 times more pixels, 1/3 of the information.
SingleFounderCo 13y ago
In some ways iOS7 looks cleaner and more subtle but to me it is generally MUCH worse for understanding what to do (like when MS Office went away from menus and to the tool strip junk). The old version used blank space better, it was clear what elements could be clicked as buttons were clearly buttons, content was more separated from control, etc. Some of the icons/fonts/colors are clearly improved but in general I think it’s a fail. And, to me, flat looks cheap.
nakedrobot2 13y ago
It looks VERY similar to the Windows Phone OS now. (Please don't vote me down - really, this is just my honest opinion. I actually think the Windows Phone OS looks very nice although it is not very usable in practice. Personally I have an android phone)
gurumeditation 13y ago
So many of these apps look terrible
jcc80 13y ago
Awful, just awful. Very surprised to see a company that has design as such a focus blow it like this. The flat design doesn't help the user (imho) and actually hurts him/her. It takes longer to understand and discern between different elements in apps. Can't wait for iOS 8.
matt-attack 13y ago
Can I just say that I hate icons lacking text. I hate trying to decide what the designer meant by an arrow going up vs down. What exactly do "3 lines" mean?

213 points by satjot 13y ago

Steve Jobs is turning in his grave. All of these look so random and interchangeable to me that it could probably even have effects on the common 'iOS first' mentality. What was so special about the iPhone again?

mixmastamyk 13y ago

Don't care for the white backgrounds everywhere. Going to be even more difficult to use at night. Wish there was a way to choose a theme, like we had in the 90's.

escoz 13y ago
Themes don't work; Windows Phone has two choices and a lot of developers simply support only of them.
- nigelsampson 13y ago
  Yes and No :-) Most utility apps that aren't supporting an existing brand will often support both themes. However I've noticed that apps that are already branded will go along with only the theme that works best with their brand.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  The way themes have worked historically is that the application isn't consulted.
fdkz 13y ago
Use the home button triple-click trick for night reading. http://lifehacker.com/5957534/invert-your-phones-colors-for-easier-night-reading http://lifehacker.com/5957534/invert-your-phones-colors-for-... Another thing that really helps is f.lux for iphone: http://justgetflux.com/ios.html http://justgetflux.com/ios.html But this sadly requires jailbreaking.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  Thanks, I do remember that. There is the problem though of those apps which use a dark theme, that therefore become light upon negative view. Hence, why I'd prefer a single theme enforced.

pnathan 13y ago

Fascinating. The new designs seem to look very W8 Metro. I confess an idle curiosity as to why the art style shift and if there's a genuine change in design philosophy (e.g., Modern vs. Romantic type watershed moments) or if it's just a flavor of the day shift (I can often date websites and books by their visual design elements, but it doesn't mean that there was a fundamental philosophy shift).

achughes 13y ago
With Metro I think that Microsoft did something really unique, it had a digital design language that spoke to a lot of UI designers. Thats not to say they executed it particularly well, because even if it looks good that doesn't mean it is particularly easy to navigate. It didn't look like any UI that had come before it mostly because it striped everything out of the design, and it that way it was really interesting. Designers had still be struggling with the move from page design to digital design and flat seemed like a good answer. Side note: Its interesting that everybody is shouting about it looking like Android when they should really be saying that everything looks like Metro

digiru 13y ago

I personally like the new flat designs a lot better.

habosa 13y ago

Most of these look MUCH better after the redesign. And, surprisingly, they look a lot like Android apps. For years and years Apple was way ahead of Android on app design, but now I think an app that follows the iOS 7 design guidelines and the Android design guidelines will look about the same.

thejulielogan 13y ago
Apple used to set the standard. It is sad to see them falling into derivative design, yet I do love the 1950's cosmonaut spaceship concept behind it.
- dopamean 13y ago
  It's sad? Really?
  - thejulielogan 13y ago
    Yes. Apple designs should be inspired from other fields (Russian cosmonaut style, 1950s minimalism, etc.) rather than being derivative of another phone's style. If iOS 7 is not so derivative, they should speak to that so every article doesn't pin it as "Much [of] iOS 7 design inspiration came from others"
consultant23522 13y ago
While I think individual several of the apps look better after the redesign I liked the consistency of UI between apps that the before shots gave. The after shots kind of remind me of running KDE apps in a Gnome desktop environment or something. They seem too radically unique to provide a good user experience to the system as a whole.
- habosa 13y ago
  I agree but for a platform where all apps Run as full screen you can get away with less consistent design as long as the ux is good. The apps will never be run side by side.

