Having played around with iOS7 a bit, I can say that I mostly like the new interface. Even the new icons if you ignore the Safari one - something really must have gone wrong there - it feels totally out of place for me.
OTOH, this is the first beta out of probably many (considering how stable thing thing currently is - jokingly I'm telling my colleagues that it's as stable as the average Android phone now), so we might still see some changes there.
Of course, the thing that sold iOS 7 to me is the fact that you can finally place the unused and empty newsstand in a folder :-)
Your "joke" would have some element of humor to it if there were any instability at all with current (or last year, or the year before) Android phones. Amazing how that little bit of irrelevant swill diminishes an entire post.
iOS 7 is the first time that I have seen such arrogant designer elitism ever. If someone does not like the new style, they are of course objectively wrong because every good human knows that Helvetica is without fault, and so are low-contrast flat colours. If you disagree, you should feel bad and obsolete. Oh and be sure to mention stitched leather even though iOS6 didn't ever have that on the phone.
Note that many of the quoted people are not even angry. They are just saying they don't like it, sometimes giving reason. Let's shame this scum! LOL it's just Forstall posting under fake names anyway!
Who exactly is saying that? I haven't seen anyone say that the iOS7 design is objectively brilliant, just that it's here and everyone has to adjust to it- complaining about it is going to achieve next to nothing because Apple is rarely interested in community feedback.
In all honesty, most of the comments I have seen simply reflect the fact that (warning: generalisation approaching) iOS designers have been on a high horse about how iOS's design is superior to all other platforms, and are now being forced to re-evaluate that stance after Apple has rejected that design.
If Helvetica was so great, why did Linotype (subsidiary D. Stempel AG) create Neue Helvetica, a "reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths"? :)
This designer gets the weather icon correct - the gradient should go in the same direction as the sunrise & sunset - lighter at the horizon, darker above.
The camera icon should revert completely. The lens is the most imporant part of a camera - the camera body is a skeuomorphism. Other than that, I can live with most of the new icons (the redesign does some better - ie, Settings but others are too simplified).
What's funny about this situation is that most of these designers have probably not even tried iOS 7 and they are already judging the design. All of this coming after Apple emphasized the fact that "design is how it works, not how it looks". I agree that there is room for improvement in the design, but I am starting to sense some elitism and bandwagoning from the design community.
I am starting to sense some elitism and bandwagoning from the design community.
Starting to? That's kind of what the cutting edge of design is all about. When a design advances past certain middle of the road thresholds of usability and tolerably it become more and more just a matter of personal taste. When a bandwagon (or pieces of it) has appeal, it becomes a wider trend. It's still a bandwagon though, styles in the 1980's are(/were?) the go-to example of things that appealed to tastes at the time but are laughable in retrospect.
Well, they can judge the icons by screenshots. I personally sometimes think that I am on acid when I look at the icons in IOS 7. Other than that no objections on the changes to "how things work" whatsoever.
It's not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just not very "innovative"
The new design can be classified as a "Flat UI" a recent movement in interface design where things like reflective surfaces, borders, and photo-realistic elements are eschewed in favor of a minimalist, iconographic look with bold coloring offsetting neutrally colored text. The aesthetic was heavily popularized by Microsoft in Windows 8 when they introduced the Metro UI. Google also picked up on the aesthetic in their redesign of their web services as well as recent iterations of the Android OS.
Apple has always been the darling of the design community so for them to be late to the party leaves the Apple faithful with a bit of egg on their face. How dare Microsoft dictate what is cool in a world where everything Apple makes is the very definition of hip.
Not only that, there are several major faux paus in the unveiled design that designers are having fits over. Many of the icons in the default interface lack a consistency across different parts of the iOS (like the camera). Any sort of organic rhythm is lost in the palette and seen as jarring. Worst of all, the prized "golden ratio" that Apple has been well known for in their design seems to be gone.
To people who pay that kind of attention to things like this, its an unmitigated disaster.
PS: Also, skeuomorphism. Because it was horrible until Apple got rid of it, apparently.
