I like the new interface a lot. To me, the phone should be fun.
THIS!! The whole point of the iPhone in the first place besides blending a phone with an iPod, was that it was supposed to be something you wanted to use rather than have to use. It's the one thing you are guaranteed to interact with on a daily basis. While it was certainly fun to use in the beginning, as of late I find the iPhone more of something I have to use rather than enjoy using. The UI is absolutely crucial to your experience with the device. While the smartphone is just a medium for app consumption, calls, and texts how it displays these things directly affects your relationship with it. While iOS is simple and beautiful in it's own right it's just not that much fun to use anymore sadly. I don't think we need a whole lot of gimmicks like Samsung does, but the subtle graphical changes and lively colors should do the trick just fine. Also adding more first party applications like a flashlight, filters for the camera, and iTunes radio should help in actually using the iPhone instead of other apps. Bring on iOS 7 Apple!
The springboard animation during unlock feels a bit heavy handed, perhaps because of its slowness. It needs work. The parallaxing feature where you tilt your home screen to see "behind the icons" is so odd a UI idea from Apple that I'm left a sort of bewildered. It serves as nothing but a distraction from an otherwise elegantly simple home screen interface. I similarly detest the panoramic home screen wallpapers. And the existence of the animated wallpapers offends me. The icons are so ugly I don't know what to say. The beautiful fonts are harsh on the eyes, given how thin they appear presented on a high contrast background. The lock screen is a bit of a mess, with arrows on the top and bottom of the screen only serving to confuse and complicate the elegant iOS lock screen, with no arrow where it matters: pointing the unlock direction. The camera icon on the lock screen is also somewhat odd in its placement and lack of thoughtful design in what it's trying to convey.
Other than that I like iOS 7, yeah.
To be fair, 7-8 months isn't much time, but I sure as hell hope there's a huge number of changes before GM; not just bug fixes.
I agree, the slide to unlock action still being to the right with the only visual on screen being an arrow pointing up for the control panel is an example of where they need to keep working. There are many similar examples throughout where only previous knowledge can possibly lead to knowing what to do which is obviously going to dumbfound a new user.
It is very important for beta testers to give this feed back and I am sure they will.
I would hope Apple and Ive are considering the rapidly aging U.S. population and whether the selected font is readable by weakened eyesight. It would be tragic to lose a lot of potential buyers because another product is far easier to use by elderly readers/users. Perhaps they have another Helvetica font with a bolder stroke as part of their accessibility choices.
The font size can be changed and there is an option in accessibility settings to make the font bolder.
The WWDC video "What's New in iOS User Interface Design," clearly explains their thinking, and also explains why it turned out like it did, despite them following good-sounding principles.
One of the presenters puts up a totally white slide and says "We started with a totally blank slate." They then go on to talk about the principles they decided to follow in their design: Clarity, Deference, Depth, Detail.
This very approach: starting with a blank slate and choosing principles you will follow based on what feels right is basically Platonism, it is not just a method of designing but of thinking in general, and throughout history it has lead to disaster in many fields of human endeavour.
Design must always follow principles, but the way you get them is not to start with a blank slate and choose ones that feel right. The way you get them is to take iOS 6 and make 2 big lists: things that worked and things that didn't. Then look for *commonalities* among the things that worked, and commonalities among the commonalities, ... until you go abstract enough to arrive at principles. This is the scientific/Aristotelean method of arriving at principles, and has resulted in success in many fields of human endeavour.
Those Discovered Commonalities are what they should have started their Big Redesign with, not a Blank Slate. Maybe then it would have turned out better.
Have you uses ios 7 for an extended period of time to make this statement? Over at MacRumors it seems those that have actually used it (and for more than just a few minutes or an hour) seem to like it. Not everyone of course. And they're not saying it's perfect or doesn't need some work and polish. But they still overall like it.
I applaud Apple for going bold and not just tweaking iOS 6. It will take a while for this new vision to to be perfected; Ive said its a new direction and just a beginning. But from the blank slate to some of Federighi's comments in the keynote its clear that, like the WSJ reported, iOS 7 is a de-Forstallization. I think iOS under Forstall was stagnating. I mean one of the big "features" he touted last year was Siri providing sports scores! I don't know if he was stretched too thin or just coasting on iOS's success but it needed new blood and that's what we foot.
Aesthetic design aside, with Craig and Jony overseeing software I think we will see users given more options than they got from Jobs and Forstall. Yes there are certain things missing from iOS 7 like the ability to select default apps or 3rd party keyboards but I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see those. There were several things in the keynote I saw and wished I had on my iPhone 5 right now. And with Jony having one foot in hardware and software I think we'll see iOS utilize the capabilities of the hardware better than ever. And I wouldn't be surprised if Big Bob Mansfield and his technologies team are working on battery improvements to support some of these new features like advanced multitasking and parallax.
I've used iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 for the past week, and in general, I like it.
It still lacks polish, and crashes a bit, but to be expected as a beta. Overall, it feels the UI/UX is more integrated and done by real designers, not by developers who knows Photoshop (Android)
However, while I think majority of the people will like iOS 7's designs, I think it is time for Apple to provide some theming capabilities..