pavlov 13y ago

The "after" screenshots don't seem to have anything in common anymore. Some of the apps look like Android, some look like Windows Phone, some look like Palm webOS. The previous iterations at least shared a few button styles and navigation bar styles, but now it seems like everyone has taken the opportunity to reinvent those too. It's certainly ok by me that app developers are taking more liberties in making their apps look unique. But if I were running the iOS show at Apple, I'd probably be worried about this development: if the visual presence of the OS disappears entirely from apps, it becomes that much less scary to pick up an Android phone because the apps won't look any different there.

badman_ting 13y ago
Perhaps, but overall it seems like bad strategy to avoid doing something because you're afraid it might help competitors. You do whatever you think is the best thing. Plus, Apple has been doomed for a long time now. Ditto the iPhone and iOS. And yet...
jjcm 13y ago
To be fair it's a new style language. It's going to take time for people to normalize on designs. Eventually I think that there will be a more homogeneous experience, but right now everyone is trying to feel it out and explore. Design follows trends, but right now there aren't any trends to follow in ios7.
- petercooper 13y ago
  Previously, wasn't it just follow Apple's style guide or go home? If so, what's happened in iOS 7? Are Apple just being far more lax in enforcing a style guide or is the style guide out of the window now?
  - publicfig 13y ago
    Nope, that wasn't really the case before. There were plenty of apps that deviated from Apple's styles, it's just that their UI tools made it easy to design your own app with your own interface. I think we'll see a lot of apps that look like stock iOS apps once the app makers that have been holding off/don't have a UI Team realize they need to update their apps to match the modern visual style.

canthonytucci 13y ago

We shouldn't forget that these are all iterations on existing designs, and that at least partially the improved readability/understandability(there's a better word that is escaping me here) is in part due to this in addition to the flatness. It isn't just "flat" that's doing it here, a lot of these examples are also making better choices with whitespace and data presentation in addition to downplaying gradients (chatter moving to cards and ditching the tabbar for example).

untog 13y ago

Few of these look better, IMO. And I'm definitely not seeing a lot of consistency in design. That said, many of them weren't great in the first place anyway. One clear trend: getting rid of the bottom tab bar. I will mourn that loss - the top left corner is the least accessible place on the screen, and Apple saw fit to put the most important button (Back) there. The bottom bar was a very accessible shortcut in many apps. Although many faulted Android for having a back button, it's actually incredibly convenient to have it accessible in all apps.

HNLogInShit 13y ago
The new tab bar is spindly, low-contrast crap with no clear demarcation between it and the rest of the screen above it. If you had glyphs amongst the scrolling screen content above it, there would be NO distinction. The iOS 7 GUI is an unmitigated debacle.
udfalkso 13y ago
iOS7 has a swipe from the left gesture that will trigger the back event, for apps that support it. Long overdue imo and it helps some with what you're describing.
- robbles 13y ago
  The issue with "swiping" gestures in general is that most users will never learn about them. Even if you introduce them visually in some kind of intro walkthough, they're too easy to forget. The underlying problem that makes them a bad interaction paradigm, in my opinion, is that they have no affordances whatsoever. You just can't tell by looking at the UI that swiping left/right/up/down is going to have an effect.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    The affordances for swiping through Springboard seem to work pretty well. More important than the dots is the physicality of the animation. You can wiggle the current screen back and forth with a small motion and transition with a more dramatic one, but either way there's a clear directness to the interaction. All swiping should work that way, and Apple is emphasizing the importance of "physical" dynamics in iOS 7.

zybler 13y ago

Personally, I like the redesigned "flat" app design. However, in the case of Photo Investigator, it seems that the "flat" design is worse off. The buttons are no longer visible due to the cluttered background.