The main thing I dislike is the Helvetica typeface. It's such a bland conservative choice that we have seen in every magazine for decades. The Light style is even worse (less legible). I've only seen the demos of iOS 7 and I'm already sick of Helvetica.
Also it's very white. I use the black theme on my Windows phone (which itself is imperfect). I find dark themes more pleasant.
Otherwise the redesign feels more modern and clean than the current version.
I've been playing around with iOS7 for a few hours and a lot of the issues could be addressed in the next 3 months. Someone should do a redesign like that guy did for the NSA slides[1]. I think the color palette is taking all of the spotlight away from the key technical updates. Even though the updates are features that Android and WinMo users have had for a while, many iOS users are only getting these for the first time. This is a first cut and there is still three months to clean it up.
All the images that Apple has posted so far (unless I've missed some) seem to use the white iPhone, with a blue/pastel background. I'm curious to see how the icons look in different contexts.
I have a white iPhone, so I can't answer that side of your question, but the icon labels change color according to the background (i.e, a dark background gets white labels, a light background gets black ones).
I haven't seen this new design, but one thing I noticed with the flat design trend is that too many strong colors are used, and this causes fatigue in the long run; for example I noticed this in the latest updates to gmail on android.
But I also guess that with a flat design it is inevitable to resort more to color to differentiate your design elements.
Agreed. The icons are easiest part of a redesign to redo and implement tho, and designers on Dribbble have already posted versions that are significantly better. Apple's design team has a few months to fix things up and I'm confident that they will.
The icons look fine to me, and really design of these icons doesn't matter all that much when they're going to next to all the icons for other downloaded apps. You're never going to get a homescreen full of icons that don't clash with eachother.
If you can get past the icons, the UI itself appears to be much improved. Just looking at the compass app it's much clearer to glance at and get your information without the Master and Commander design of the old one getting in the way.
A lot of people are objecting to the color palette, like which gradients Apple choose to use. Well, you don't accidentally make the iTunes store icon purple. That's a deliberate choice Apple made to be bold.
iOS7 design is weak, with reason. This page is just quoting tweets, but there many in-depth criticism on the many obvious flaws everywhere on the blogosphere.
From the objective to the subjective:
- Complete redesign makes it too different from iOS 6 and OS X, throws away all learnability
- Icons have no consistency whatsoever
- Toolbar icons are so abstract as to be useless
- Legibility suffers from Helvetica Light on bright white, everywhere
- Got rid of affordances, you don't know what is a button anymore (same mistake as WP and some Google apps)
- Control panel is a mess
- Color palette is poor and tacky. You have a true to life display to work with, but limit yourself to primary and secondary, over-saturated hues... just stupid
To be fair, usability increased in many places as in multi-tasking and better use of gesture, although that's hardly innovation - they are just copying tried and true interactions from software both on iOS platform (e.g. Gmail for iOS, Mailbox) and others (webOS, Android).
Overall the UI looks like designed by someone who designs print media and has no clue what they are doing.
I agree. The more I use it, the more I dislike it. I'm not a designer, but having worked with several for extended periods, I guess their attention to detail has rubbed off on me. The initial welcome screen on iOS 6 was cool and usable. The new one on iOS 7 kinda just dumps you on a parade of "welcome" without any clear indication on what to do next. So I tapped. And clicked. Then I swiped around. Until, bingo, I found the correct swipe direction. Ditto with the initial lock screen.
https://vine.co/v/blZZqDX9dA2 (this is not me).
As someone on reddit said, it looks like a Chinese knockoff of iOS running on Android.
*Oh yeah and the new calendar. Looks great, but now you can't see if you have any events coming up from the calendar view...Ok...That's a step backwards.
I think if you are going to throw out criticism like this and you yourself are a designer then you should provide some samples of your own work for critique; in an ideal world each would provide their own 'superior' iOS design, or at the minimum a design for a particular feature (icons, use of color, etc).
I like the new look, not sure what all the fuzz is about. Looks very artistic, specially safari. I prefer this to having lots of detail and shadows in a small icon, that can be left to the app developer. I'm not an iphone user but I'd definitely use one.
