iCloud.com Beta Gets iOS 7-Inspired Makeover

[FreeWoRLD83]

Yep.

I don't have developer account, I just signed in on my iPhone 5 that has its UDID registered. Beta.iCloud is available to me now with iWork.

 

[JarJarThomas]

All this cloud stuff is great but it still leaves a lot to be desired. Mail should let you use your own domain/accounts instead of forcing @me.com and they should have some dropbox-style filesystem where several users could have access.

This is technically Not possible.

 

[rydewnd2]

Mail is missing delete button or i'm blind.

It's called the delete key on your keyboard. Why have a UI button for it?

 

[Todd B.]

you clearly havent used 10.9 then

Did you not see the preview at WWDC? They showed off calendar looking exactly like that.

 

[myrtlebee]

Not really understanding the shadowing / shading of the Contacts app to create the illusion of 3-dimensional tabs and a contact book effect. It's skeumorphism. Why not eliminate the shadows and 3D effect? Better yet, retain a silhouette of two people and forget the lettered tabs.

 

[Todd B.]

Apple can't afford a Miss right now. They have to hit a home run. If you look at it from a marketshare perspective, unfortunately they are not keeping pace. If you look at it from a profit perspective, same thing. They need to make this one stick and stick hard. I don't see a crappy me-too stark design hitting it out of the park.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

Nonsense. The only people who have a problem with Apple are tech blogs and commentators who constantly need something to complain about.

Apple has always been a premium brand; the cheap brands, like Android, will always have quantity but Apple has never gone after quantity before, just quality.

Go outside of the tech bubble and you'll see things are just fine.

Also, are people REALLY complaining about icons when you only see them for a whole two seconds while opening the app?

 

[Setok]

I can understand people having a preference for skeuomorphic/rich texture design but I don't get how they can think it looks modern i.e. not dated. Seriously some of the skeuomorphic elements remind me of Microsoft Bob.

There were questionable pieces of skeuomorphism and some less so. Skeuomorphism is neither right nor wrong. It can be used to create beauty, and used to create something horrible.

Are you saying that CorelDraw 1.0 era vector drawings and gradients is not dated?

Though yeah, every good hipster knows that retro is in, so we should go back to using those good old X Terminals and Windows 3.

 

[notrack]

Wondering if the same will happen to Mavericks before release.

But I do have hope thea they keep it separate as Tim said that they are aware of how different iOS and OS X work.

As Steve Jobs once said "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works".

Or said in another way — It is wrong to separate what design looks like from how it works. Not looking or feeling good will affect how a piece of design works.

Agree. I see Apple turning south here, leaving the premium design competence position.

 

[Setok]

How does it look like MS design? It's clean, uncluttered, without ads and nice typography. Doesn't feel MS at all to me. Do you have something from MS to compare it to?

I'm talking 'new Microsoft'. The one that started to arrive with Vista and went on from there. The use of blur. There's something very 'bing' about that login page.

It's by no means my biggest gripe. I just don't see it as a huge improvement over the old one.

Just in case you think I think everything should be skeuomorphic, or that I always dislike minimalism, you can look at our own company's website ( https://holvi.com/ ), where we do aim for a minimalistic, but colourful approach.

I would always look up to what Apple was doing design-wise, but now maybe less than ever before.

 

[chalmers4three]

I cannot seem to access beta.iCloud.com on my iPad am I suppose to be able to access this page?

 

[jtfolden]

I recall when OSX was first presented by Steve, he showed us Aqua, and proclaimed that the interface would be so beautiful that we would want to lick it.

This new turn in design at Apple doesn't have that effect on me, rather, it makes me feel like the interface is less personal/personable. It seems trendy, and to be change-for-the-sake-of-change. I'm not sure it offers me anything beneficial as a user. In fact, I find the new trend of minimalism and flatness to be more boring and annoying to use.

Do you remember the interface that was so beautiful that you'd want to lick it?