jasonlotito 13y ago

I realize this means nothing, but I love coming to the comments here, and the top 3 comments are effectively: 1. Hate it. 2. Meh. 3. Love it. Yes, I'm summarizing, but I just found it highly amusing.

jamesaguilar 13y ago
Different people have different tastes. I don't think anyone who hates it is wrong, but I'm glad I'm not in that set! Super-excited for tomorrow.
- jasonlotito 13y ago
  Oh, of course, and I didn't mean to imply anything about those people either. I was liberal with their interpretations. I just found it amusing and got a good chuckle out of it. =)

kstenerud 13y ago

I don't like most of the "after" shots. It's now a lot harder to see what is a button/control and what is just decoration.

kcbanner 13y ago
I like them. The information is much more clear.
- HNLogInShit 13y ago
  How? In some cases they added new information to the screen, but that has nothing to do with the iOS 7 motif. Otherwise, the "information" is generally obscured and no longer distinguished from controls.
- camus 13y ago
  no it's not , especially when you cant tell the difference between what is a button and what is not a button.
- guynamedloren 13y ago
  Really? Tell me how this is more clear: http://grab.by/qmAu http://grab.by/qmAu I don't know which button state is worse, selected or unselected. I can't read either of them in the iOS7 version.
  - adnrw 13y ago
    That's definitely not clearer, but that's because it's a poor design decision by the developer. Here's a screenshot of Apple's (just-out-of-Beta) Find My iPhone on iCloud.com showing exactly the same scenario but designed properly: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/709013/Screenshots/fmi-ios7.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/709013/Screenshots/fmi-i... It's much clearer, and in my opinion looks much better than the original toggle shown in the "before" screenshot there.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    I think the new (iOS7) design is better simply because the transparent box on the non-selected buttons allow me to see more map.

glhaynes 13y ago

Some of these don't seem "iOS 7ish" at all. Content in shaded boxes (within yet more shaded boxes!) is very much not the iOS 7 way. And strong lines separating content are rarely a good fit with the new look. The ones that seem like they "get" it look much better to my eye. Lighter, cleaner, simpler, more open.

ebbv 13y ago

Maybe it's just me but a lot of these apps look really shoddy and half assed. I can't believe these are real apps that people expect customers to pay for.

kybernetyk 13y ago
Well, it's flat design. While with the pre-7 design you could have substance - really polished apps that shine by using textures, lighting, shadows, etc. with flat you only really have colored rectangles to show. And as you can't make more appealing colored rectangles than your competition everything starts to look the same.
- camus 13y ago
  that's one of the problems of flat design ,it's so flat and dull it's hard to remember anything about it. Which app shown here feels like it has an identity? none.

grbalaffa 13y ago

The segmented control in "Photo Investigator" is completely illegible post-update.

Kiro 13y ago

Are people really redesigning their whole apps just to fit iOS 7 better or what's going on?

corresation 13y ago
There are some who believe that iOS 7 represents a grand reset of the app market, and a new land grab is afoot. Personally I question that: Most users have no clue about iOS 7, and quite simply don't care. One day they'll get a system update notice, and from then forth every now and then apps will change incrementally. I don't see users changing apps just to get a new general style.

lukio 13y ago

Everything is so flat. But I like it tho. :) Simple and cool.

mortenjorck 13y ago

My first reaction was that there was no curation, no filter here, given the broad range of UI quality (both before and after), but then I realized this collection was even more interesting because of it. While Hipmunk, for example, clearly has a team of UX and UI designers, and RecordOrders is almost certainly the design work of a single Cocoa programmer, I'd say the latter actually improved by a greater margin. Hipmunk already had a very nice pre-7 approach which they translated expertly to the new design language, but RecordOrders' awkward color fields and cramped buttons benefit greatly from the enforced minimalism.

chasing 13y ago

These mostly look average at best, downright bad at worst. Before and after. And, kids: "Making something look like iOS 7" does not absolve you from your duty to use good UX and to think about the "why" behind your visual design. Shitty design skinned to look like iOS 7 remains shitty design.