The new design cues are more of a technical issue to me than an aesthetic one.
Darker themed phones consume less energy...on more modern screen hardware. While an LCD backlight draws the same power regardless of the colors on screen, AMOLED does not. In fact, AMOLED and a red only profile grants you an amazing device for night use; be it astronomy, reading, etc. because it does not dilate your eyes.
Not only that, AMOLED is the current frontrunner in engineering design to allow for an "infinite bezel" where you aren't sure where the screen ends and the edge begins.
By switching to this bright white look in IOS7, Apple has all be publicly admitted that the next several years will continue to be dominated by LCD technology that drags the progress of screen technology and cost down.
"Design is not just how something looks; it's about how it works." - Steve Jobs, Sir Jony Ive, Dieter Rams and every other half-decent designer worth a damn
compare to the typical criticism right now. the safari icon looks terrible - instant fail! man, i hope the iOS team gets shielded from this outbreak of retardation, lest they slit their wrists.
I'm really glad someone mentioned this. I think by getting away from skeuomorphism Apple will be able to really innovate new design concepts and functionality for iOS7 and future iOS versions.
[+] [-] pilif|12 years ago|reply
OTOH, this is the first beta out of probably many (considering how stable thing thing currently is - jokingly I'm telling my colleagues that it's as stable as the average Android phone now), so we might still see some changes there.
Of course, the thing that sold iOS 7 to me is the fact that you can finally place the unused and empty newsstand in a folder :-)
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corresation|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kemayo|12 years ago|reply
I've been playing with it since yesterday, and I like the new UI. The crashiness is a bit of a pain, though. I honestly like the flatter icons.
For reference, here's an actual screenshot from my phone, rather than just one of Apple's promo images: http://sta.sh/02e3ujebq7hp
[+] [-] joeblossom|12 years ago|reply
I do agree with the general sentiment that the icons, in general, do not fit with the rest of the design decisions.
[+] [-] gurkendoktor|12 years ago|reply
Note that many of the quoted people are not even angry. They are just saying they don't like it, sometimes giving reason. Let's shame this scum! LOL it's just Forstall posting under fake names anyway!
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
You must be new to the Internet. Allow me to show you some pictures of cats and a video of Charlie biting a finger.
I saw the term Neotribalism on HN this morning. This perfectly defines much of the designer elitism that runs rampant throughout the design community.
[+] [-] untog|12 years ago|reply
In all honesty, most of the comments I have seen simply reflect the fact that (warning: generalisation approaching) iOS designers have been on a high horse about how iOS's design is superior to all other platforms, and are now being forced to re-evaluate that stance after Apple has rejected that design.
[+] [-] joeblossom|12 years ago|reply
I'm not overly for flat design or overly against skeuomorphism, but Find My Friends was horrendous.
[+] [-] cpeterso|12 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_Neue#Neue_Helvetica_...
[+] [-] protitap|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiph|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r00fus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hcarvalhoalves|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seangransee|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nate_martin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cbs|12 years ago|reply
Starting to? That's kind of what the cutting edge of design is all about. When a design advances past certain middle of the road thresholds of usability and tolerably it become more and more just a matter of personal taste. When a bandwagon (or pieces of it) has appeal, it becomes a wider trend. It's still a bandwagon though, styles in the 1980's are(/were?) the go-to example of things that appealed to tastes at the time but are laughable in retrospect.
Design is important in giving products pleasant appearances and interactions, but it's also capable of turning people insufferable. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57508907-71/at-apple-hq-ey...
[+] [-] jedmeyers|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
They are following the trends set by others (Microsoft and Google) and I think that is what is infuriating designers.
[+] [-] acuozzo|12 years ago|reply
(FWIW, I still think the IRIX Indigo Magic Desktop is pretty good looking.)
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
The new design can be classified as a "Flat UI" a recent movement in interface design where things like reflective surfaces, borders, and photo-realistic elements are eschewed in favor of a minimalist, iconographic look with bold coloring offsetting neutrally colored text. The aesthetic was heavily popularized by Microsoft in Windows 8 when they introduced the Metro UI. Google also picked up on the aesthetic in their redesign of their web services as well as recent iterations of the Android OS.