Have you uses ios 7 for an extended period of time to make this statement? Over at MacRumors it seems those that have actually used it (and for more than just a few minutes or an hour) seem to like it. Not everyone of course. And they're not saying it's perfect or doesn't need some work and polish. But they still overall like it.
I applaud Apple for going bold and not just tweaking iOS 6. It will take a while for this new vision to to be perfected; Ive said its a new direction and just a beginning. But from the blank slate to some of Federighi's comments in the keynote its clear that, like the WSJ reported, iOS 7 is a de-Forstallization. I think iOS under Forstall was stagnating. I mean one of the big "features" he touted last year was Siri providing sports scores! I don't know if he was stretched too thin or just coasting on iOS's success but it needed new blood and that's what we foot.
Aesthetic design aside, with Craig and Jony overseeing software I think we will see users given more options than they got from Jobs and Forstall. Yes there are certain things missing from iOS 7 like the ability to select default apps or 3rd party keyboards but I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see those. There were several things in the keynote I saw and wished I had on my iPhone 5 right now. And with Jony having one foot in hardware and software I think we'll see iOS utilize the capabilities of the hardware better than ever. And I wouldn't be surprised if Big Bob Mansfield and his technologies team are working on battery improvements to support some of these new features like advanced multitasking and parallax.
At your suggestion earlier this week I downloaded the WWDC app watched a couple of the sessions and really enjoyed the What's New in iOS 7 Design (or something like that). It's a must see, especially for anyone who has an opinion on any individual element of the new design, because as you know it talks about the OS as a whole and how all the individual elements work together (and they do in really, really interesting ways).
People who haven't even played with iOS 7 yet getting all worked up about icons (and the sensationalist media that loves to report negative criticism), when this is a change in direction regarding icons in general for iOS (and other ways of interacting with their touch OS) because Apple believes we don't need picture quality icons to represent how you launch an application any longer, and adding a drop shadow to indicate depth would ruin their new depth feature in the OS, and how colours of the icons represent highlight colours within the specific app indicating items that can be selected as they move away from wasting valuable screen real estate with borders delineating buttons to indicate something that can be "pressed."
No matter what, it would never be to everyone's liking - that's impossible, but it's so ridiculous (and laughable) when people feel they are demonstrating their superior intelligence by commenting on a single element of an entirely new OS without having even played with it, or understood at all the context of the change, and while stating categorically that opinion is fact.
Like you I can't wait to get this new OS installed on my iOS devices so I can start playing with and learning it.
You know. I remember all the bitching and whining when X replaces 9.
Teh Snappy etc. The 'lickable'/colour complaints etc.
Mac Os is a Jewel compared to the archaic victorian silk that was Mac Os9.
It's old century vs the new century. Night and Day.
But that didn't stop people complaining. About almost everything. They couldn't see the future like Steve could.
They knew Steve was back...but not quite what he was bringing with him and WHY Apple chose him over BeoS.
X was a revolution over '9.
Likewise.
The iPhone was a revolution back in 2007. Simply unique. The interface was jaw dropping. It's evolved very subtely. However,
It hasn't changed significantly since its debut.
Whereas, Android has, firstly by ripping off iPhone and people like Samsung added bells and whistles (sure, they aren't that useable or practical or intuitive or elegant...) which give the fashional impression Apple is becoming staid.
Even playing with a Samsung S3 (thought its interface seemed drunk, slow and clunky on cheap gimmicks...) had a sense of adding a dynamic...(why? no real reason...gimmicks, like I say...it didn't seem co-ordinated or reasoned...because they just copied Apple so they have no real understanding of interface, certainly not in the same league as Apple do.)
iOS 7.
It adds real logic and purpose to iOS.
You have dynamic planes which add depth but usable context.
The icons are flatter and clear. The design is crisp and communicative. Far more direct with classical design. And seems designed FOR the retina interface. (The iPhone and its interface designed pre-retina.) Now there are more pixels to communicate directly without pixelation. You don't need all the bells and whistles perhaps.
A unified structure from the front to the middle and the back planes.
It all looks more purposeful and cludged. You can get at your stuff, your key stuff quickly. You can use it directly. One swipe and there at Notifciations for example.
Apps are wider. You can use stuff edge to edge of the retina display. Photos edge to edge. Contextual auto labelling.
It may seem pastel and metrosexual to those who aren't comfortable with their feminine side...but they'll have to get over themselves....in the same way the Bondi Blue iMac haters had to.
iOS7 is a breath of fresh air. It's still only Beta. We can expect refinements in this upto launch...and over the coming years. (You know you're doing something right when people begin screaming about a new direction and probably when Samesung start copying...)
Apple made iOS7 flatter...but without looking like an 8 bit interface like Windows phone. They've added dynamics...but unlike Samesung...they have clear design and a sense of purpose...not just different for its own sake or gimmicky.
iOs7 is a masterstroke timed to the perfection. It gives big clues to what's coming next...maybe two bigger iPhones. 4.7 and 5.7 inches with the current 4' donning the 'nano' label.