HeyItsJames 13y ago
My thoughts exactly. A lot of these designs came down to putting lipstick on a pig. Yep, it's still a pig.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Edvik 13y ago

One thing I'm seeing on Hipmunk specifically is lower contrast and lack of shading has to be made up for by white space - the after seems to have a lot less information on screen, while still being (at least in my perspective) harder to read at a glance.

CamperBob2 13y ago
Almost universally, the trend in mobile (and, if Microsoft gets its way, desktop) is toward using more pixels to display less information. It sucks. I wish the kids would get off that particular lawn.

HeyItsJames 13y ago

I consider myself rather forward-facing developer when it comes to design, and have, as a general rule, enjoyed the new interface design choices in iOS7. However, I'm worried that this Oddysean journey into "flat design" is counter-intuitive to some basic UI principles. I find that the bottom toolbar is harder to read now, and requires more eye-scanning to figure out what the different icons do. It's not as pronounced and grounded anymore. Also, the top navigation is less intuitive, and more subtle. I'm also finding information and text presentation to suffer as well. As much as I hated the beveled edges and skeumorphic design of the previous iOS, it was much easier to navigate. I'm sure companies and designers will work some of these early-stage kinks out of the interfaces, but I can definitely see a drop UI flow quality and information presentation with the move to this new interface design.

foolfoolz 13y ago
the shadows and gradients were very good and directing your eyes on what is import and what is not important. the flat design gives more elements equal footing. instead of the interfacing being able to accentuate the important areas to look at, you now have to know the app (or screen) and know where to look.

hadem 13y ago

I can't be the only person to think that iOS 7 does not look good. Right? A lot of the "after" screenshots do not look any better. I'd say some of the after screenshots look worse!

jamesaguilar 13y ago

For me, this is good. Generally speaking, I like the right side more, although there were one or two (notably Salesforce and Hipmunk) which I thought regressed a little. In both cases, the lower information density on the right hand side is the problem.

taopao 13y ago

Some of them look like they're from my e-ink Nook.

_random_ 13y ago

Wow, who ported all those Metro-style apps from WP?

bparsons 13y ago

Everything looks a lot more like Android now. I am interested to see if Kit-Kat makes any significant stylistic changes.

tjbiddle 13y ago
I doubt Android will be making any more large style changes - Google has finally found an identity for Android, and 4.0 made large changes that the majority of the Android user base seem to be happy with ( I know I am ). Regardless, I think both iOS7 and Android both look very pleasant now.
minor_nitwit 13y ago
I think they will follow the updated card style Google designs we've seen in Google Now, Google Keep, etc.

crazygringo 13y ago

Wow. Hipmunk is a great example, in my opinion, of how flat can be bad by removing so many visual cues. The old one is easy to see, understand, and instantaneously "grok", because of the depth cues and shading. The new one is a mess of plain colored boxes, where you have to spend time figuring out what is a header, what is a row, etc. -- it's not instantly obvious. The prices are clearly clickable on the left, on the right I'd never guess they were (if they are). So much flatness just makes the screen to hard to figure out.

teaneedz 13y ago
Hipmunk really makes the problems of flat design stand out. There is a common belief that simpler design means better UE. The things that are being tossed out in flat design are the things that often made good designs intuitive in the first place though. Many designers are reaching incorrect conclusions about simplicity and the whole KISS principle. The whole KISS principle doesn't require throwing out pixels and properties in the name of "a trend". Good UE is memorable and intuitive - and is often lacking in the many flat designs I've been seeing lately. I really fear that flat design trend is making products less emotional, memorable and usable.
- telcodud 13y ago
  It'll be interesting to hear the views from Hipmunk designers or engineers, if any, lurking on HN.
- auganov 13y ago
  The problem seems to be some people tend to do more than flatten their designs dimensionally (as in gradients, bevels, specular highlights etc). They also 'flatten' the design as in reducing contrast, reducing lines/borders and other ways of separating and organizing information/data. That's the problematic part to me. Hipmunk did that here. SeatGeek is an example of almost pure dimensional flattening. It's pretty much the same. Just feels a bit cleaner and more elegant. Especially notice how they replaced the shadow with a grey border. The shadow played the role of a separator. Thus they replaced it with a flat separator. What the other kind of a 'flattener' might do is just throw away the separator completely. And that is where you can screw up.