At the time, everyone and their brother thought of it as "trendy, and to be change-for-the-sake-of-change"... but Apple refined it over the years. I'm pretty sure we're in the same position now.

 

[DUCKofD3ATH]

Wow, the comparison couldn't be starker! You have the beautiful iWork icons, each of which is a work of art, versus the bland, amateurish iOS 7 piffle.

Jony Ive is a genius, but he's gone too far with the icon redesign. Yes, bound leather skeuomorphism was a bad idea, but replacing it with icons that look like they were created from construction paper by kindergartners is bad in the opposite direction.

Seek balance, J.

 

[Jaligard]

How ridiculous is it that people are considering a change in OS just because of icons? The world has gone mad

Well, let me give you my perspective.

I've been using Apple computers since I can remember. We had a II+ when I was really young and my father bought the second Macintosh available for sale in Ventura County. I've never owned a Windows machine and very thankful I have an iMac here at work. Figuring out anything on a Mac is usually intuitive and second nature. On Windows, I have to reset my brain: some engineer thought this feature would be easy to use; where did they hide it?

I knew iOS 7 was going to be flat, so I was prepared for some disappointment. I don't like the flat design trend. But whatever.

Flat isn't the issue (mostly). The first, biggest issue, is that they first launched everything in Helvetica Ultra Light. Then they put white text on blue backgrounds, and yellow text on white backgrounds. So I'm looking at screenshots and I have to squint to read them.

Then they've got this frosted glass look going on which makes everything fuzzy. Multi-colored fuzzy. On to this, they throw thin lines in white or dark gray. Hard to see, hard to focus — and the background makes it hard to know if you're focused.

Then we've got all these apps which are just white screens with text. They've got white borders on the top and bottom, with that same frosted glass, and the only thing that differentiates them is colored text and line-icons (in some eye-bleeding color). So the app is a sea of white with plain text. I've got no visual clues what is important to look at. And yeah, I can figure it out, but borders with contrasting colors (like most apps have now) make it so that I don't have to.

The bottom line is that I have to think to use this OS. Even on the micro level of where-do-I-need-to-point-my-eyes. I grew up on Apple products. I've occasionally had to figure out where they hid this or that, and I'm laughed every now and again about some poor design decisions. There have been missteps. But I've never had to really think to get basic visual information.

I've never had Apple present me with information that I couldn't process because the background was blurry, or they picked the wrong font. I've never had to convince my eyes what was the important information.

The icons are bad, but I can live with them. They're the easiest thing to fix. I wish they'd gotten the icons right so that people could get to the bigger issues.

This is a cold operating system with little of the delight Apple's shown year after year. It hurts my eyes to look at — and my eyes aren't that bad. I've never had a problem reading my current phone with iOS 6.

The reason I'm considering what OS is in my future is that if Apple has lost their way this much, why should I stick with them?

 

[DanTheAppleMan]

Don't get me wrong - I like change. I think it's great that iOS is being freshened up, but I'm sorry to say that just looks ugly.

I was always proud to be seen logging into iCloud because it looked so nice - i'd happily take it fullscreen to work in what I felt to be a very beautiful and comforting environment.
A lot of people disliked the 'skeuomorphism' but it felt to me very homely. The wood was like my desk - the yellow paper was like a legal pad (which I find much easier to look at anyway, I think i'll struggle with the white) - the leather was like my notebook.
This feels very much like a decision was made to change the design, and as soon as they got to something that looked sufficiently 'fresh' they went with it. I don't know what sort of thought process went into it, I'm sure it was sufficient, but although I don't dislike the new design I am strongly going to miss the old one.

When I first gazed upon Mac OS and later iOS I was struck simply by how 'nice' it looked. It wasn't too sleek and plain looking, it was just nice. With the coming of Lion I found myself in a world of comforting textures that looked like they belonged there, and I loved it. Now... I can only say, I'm disappointed.

(Sorry to rant, but hey. It's an opinion of mine and if I'm encouraged to voice it I shall.)