They'd completely take out Samesung's Oxygen.
iOs7 delivered with panache from Cook (who rightly looked pleased with himself...a charming man and Apple's legacy is safe under his stewardship), Ive (design genius) and Craig (rising star.)
I thought the Slide To Unlock bar was a fail safe of sorts.
In other words, you had to put your finger on that tab to unlock the phone, and prevent accidental activation. Such as, putting the phone in a pocket, and accidentally pressing the power button, or home button, activating the screen. Now that the entire screen is one big slide to unlock button, it strikes me that accidental activations are much more likely than they are currently. And once the screen is active and the phone unlocked that increases accidental interactions with apps.
At your suggestion earlier this week I downloaded the WWDC app watched a couple of the sessions and really enjoyed the What's New in iOS 7 Design (or something like that). It's a must see, especially for anyone who has an opinion on any individual element of the new design, because as you know it talks about the OS as a whole and how all the individual elements work together (and they do in really, really interesting ways).
People who haven't even played with iOS 7 yet getting all worked up about icons (and the sensationalist media that loves to report negative criticism), when this is a change in direction regarding icons in general for iOS (and other ways of interacting with their touch OS) because Apple believes we don't need picture quality icons to represent how you launch an application any longer, and adding a drop shadow to indicate depth would ruin their new depth feature in the OS, and how colours of the icons represent highlight colours within the specific app indicating items that can be selected as they move away from wasting valuable screen real estate with borders delineating buttons to indicate something that can be "pressed."
No matter what, it would never be to everyone's liking - that's impossible, but it's so ridiculous (and laughable) when people feel they are demonstrating their superior intelligence by commenting on a single element of an entirely new OS without having even played with it, or understood at all the context of the change, and while stating categorically that opinion is fact.
Like you I can't wait to get this new OS installed on my iOS devices so I can start playing with and learning it.
The whining (not here so much but elsewhere) is over the top and totally ridiculous. And it's mostly coming from people who haven't spent 5 minutes using iOS 7 but are now all of a sudden UI and UX experts.
Same thing with the new MacPro. I see posts saying Apple should have kept the same form factor but updated the internals. Of course had they done that people would have complained that it lookeds outdated and what has Apple been doing all this time, why aren't they innovating, etc. Basically no matter what Apple does someone will bitch about it and say they should have done something else (or nothing at all). :rolleyes:
The WWDC video "What's New in iOS User Interface Design," clearly explains their thinking, and also explains why it turned out like it did, despite them following good-sounding principles.
One of the presenters puts up a totally white slide and says "We started with a totally blank slate." They then go on to talk about the principles they decided to follow in their design: Clarity, Deference, Depth, Detail.
This very approach: starting with a blank slate and choosing principles you will follow based on what feels right is basically Platonism, it is not just a method of designing but of thinking in general, and throughout history it has lead to disaster in many fields of human endeavour.
Design must always follow principles, but the way you get them is not to start with a blank slate and choose ones that feel right. The way you get them is to take iOS 6 and make 2 big lists: things that worked and things that didn't. Then look for *commonalities* among the things that worked, and commonalities among the commonalities, ... until you go abstract enough to arrive at principles. This is the scientific/Aristotelean method of arriving at principles, and has resulted in success in many fields of human endeavour.
Those Discovered Commonalities are what they should have started their Big Redesign with, not a Blank Slate. Maybe then it would have turned out better.
Actually, your description above is a somewhat outdated view of how science works. Especially with big advances, with scientific revolutions -- e.g., the transition from classical to modern physics -- progress comes much more from starting over with a "blank slate" than from anything resembling the process you describe.
Clearly they had something more ambitious in mind than "fixing iOS 6". And, while they might have done that and possibly maintained the look of iOS 6, one of their goals seems to have been to intentionally change the feel of it. (Although, I think it's actually a bit of an exaggeration that they started with a "blank slate".)
I would also point out that, while much mischief has resulted from the idea of "Philosopher Kings", the problem with this philosophy isn't that it can't result in the best society, but rather that, due to its dependence on the benevolence of the "Philosopher Kings", it can very easily result in the worst society when those "Philosopher Kings" turn out to be ruthless and brutal dictators.
I like the new interface a lot. To me, the phone should be fun. The parallaxing gives the OS depth in a subtle fun manner. The panoramic home screen wallpaper is cool, but if you don't like it, just do not pick such a picture. I personally would not have that as my background all the time, but I could certainly see using it occasionally.
The icons can be adjusted tosize, and the user picks the background picture. Consequently, I do not see your issue because the background image tends to have a significant effect on how the fonts appear giving the phone a user defined personality. Some oficons are nice. Some need work. At the end of the day whether they look good or not is subjective. I like new, and I did not love all the old Safari icons.
Apple really can't win no matter what it does. Many people are calling the GUI stale. I tend to agree. So Apple has to make it different while kind of making it the same. That is an interesting design challenge. I for one think Apple has done a good job. There can be refinements, but I would not change a whole bunch.