Apple has always been the darling of the design community so for them to be late to the party leaves the Apple faithful with a bit of egg on their face. How dare Microsoft dictate what is cool in a world where everything Apple makes is the very definition of hip.
Not only that, there are several major faux paus in the unveiled design that designers are having fits over. Many of the icons in the default interface lack a consistency across different parts of the iOS (like the camera). Any sort of organic rhythm is lost in the palette and seen as jarring. Worst of all, the prized "golden ratio" that Apple has been well known for in their design seems to be gone.
To people who pay that kind of attention to things like this, its an unmitigated disaster.
PS: Also, skeuomorphism. Because it was horrible until Apple got rid of it, apparently.
[+] [-] antninja|12 years ago|reply
Also it's very white. I use the black theme on my Windows phone (which itself is imperfect). I find dark themes more pleasant.
Otherwise the redesign feels more modern and clean than the current version.
[+] [-] joeblau|12 years ago|reply
[1] - http://fr.slideshare.net/EmilandDC/dear-nsa-let-me-take-care...
[+] [-] jljljl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] objclxt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danmaz74|12 years ago|reply
But I also guess that with a flat design it is inevitable to resort more to color to differentiate your design elements.
[+] [-] mkmkmmmmm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanglasgow|12 years ago|reply
http://dribbble.com/shots/1109343-iOS-7-Redesign/attachments...
[+] [-] r00fus|12 years ago|reply
This is a beta, after all. Steve Jobs' pedantry about everything being absolutely perfect for a demo may not be Cook's style.
[+] [-] elpool2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kreek|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smackfu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hcarvalhoalves|12 years ago|reply
From the objective to the subjective:
- Complete redesign makes it too different from iOS 6 and OS X, throws away all learnability
- Icons have no consistency whatsoever
- Toolbar icons are so abstract as to be useless
- Legibility suffers from Helvetica Light on bright white, everywhere
- Got rid of affordances, you don't know what is a button anymore (same mistake as WP and some Google apps)
- Control panel is a mess
- Color palette is poor and tacky. You have a true to life display to work with, but limit yourself to primary and secondary, over-saturated hues... just stupid
To be fair, usability increased in many places as in multi-tasking and better use of gesture, although that's hardly innovation - they are just copying tried and true interactions from software both on iOS platform (e.g. Gmail for iOS, Mailbox) and others (webOS, Android).
Overall the UI looks like designed by someone who designs print media and has no clue what they are doing.
This article wraps it up: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/275a56688510
[+] [-] moogleii|12 years ago|reply
I was hoping for a common design language, but there really isn't one. http://i.imgur.com/zdMBUGT.png
As someone on reddit said, it looks like a Chinese knockoff of iOS running on Android.
*Oh yeah and the new calendar. Looks great, but now you can't see if you have any events coming up from the calendar view...Ok...That's a step backwards.
[+] [-] mcintyre1994|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpeterso|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyleslattery|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evo_9|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hcarvalhoalves|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pacomerh|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
Darker themed phones consume less energy...on more modern screen hardware. While an LCD backlight draws the same power regardless of the colors on screen, AMOLED does not. In fact, AMOLED and a red only profile grants you an amazing device for night use; be it astronomy, reading, etc. because it does not dilate your eyes.
Not only that, AMOLED is the current frontrunner in engineering design to allow for an "infinite bezel" where you aren't sure where the screen ends and the edge begins.
By switching to this bright white look in IOS7, Apple has all be publicly admitted that the next several years will continue to be dominated by LCD technology that drags the progress of screen technology and cost down.
[+] [-] kunai|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pinaceae|12 years ago|reply
there are whole blogs devoted to the stupidity of designer's clients - and now this can be witnessed on a global scale.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell http://clientsfromhell.net/
compare to the typical criticism right now. the safari icon looks terrible - instant fail! man, i hope the iOS team gets shielded from this outbreak of retardation, lest they slit their wrists.
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AtTheLast|12 years ago|reply