ianferrel 13y ago

I'd say most of these are arguable which is better. Except for Photo Investigator. The before picture has readable buttons on the bottom. The after picture is pretty much completely unreadable.

cheshire137 13y ago

Wow, that Photo Investigator after shot is terrible: http://a2.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/cc/ad/2c/ccad2c57-de45-45f5-9d0d-63e43020a54f/screen568x568.jpeg http://a2.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple6/v4/cc/ad/2c/ccad2c57-d... Are we supposed to read that glaring hot red on a cluttered map background?

daddykotex 13y ago
I agree
- Kizckster 13y ago
  Looks like they aren't dogfooding their product...

adcuz 13y ago

iOS 7, now with less design.

pearjuice 13y ago

So how hard was it for the developers to support iOS 7? If they used the correct core UI elements, the transition was seamless[~], right? Because with Android (until recent versions) such a major update in UI would have been a disaster (not that develoeprs care much, there aren't even strict UI guidelines). [~] edit: -smoothless | +seamless

baddox 13y ago
Smoothless?
- camus 13y ago
  I guess he meant seamless.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

I feel like Apple learned the wrong lesson from the huge flap last year that suddenly jammed "skeuomorphism" into all our vocabularies. There's nothing wrong, IMHO, with UI that looks like a polished, compact control panel. The problem was UI that looked like a rodeo in an office-supply warehouse. I do like Android's "floating cyberspace icons" approach, but I liked Apple's "UFO hi-fi panel" look too, and it's a shame to see a former design leader becoming such a follower. On the other hand, it's delicious irony to see an enthusiastic tosser of look-and-feel lawsuits reduced to stealing from the same people they've been suing, so it balances out.

teaneedz 13y ago
Basically, my same thoughts too. Everything's is being beaten with the flat design stick these days. This nails it. > There's nothing wrong, IMHO, with UI that looks like a polished, compact control panel. The problem was UI that looked like a rodeo in an office-supply warehouse.
EGreg 13y ago
Yeah, it's pretty terrible! Whoever derided "skeumorphism" didn't appreciate the Steve Jobs-led Apple approach to make computers feel familiar and provide cues for ease of use. This is just ... terrible for the ecosystem!
nu2ycombinator 13y ago
I doubt they learned their lesson yet.

tolmasky 13y ago

I wish they would have been more consistent with their screenshots (at least per app). Its kind of annoying to compare what is clearly an iPhone 4-sized screenshot (with no status bar) to an iPhone 5-sized screenshot with status bar.

Kizckster 13y ago
Get over it.

AaronMT 13y ago

One thing I noticed a lot of these updates are forgetting to include are changes to use the stock keyboard available in iOS7. It pains me to see the default iOS6 keyboard still used in iOS7 in focus in inputs. Devs, please remember to make the changes necessary so that the new keyboard is used in your application.

EGreg 13y ago

I am not sure it has improved for the better. And the "after" screenshots seem to have less familiar UI elements in common.

neovive 13y ago

The comparisons are pretty striking. Apple really set the standard for smartphone design and it took competitors quite a while to catch up. I have an Android phone and iPad and I think both design approaches have their benefits and drawbacks. It was probably easier to design an app using the iOS 6 and lower defaults and have it look nice, while the completely flat design requires careful use of whitespace and color and differentiate the various UI sections and elements. In the long-term, best practices will be better documented and flat designs won't be a problem.

escoz 13y ago

I finished updating my app to iOS7 and I think it looks way better than most items in that page: http://pic.twitter.com/QSruUkzMzr http://pic.twitter.com/QSruUkzMzr

satjot 13y ago
could you send us before and afters - we'll include them

querulous 13y ago

apps that mostly use standard controls look much better to me (instapaper, quip, punjabi dictionary, stamps for direct mail) but anything with significant custom controls looks terrible. a bunch of them look like they belong on android. i guess that's cause for optimism as it means apps can look great and designers should eventually manage to get a feel for the platform

thechut 13y ago

Most look like Android apps to me, whats not showing here is that most of these have shifted to using left side pull out menus, just like Android. More cross platform design consistency is a good thing in my opinion.