It is worth noting many people disliked the interface of OSX when it was first released.
The springboard animation during unlock feels a bit heavy handed, perhaps because of its slowness. It needs work. The parallaxing feature where you tilt your home screen to see "behind the icons" is so odd a UI idea from Apple that I'm left a sort of bewildered. It serves as nothing but a distraction from an otherwise elegantly simple home screen interface. I similarly detest the panoramic home screen wallpapers. And the existence of the animated wallpapers offends me. The icons are so ugly I don't know what to say. The beautiful fonts are harsh on the eyes, given how thin they appear presented on a high contrast background. The lock screen is a bit of a mess, with arrows on the top and bottom of the screen only serving to confuse and complicate the elegant iOS lock screen, with no arrow where it matters: pointing the unlock direction. The camera icon on the lock screen is also somewhat odd in its placement and lack of thoughtful design in what it's trying to convey.
Other than that I like iOS 7, yeah.
To be fair, 7-8 months isn't much time, but I sure as hell hope there's a huge number of changes before GM; not just bug fixes.
Disagree with just about everything. You intentionally over analyze things that you know full well will be changed by release (ie. unlock animation).
Not to mention showing all the signs of typical "I don't deal with change well" mentality.
I'm getting really tired of these people who are so shortsighted. So tired of, "it's different, therefor unfamiliar, therefor not good, therefor I have a right to comment on it without ever studying it. I don't need to study it to feel qualified to comment."
I thought the Slide To Unlock bar was a fail safe of sorts.
In other words, you had to put your finger on that tab to unlock the phone, and prevent accidental activation. Such as, putting the phone in a pocket, and accidentally pressing the power button, or home button, activating the screen. Now that the entire screen is one big slide to unlock button, it strikes me that accidental activations are much more likely than they are currently. And once the screen is active and the phone unlocked that increases accidental interactions with apps.
What evidence do you have to support that?
You said it yourself. You merely "understand" that the old slide to unlock (as in designed 7 or more years ago) had that purpose.
You thereby assume that an easier slide to unlock = people unlocking and butt dialing all day long.
These are the kinda of thoughtless posts that contribute nothing in the form of educated analysis, or even opinion. It's just a summary of what you were once told, what you see now, and the zero-effort conclusion you drew, without a single moment spared for original thought.
Do ya think....maybe....at some point in designing iOS 7....this point came up??
… After years of pleas, Apple has finally added another "active" icon to its first-party app lineup in Clock. With iOS 7, the Clock app's icon now reflects the correct time and even includes a moving second hand. ...
I will never understand why people thought this was important enough to "plead" about or are particularly pleased now that it's happened.
In the first place, you have to open the phone and thus go right by a much larger, clearer, easier to read representation of the time to even see this clock icon. Also the "clock's" main utility is actually as a timer, not as a time piece. it takes far too many swipes and taps to get the clock to show you the time for it to be even passing useful as such.
Finally, as well as being incredibly tiny and hard to see, it's a f*cking analogue clock. It takes extra time to look at the dial and interpret from the position of the hands what the heck the time even is, whereas a proper digital clock (like the one on the lock screen of the f*cking phone), simply tells you right out.
It's a practically useless feature that mainly harkens back to the old-timey days of clocks on the wall. It was rightly added as an afterthought, not as a "pleaded for" improvement. It has zero practical value and is really in the same category as things like the shredder animation in Passbook (it's almost the definition of skeuomorphic), which everyone is currently celebrating the demise of.
Battery life sucks ass. If you play Clash of Clans, say goodbye to your battery life. I have to manually kill it after I'm done each time, because, otherwise, it'll run in the background. ...
You realise how completely ridiculous it is to say it's Apple's fault the battery life "sucks" while at the same time identifying a third party app as the source of your battery life problem?
The WWDC video "What's New in iOS User Interface Design," clearly explains their thinking, and also explains why it turned out like it did, despite them following good-sounding principles.
One of the presenters puts up a totally white slide and says "We started with a totally blank slate." They then go on to talk about the principles they decided to follow in their design: Clarity, Deference, Depth, Detail.
This very approach: starting with a blank slate and choosing principles you will follow based on what feels right is basically Platonism, it is not just a method of designing but of thinking in general, and throughout history it has lead to disaster in many fields of human endeavour.
Design must always follow principles, but the way you get them is not to start with a blank slate and choose ones that feel right. The way you get them is to take iOS 6 and make 2 big lists: things that worked and things that didn't. Then look for *commonalities* among the things that worked, and commonalities among the commonalities, ... until you go abstract enough to arrive at principles. This is the scientific/Aristotelean method of arriving at principles, and has resulted in success in many fields of human endeavour.
Those Discovered Commonalities are what they should have started their Big Redesign with, not a Blank Slate. Maybe then it would have turned out better.