 

[iSimx]

Why is it still called Find my iPhone? Isn't it confusing to new users?

 

[donutbagel]

It's OK, but the font is a little too slim. It doesn't look like a finished product yet.

 

[itguy06]

Nonsense. The only people who have a problem with Apple are tech blogs and commentators who constantly need something to complain about.

Apple has always been a premium brand; the cheap brands, like Android, will always have quantity but Apple has never gone after quantity before, just quality.

Go outside of the tech bubble and you'll see things are just fine.

Also, are people REALLY complaining about icons when you only see them for a whole two seconds while opening the app?

Really? I think you need to re-think your position. Apple stock is off around $200 from it's high. Think about it this way - every share you have now lost $200 of value from the high. There is a reason for that and it's because the perception is that there is a problem at Apple. Real or not, that is the perception and when you're selling a premium product perception is everything.

You also have to make people desire your product. Make them want to plunk down $$$ over that free or cheap Android phone. You can point to the ecosystem, the apps, etc. but at the end of the day if the consumer is turned off by what they see they will go to your competitor. Make people (and the buzz) that iOS 7 is not good, ugly, whatever and people won't buy it. Look at Windows 8 - most are turned off by it and sales are in the crapper. Apple releases one like that and it's game over.

Apple has to tell why it's a premium product and make people lust after it. The same way Nike makes people lust after $200 Air Jordans, $200 Air Maxes, Coach has it's purse people, Louis Vitton gets $300+ for a pair of flip flops, etc. Make something that people look at and go huh? will kill a luxury brand faster than you can say kill.

That's what Apple is up against here - their part of the smartphone pie is slipping ever so slightly but where there is slipping it starts a free fall to the bottom. Look at Microsoft for how it starts. That needs to not happen to Apple.

 

[Branskins]

Wow, the comparison couldn't be starker! You have the beautiful iWork icons, each of which is a work of art, versus the bland, amateurish iOS 7 piffle.

Seek balance, J.

The iWork icons are beautiful? I think the Find My iPhone is much sleeker and nicer than the iWork ones.

The Number's icon always looked like clipart to me

 

[Mainsail]

I checked out the beta version, and it looks pretty good to me. I like the feature that allows you to jump between Apps without returning to the Home page. Also, iWorks in the cloud is pretty smooth and probably more than sufficient for most consumers' home documents. The design changes for the other Apps are ok with me. They look pretty clean and simple. iCloud.com is a simple way to access your cloud information with a browser on pretty much any desktop or laptop. Although, I would like to see a Photostream App added to the mix.

The trend is pretty clear. More and more folks are doing their computing on mobile devices (especially Tablets) that sync to the cloud. People are upgrading their desktop/laptop less frequently. When people do buy a new computer, it will serve primarily as a browser and media storage device. So....they will be looking for lower cost machines to do these simple functions. Which means razor thin margins for desktops and laptops.

 

[bassfingers]

So people under 30 don't get utility bills?!

I think it was sarcasm, but to answer your question: no. My utilities are emailed to me and automatically drafted from my bank account

 

[spaceballl]

I'm really excited for iOS7, but man I think it looks ugly.

 

[Icaras]

OSX... that's all you needed to type for me to ignore your comment.

It's OS X (OS Ten).

And yet, you still replied to my comment.

If you had looked at my signature before commenting you might have deduced that I made a simple typing error. And how did you hear me through the computer verbally saying the letter "X"? You're not NSA, are you? Assuming of course, I verbally speak all my posts while typing, which is a bit odd to begin with.

 

[iisdan]

Looks like ****ing ****.

 

[devilbond]

First time Apple's online mail service hasn't looked cr#p in... ever.

 

[Gudi]

How ridiculous is it that people are considering a change in OS just because of icons? The world has gone mad.

People changed from Windows to Mac only because of better icons and better design. There is no reason to pay a premium for Apple products, if they stop to be nicer and lovelier than Android and Windows.