kybernetyk 13y ago

The Hipmunk app got really confusing. 4square also looks not as good as the pre-7 version IMHO.

city41 13y ago

I feel like the befores are significantly better. The gradients and heavier weights divide up the space better, and let you easily find the natural boundaries. In the afters almost everything blends together.

sigzero 13y ago

I updated to the GM last week. I like it. I think it is a great first step.

nnnnni 13y ago

Whoa, a cell phone number was included in one of the screenshots? That can't be good. (Cobook Contacts) Also, the interface for Photo Investigator is horrible. It's really hard to read the buttons at the bottom!

nekopa 13y ago
The number is for the CEO of cobook. Lead by example I guess.

aidos 13y ago

That Yahoo Weather app looks like that on my iOS 4? 5? (ancient, whatever it is).

LiweiZ 13y ago

I have to say the game has just started. Just like my previous comment on another thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6387986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6387986): As I wrote in my past blog(http://mattzlw.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/ios-7-beta-ux-thinki... http://mattzlw.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/ios-7-beta-ux-thinki...): "Making users think which part of the iOS application I am in less, instead, a more strong feeling in one single place Apple provides." Apple made their move. Whether the rebalance can be reasonably achieved or not, how and when remain uncertain. I do think, in terms of graphic design choices, it seems to have fewer variables. But, perhaps this is where a more dynamic 2D physics UI engine comes to help. I also would like to add: A playful, responsive, hence visually less heavy UI system may wait ahead. But I don't think it could be the same scale of positive feeling like the original iOS UI brought to us years ago. That was like achieving from 0% to 65%. This time, 75% to 85% maybe? Both are not easy jobs to do though. And Apple's continuous effort on this at a systematic level is a good thing for users.

clauretano 13y ago

here's what the updated Zillow app that Tim Cook featured looks like http://www.zillowblog.com/2013-09-10/coming-soon-zillow-apps-for-ios-7/ http://www.zillowblog.com/2013-09-10/coming-soon-zillow-apps... disclosure: Z employee

jakebellacera 13y ago

I think that the inconsistency of these designs is important. It reminds me of when the App Store was first opened for the public and the v1.0 of the apps we use today were launching. Apple has, effectively redone their entire ecosystem, design-wise, with iOS7. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, especially once the designs start to become a bit more consistent.

gfodor 13y ago

iOS 7 is less about how it looks and more about how it feels. Hence screenshots are a poor medium for criticism compared to iOS 6.

mlchild 13y ago
Yes, agreed, having used it for 3 months on now, it replaces the visual affordances of shadows, shading, and textures with physics and animation. My key learning so far from building something iOS7-native is that the closer you can make it to feeling like a real object, the better.

coin 13y ago

Sadly, I find myself preferring the iOS 6 look

vxNsr 13y ago

All I saw was a lot of bright white, something I try to avoid because it makes my eyes hurt. I kinda annoyed at apple for messing up an interface I really liked, I'm gonna have a hard time recommending it to un-tech savvy friends and family because (in my opinion) all this flatness makes it harder to use... Up until this point I always recommended the iphone to anyone who just wanted a phone that worked, and didn't want to have to worry about bugs, or confusing UI (even though personally I'm a windows phone guy, I can't recommend the OS because it doesn't yet match the full feature set of iOS or Android).

bitcrusher 13y ago

One thing to keep in mind is that things 'feel' different on the phone than they do in screen shots. I was pretty 'meh' about iOS7 until I installed the GM on my phone. It still has some weird spots, but over all it looks a hell of a lot better 'live' than it does in pictures. The transitions effects are nice, the removal of skeuomorphism is awesome and the operation is nice. It is not 'revolutionary' but it is a nice evolution from iOS6

xxdesmus 13y ago

Apple certainly was influenced by Windows Phone. Regardless of the source of that inspiration -- it's definitely an improvement.

msane 13y ago
"5 certainly equals 2. Regardless of whether 5 equals 2, 5 is a number!"

DougN7 13y ago

Yuck - looks too much like Windows 8 to me :(

Aloha 13y ago
I like how Windows 8 works, just dont like how it looks.