I like the way you've parsed this into Aristotelian and Platonic modes, but I think it reveals your mistake. Aristotle is all about science and logic and your Aristotelian methods are more suited to engineering than design. Design is not a scientific pursuit. It isn't logical or reductive. Plato is a much better choice if you have to pick one or the other.
The WWDC video "What's New in iOS User Interface Design," clearly explains their thinking, and also explains why it turned out like it did, despite them following good-sounding principles.
One of the presenters puts up a totally white slide and says "We started with a totally blank slate." They then go on to talk about the principles they decided to follow in their design: Clarity, Deference, Depth, Detail.
This very approach: starting with a blank slate and choosing principles you will follow based on what feels right is basically Platonism, it is not just a method of designing but of thinking in general, and throughout history it has lead to disaster in many fields of human endeavour.
Design must always follow principles, but the way you get them is not to start with a blank slate and choose ones that feel right. The way you get them is to take iOS 6 and make 2 big lists: things that worked and things that didn't. Then look for *commonalities* among the things that worked, and commonalities among the commonalities, ... until you go abstract enough to arrive at principles. This is the scientific/Aristotelean method of arriving at principles, and has resulted in success in many fields of human endeavour.
Those Discovered Commonalities are what they should have started their Big Redesign with, not a Blank Slate. Maybe then it would have turned out better.
Wrong. Just, wrong. The worst thing you can do when creating a NEW design is even look at the old one.
Doing as you suggest immediately takes you out of new design and handicaps you into merely tweaking the old design.
They purposely did not do this, because they wanted something new and good. They delivered.
i always find comments bemusing that are essentially about personal prejudices, individual likes/dislikes, and pet peeves/fixations. rant on!
but as to analysis ...
it is clearly true that most of the new/improved built-in features of iOS 7 are "catch up" implementations of popular/worthwhile features of other OS' and/or third party apps. and after all, it would be very stupid of Apple not to do that, and there are maybe two dozen of these in iOS 7 - a lot. but the key question for all of them is whether their iOS implementation and UI is as good as or even better than the original, or at least more convenient to use.
and then there are the several new features that are real "advancements" - important evolutionary steps forward (that other OS' will likely match next time). iOS 7 has some - Find My iPhone security, iOS in the Car (when it is deployed), unified game controller API's, and a few others.
lastly would be real "innovations" that break new ground for portable computing (like Siri did for iOS 6). i don't see any of these in iOS 7 - yet (the next iPhone may still add something that is hardware based, like fingerprint passwords). which likely explains the tepid response of many to it.
btw, the entire Apple ecosystem, including OS X Mavericks, should be a part of any analysis. a number of "catch ups" and "advancements" to Apple's cloud ecosystem were announced too, but no "innovations" (like AirPlay proved to be).
Finally then, there is the "packaging" - the look/feel/style of the UI. this is what has been getting most of the attention this past week. what AI is mainly writing about in this post is the well-known Apple "polish" - careful attention to all the little details - that sets its packaging apart from all the rest. what many are complaining about is instead its superficial style - icon design and colors, etc. (which are very easy to change).
not being a developer, i don't have my hands on iOS 7 yet. ask me what i think later this year when i do. All together, it may prove to be a great leap ahead - if the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. but the superficial style is the least important to me, personally.
Comments
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one saying iOS has flat design.
THIS!! The whole point of the iPhone in the first place besides blending a phone with an iPod, was that it was supposed to be something you wanted to use rather than have to use. It's the one thing you are guaranteed to interact with on a daily basis. While it was certainly fun to use in the beginning, as of late I find the iPhone more of something I have to use rather than enjoy using. The UI is absolutely crucial to your experience with the device. While the smartphone is just a medium for app consumption, calls, and texts how it displays these things directly affects your relationship with it. While iOS is simple and beautiful in it's own right it's just not that much fun to use anymore sadly. I don't think we need a whole lot of gimmicks like Samsung does, but the subtle graphical changes and lively colors should do the trick just fine. Also adding more first party applications like a flashlight, filters for the camera, and iTunes radio should help in actually using the iPhone instead of other apps. Bring on iOS 7 Apple!
I agree, the slide to unlock action still being to the right with the only visual on screen being an arrow pointing up for the control panel is an example of where they need to keep working. There are many similar examples throughout where only previous knowledge can possibly lead to knowing what to do which is obviously going to dumbfound a new user.
It is very important for beta testers to give this feed back and I am sure they will.
I applaud Apple for going bold and not just tweaking iOS 6. It will take a while for this new vision to to be perfected; Ive said its a new direction and just a beginning. But from the blank slate to some of Federighi's comments in the keynote its clear that, like the WSJ reported, iOS 7 is a de-Forstallization. I think iOS under Forstall was stagnating. I mean one of the big "features" he touted last year was Siri providing sports scores! I don't know if he was stretched too thin or just coasting on iOS's success but it needed new blood and that's what we foot.
Aesthetic design aside, with Craig and Jony overseeing software I think we will see users given more options than they got from Jobs and Forstall. Yes there are certain things missing from iOS 7 like the ability to select default apps or 3rd party keyboards but I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see those. There were several things in the keynote I saw and wished I had on my iPhone 5 right now. And with Jony having one foot in hardware and software I think we'll see iOS utilize the capabilities of the hardware better than ever. And I wouldn't be surprised if Big Bob Mansfield and his technologies team are working on battery improvements to support some of these new features like advanced multitasking and parallax.
I've used iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 for the past week, and in general, I like it.
It still lacks polish, and crashes a bit, but to be expected as a beta. Overall, it feels the UI/UX is more integrated and done by real designers, not by developers who knows Photoshop (Android)
However, while I think majority of the people will like iOS 7's designs, I think it is time for Apple to provide some theming capabilities..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
Have you uses ios 7 for an extended period of time to make this statement? Over at MacRumors it seems those that have actually used it (and for more than just a few minutes or an hour) seem to like it. Not everyone of course. And they're not saying it's perfect or doesn't need some work and polish. But they still overall like it.
I applaud Apple for going bold and not just tweaking iOS 6. It will take a while for this new vision to to be perfected; Ive said its a new direction and just a beginning. But from the blank slate to some of Federighi's comments in the keynote its clear that, like the WSJ reported, iOS 7 is a de-Forstallization. I think iOS under Forstall was stagnating. I mean one of the big "features" he touted last year was Siri providing sports scores! I don't know if he was stretched too thin or just coasting on iOS's success but it needed new blood and that's what we foot.
Aesthetic design aside, with Craig and Jony overseeing software I think we will see users given more options than they got from Jobs and Forstall. Yes there are certain things missing from iOS 7 like the ability to select default apps or 3rd party keyboards but I wouldn't be surprised to eventually see those. There were several things in the keynote I saw and wished I had on my iPhone 5 right now. And with Jony having one foot in hardware and software I think we'll see iOS utilize the capabilities of the hardware better than ever. And I wouldn't be surprised if Big Bob Mansfield and his technologies team are working on battery improvements to support some of these new features like advanced multitasking and parallax.
At your suggestion earlier this week I downloaded the WWDC app watched a couple of the sessions and really enjoyed the What's New in iOS 7 Design (or something like that). It's a must see, especially for anyone who has an opinion on any individual element of the new design, because as you know it talks about the OS as a whole and how all the individual elements work together (and they do in really, really interesting ways).
People who haven't even played with iOS 7 yet getting all worked up about icons (and the sensationalist media that loves to report negative criticism), when this is a change in direction regarding icons in general for iOS (and other ways of interacting with their touch OS) because Apple believes we don't need picture quality icons to represent how you launch an application any longer, and adding a drop shadow to indicate depth would ruin their new depth feature in the OS, and how colours of the icons represent highlight colours within the specific app indicating items that can be selected as they move away from wasting valuable screen real estate with borders delineating buttons to indicate something that can be "pressed."
No matter what, it would never be to everyone's liking - that's impossible, but it's so ridiculous (and laughable) when people feel they are demonstrating their superior intelligence by commenting on a single element of an entirely new OS without having even played with it, or understood at all the context of the change, and while stating categorically that opinion is fact.
Like you I can't wait to get this new OS installed on my iOS devices so I can start playing with and learning it.
You know. I remember all the bitching and whining when X replaces 9.
Teh Snappy etc. The 'lickable'/colour complaints etc.
Mac Os is a Jewel compared to the archaic victorian silk that was Mac Os9.
It's old century vs the new century. Night and Day.
But that didn't stop people complaining. About almost everything. They couldn't see the future like Steve could.
They knew Steve was back...but not quite what he was bringing with him and WHY Apple chose him over BeoS.
X was a revolution over '9.
Likewise.
The iPhone was a revolution back in 2007. Simply unique. The interface was jaw dropping. It's evolved very subtely. However,
It hasn't changed significantly since its debut.
Whereas, Android has, firstly by ripping off iPhone and people like Samsung added bells and whistles (sure, they aren't that useable or practical or intuitive or elegant...) which give the fashional impression Apple is becoming staid.
Even playing with a Samsung S3 (thought its interface seemed drunk, slow and clunky on cheap gimmicks...) had a sense of adding a dynamic...(why? no real reason...gimmicks, like I say...it didn't seem co-ordinated or reasoned...because they just copied Apple so they have no real understanding of interface, certainly not in the same league as Apple do.)
iOS 7.
It adds real logic and purpose to iOS.
You have dynamic planes which add depth but usable context.
The icons are flatter and clear. The design is crisp and communicative. Far more direct with classical design. And seems designed FOR the retina interface. (The iPhone and its interface designed pre-retina.) Now there are more pixels to communicate directly without pixelation. You don't need all the bells and whistles perhaps.
A unified structure from the front to the middle and the back planes.
It all looks more purposeful and cludged. You can get at your stuff, your key stuff quickly. You can use it directly. One swipe and there at Notifciations for example.
Apps are wider. You can use stuff edge to edge of the retina display. Photos edge to edge. Contextual auto labelling.