Mikeb85 13y ago

Looks much better. iOS used to look like Mac OS from the mid 90's, now it looks like it belongs in this decade. It does look more Android and WP8 ish, but I consider that a good thing.

valleyer 13y ago
I'm pretty sure you must mean "OS X from the mid-2000s" — look at screenshots of System 7 for comparison…

pud 13y ago

Semi-unrelated: To me, this page of screenshots did a better job of helping me discover new iPhone apps -- than any other attempt I've seen. And it's unintentional.

n0nick 13y ago
Not totally unintentional, since it was created by a website dedicated to app discovery... But yeah, I discovered some new interesting apps myself :)

vicbrooker 13y ago

The message I'm getting from these examples is that designers will need to invest a lot more effort into UX under iOS 7 compared to 6. To me it seems obvious which teams have spent a lot of time reworking their app to fit the language and who have just slapped on a new coat of paint and hoped for the best. I think approaching my apps from the ground up rather than 'reskinning' the current designs will work best for me. Unfortunately it seems finding ways to take elements away from the UI has stumped a few of these teams for the time being. I'm predicting fairly large teething problems while we all adjust based on this group. There's definitely potential for growth for the guys that can nail it from day one though!

satjot 13y ago

We've continued to add more and more screenshots as they are coming in. Some of the highlights: Venmo, Ted, Foursquare, Seatgeek...

corporalagumbo 13y ago

The number take-away from this for me is wow, Apple wields an awesome power. They move to change design conventions, and boom! - a worldwide ecosystem of designers and developers scramble to retrofit every aspect of their complex applications to match the changes. Microsoft could only dream of having that power. I've been on Windows Phone for over a year now and at this point in time they seem years away from even having anything resembling this sort of following. The difference of course is that one phone feels exciting and dynamic to own, and the other feels completely and utterly barren.

petilon 13y ago

EVERYTHING beautiful is skeuomorphic. The page turn in iBooks, page curl in maps, cover flow, the shred animation in passbook, the date picker in iOS, rotating settings gear (when updating iOS), the Time Machine interface in OS X, photo borders and shadows in iWorks documents, etc. This is not surprising, because our sense of beauty comes from the physical world. So what is the problem with skeuomorphism? Tech enthusiasts would like their phones to look like something from the future, not something from the past. But ordinary everyday people prefer for it to look like things they are already familiar with. Tech enthusiasts worry that the skeuomorphism was getting totally out of hand, particularly where the UI metaphor started limiting functionality (e.g. an address database that's limited to what a Rolodex can do, rather than exploiting what is possible with a computer). But this is not really true. For example, iBooks has instant search, something only possible with a computer. Some people say skeuomorphism looks tacky. This is partly true. Skeuomorphism is hard to do. When done poorly it does look tacky. But when done well it looks very beautiful. By removing all skeuomorphism Apple is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

statictype 13y ago

If you were to show both screens to a person who hasn't seen any of them, I wonder if she would be able to tell which was the improved UI.

gcb1 13y ago

the hipmunk downhill in design show even on the app. 3 times more pixels, 1/3 of the information.

SingleFounderCo 13y ago

In some ways iOS7 looks cleaner and more subtle but to me it is generally MUCH worse for understanding what to do (like when MS Office went away from menus and to the tool strip junk). The old version used blank space better, it was clear what elements could be clicked as buttons were clearly buttons, content was more separated from control, etc. Some of the icons/fonts/colors are clearly improved but in general I think it’s a fail. And, to me, flat looks cheap.

nakedrobot2 13y ago

It looks VERY similar to the Windows Phone OS now. (Please don't vote me down - really, this is just my honest opinion. I actually think the Windows Phone OS looks very nice although it is not very usable in practice. Personally I have an android phone)

gurumeditation 13y ago

So many of these apps look terrible

jcc80 13y ago

Awful, just awful. Very surprised to see a company that has design as such a focus blow it like this. The flat design doesn't help the user (imho) and actually hurts him/her. It takes longer to understand and discern between different elements in apps. Can't wait for iOS 8.

matt-attack 13y ago

Can I just say that I hate icons lacking text. I hate trying to decide what the designer meant by an arrow going up vs down. What exactly do "3 lines" mean?