It may seem pastel and metrosexual to those who aren't comfortable with their feminine side...but they'll have to get over themselves....in the same way the Bondi Blue iMac haters had to.
iOS7 is a breath of fresh air. It's still only Beta. We can expect refinements in this upto launch...and over the coming years. (You know you're doing something right when people begin screaming about a new direction and probably when Samesung start copying...)
Apple made iOS7 flatter...but without looking like an 8 bit interface like Windows phone. They've added dynamics...but unlike Samesung...they have clear design and a sense of purpose...not just different for its own sake or gimmicky.
iOs7 is a masterstroke timed to the perfection. It gives big clues to what's coming next...maybe two bigger iPhones. 4.7 and 5.7 inches with the current 4' donning the 'nano' label.
They'd completely take out Samesung's Oxygen.
iOs7 delivered with panache from Cook (who rightly looked pleased with himself...a charming man and Apple's legacy is safe under his stewardship), Ive (design genius) and Craig (rising star.)
They did a great job.
Can't wait for its release.
Lemon Bon Bon.
In other words, you had to put your finger on that tab to unlock the phone, and prevent accidental activation. Such as, putting the phone in a pocket, and accidentally pressing the power button, or home button, activating the screen. Now that the entire screen is one big slide to unlock button, it strikes me that accidental activations are much more likely than they are currently. And once the screen is active and the phone unlocked that increases accidental interactions with apps.
Same thing with the new MacPro. I see posts saying Apple should have kept the same form factor but updated the internals. Of course had they done that people would have complained that it lookeds outdated and what has Apple been doing all this time, why aren't they innovating, etc. Basically no matter what Apple does someone will bitch about it and say they should have done something else (or nothing at all). :rolleyes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
The WWDC video "What's New in iOS User Interface Design," clearly explains their thinking, and also explains why it turned out like it did, despite them following good-sounding principles.
One of the presenters puts up a totally white slide and says "We started with a totally blank slate." They then go on to talk about the principles they decided to follow in their design: Clarity, Deference, Depth, Detail.
This very approach: starting with a blank slate and choosing principles you will follow based on what feels right is basically Platonism, it is not just a method of designing but of thinking in general, and throughout history it has lead to disaster in many fields of human endeavour.
Design must always follow principles, but the way you get them is not to start with a blank slate and choose ones that feel right. The way you get them is to take iOS 6 and make 2 big lists: things that worked and things that didn't. Then look for *commonalities* among the things that worked, and commonalities among the commonalities, ... until you go abstract enough to arrive at principles. This is the scientific/Aristotelean method of arriving at principles, and has resulted in success in many fields of human endeavour.
Those Discovered Commonalities are what they should have started their Big Redesign with, not a Blank Slate. Maybe then it would have turned out better.
Actually, your description above is a somewhat outdated view of how science works. Especially with big advances, with scientific revolutions -- e.g., the transition from classical to modern physics -- progress comes much more from starting over with a "blank slate" than from anything resembling the process you describe.
Clearly they had something more ambitious in mind than "fixing iOS 6". And, while they might have done that and possibly maintained the look of iOS 6, one of their goals seems to have been to intentionally change the feel of it. (Although, I think it's actually a bit of an exaggeration that they started with a "blank slate".)
I would also point out that, while much mischief has resulted from the idea of "Philosopher Kings", the problem with this philosophy isn't that it can't result in the best society, but rather that, due to its dependence on the benevolence of the "Philosopher Kings", it can very easily result in the worst society when those "Philosopher Kings" turn out to be ruthless and brutal dictators.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TBell
I like the new interface a lot. To me, the phone should be fun. The parallaxing gives the OS depth in a subtle fun manner. The panoramic home screen wallpaper is cool, but if you don't like it, just do not pick such a picture. I personally would not have that as my background all the time, but I could certainly see using it occasionally.
The icons can be adjusted to size, and the user picks the background picture. Consequently, I do not see your issue because the background image tends to have a significant effect on how the fonts appear giving the phone a user defined personality. Some of icons are nice. Some need work. At the end of the day whether they look good or not is subjective. I like new, and I did not love all the old Safari icons.
Apple really can't win no matter what it does. Many people are calling the GUI stale. I tend to agree. So Apple has to make it different while kind of making it the same. That is an interesting design challenge. I for one think Apple has done a good job. There can be refinements, but I would not change a whole bunch.
It is worth noting many people disliked the interface of OSX when it was first released.
Well said - I agree with you on everything here.
Disagree with just about everything. You intentionally over analyze things that you know full well will be changed by release (ie. unlock animation).
Not to mention showing all the signs of typical "I don't deal with change well" mentality.
I'm getting really tired of these people who are so shortsighted. So tired of, "it's different, therefor unfamiliar, therefor not good, therefor I have a right to comment on it without ever studying it. I don't need to study it to feel qualified to comment."
It's tired. I'm tired.
What evidence do you have to support that?
You said it yourself. You merely "understand" that the old slide to unlock (as in designed 7 or more years ago) had that purpose.
You thereby assume that an easier slide to unlock = people unlocking and butt dialing all day long.
These are the kinda of thoughtless posts that contribute nothing in the form of educated analysis, or even opinion. It's just a summary of what you were once told, what you see now, and the zero-effort conclusion you drew, without a single moment spared for original thought.
Do ya think....maybe....at some point in designing iOS 7....this point came up??
Relax. They have a clue what they're doing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
… After years of pleas, Apple has finally added another "active" icon to its first-party app lineup in Clock. With iOS 7, the Clock app's icon now reflects the correct time and even includes a moving second hand. ...
I will never understand why people thought this was important enough to "plead" about or are particularly pleased now that it's happened.
In the first place, you have to open the phone and thus go right by a much larger, clearer, easier to read representation of the time to even see this clock icon. Also the "clock's" main utility is actually as a timer, not as a time piece. it takes far too many swipes and taps to get the clock to show you the time for it to be even passing useful as such.
Finally, as well as being incredibly tiny and hard to see, it's a f*cking analogue clock. It takes extra time to look at the dial and interpret from the position of the hands what the heck the time even is, whereas a proper digital clock (like the one on the lock screen of the f*cking phone), simply tells you right out.
It's a practically useless feature that mainly harkens back to the old-timey days of clocks on the wall. It was rightly added as an afterthought, not as a "pleaded for" improvement. It has zero practical value and is really in the same category as things like the shredder animation in Passbook (it's almost the definition of skeuomorphic), which everyone is currently celebrating the demise of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 65C816
Battery life sucks ass. If you play Clash of Clans, say goodbye to your battery life. I have to manually kill it after I'm done each time, because, otherwise, it'll run in the background. ...
You realise how completely ridiculous it is to say it's Apple's fault the battery life "sucks" while at the same time identifying a third party app as the source of your battery life problem?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
The WWDC video "What's New in iOS User Interface Design," clearly explains their thinking, and also explains why it turned out like it did, despite them following good-sounding principles.
One of the presenters puts up a totally white slide and says "We started with a totally blank slate." They then go on to talk about the principles they decided to follow in their design: Clarity, Deference, Depth, Detail.
This very approach: starting with a blank slate and choosing principles you will follow based on what feels right is basically Platonism, it is not just a method of designing but of thinking in general, and throughout history it has lead to disaster in many fields of human endeavour.
Design must always follow principles, but the way you get them is not to start with a blank slate and choose ones that feel right. The way you get them is to take iOS 6 and make 2 big lists: things that worked and things that didn't. Then look for *commonalities* among the things that worked, and commonalities among the commonalities, ... until you go abstract enough to arrive at principles. This is the scientific/Aristotelean method of arriving at principles, and has resulted in success in many fields of human endeavour.
Those Discovered Commonalities are what they should have started their Big Redesign with, not a Blank Slate. Maybe then it would have turned out better.
I like the way you've parsed this into Aristotelian and Platonic modes, but I think it reveals your mistake. Aristotle is all about science and logic and your Aristotelian methods are more suited to engineering than design. Design is not a scientific pursuit. It isn't logical or reductive. Plato is a much better choice if you have to pick one or the other.
Wrong. Just, wrong. The worst thing you can do when creating a NEW design is even look at the old one.
Doing as you suggest immediately takes you out of new design and handicaps you into merely tweaking the old design.
They purposely did not do this, because they wanted something new and good. They delivered.
i always find comments bemusing that are essentially about personal prejudices, individual likes/dislikes, and pet peeves/fixations. rant on!
but as to analysis ...
it is clearly true that most of the new/improved built-in features of iOS 7 are "catch up" implementations of popular/worthwhile features of other OS' and/or third party apps. and after all, it would be very stupid of Apple not to do that, and there are maybe two dozen of these in iOS 7 - a lot. but the key question for all of them is whether their iOS implementation and UI is as good as or even better than the original, or at least more convenient to use.
and then there are the several new features that are real "advancements" - important evolutionary steps forward (that other OS' will likely match next time). iOS 7 has some - Find My iPhone security, iOS in the Car (when it is deployed), unified game controller API's, and a few others.
lastly would be real "innovations" that break new ground for portable computing (like Siri did for iOS 6). i don't see any of these in iOS 7 - yet (the next iPhone may still add something that is hardware based, like fingerprint passwords). which likely explains the tepid response of many to it.
btw, the entire Apple ecosystem, including OS X Mavericks, should be a part of any analysis. a number of "catch ups" and "advancements" to Apple's cloud ecosystem were announced too, but no "innovations" (like AirPlay proved to be).
Finally then, there is the "packaging" - the look/feel/style of the UI. this is what has been getting most of the attention this past week. what AI is mainly writing about in this post is the well-known Apple "polish" - careful attention to all the little details - that sets its packaging apart from all the rest. what many are complaining about is instead its superficial style - icon design and colors, etc. (which are very easy to change).
not being a developer, i don't have my hands on iOS 7 yet. ask me what i think later this year when i do. All together, it may prove to be a great leap ahead - if the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. but the superficial style is the least important to me, personally.
Congrats on liking the worst icon the most.