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6 visionOS-Inspired Design Elements Coming to iOS 26
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Unless they provide value at an acceptable price. You're also acting like people will have to wear them all the time; do you hold your smartphone in front of you all the time?
Most people in 1999 would call you crazy if you predicted they would spend a grand on a telephone which they would stare at for hours at a time. Email, AOL and BBSes can wait till I get home.
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The difference is that (excepting the dock) transparency in early Mac OS X was always used intentionally. They used it to convey information about state (a background vs foreground window) or because a thing was temporary.
Aero (and VisionOS) use transparency everywhere.
On Vision OS it actually does make a little bit of sense. They're trying to let you see through things to the world behind, however I would argue that even there it makes an unnecessary trade off in clarity and usability for the sake of a more "immersive" experience. Is that trade of worth it? I don't know, maybe in visionOS it is, but in any OS where you don't actually look through it to the world behind I don't think it is.
Well, that's not exactly "liking wearing glasses" - you just (quite reasonably) feel that it's the least worst alternative - laser surgery isn't a decision to take lightly and contacts can be a chore. They're not even suitable for everybody who needs glasses.
Then, someone's got to pay for prescription lenses/inserts for your Vision Pro - which won't be cheap especially if you need things like astigmatism correction rather than simple lenses.
Now there's all of the other vision-related problems - I bet some people will get headaches and nausea from using VR for prolonged periods - it's almost a certainty with "just stereoscopic" VR which sends contradictory signals to the brain if it isn't perfectly backed up by eye/focus tracking, motion tracking etc. A bit of lag in any of those and it's gonna be headache time for many people.
...and for every person who genuinely can't tolerate VR there will be 5 people who blame it for whatever health problems they experience after using it. So apart from the magic Ray-Ban-sized VR goggles, you'll also need Wonder Woman's magic lasso to sort out the people who have genuine problems.
The problem is that Apple are partly pitching this as a tool for work which means you have to think like an employer who has to persuade 30 employees to wear VR gear for 8 hours a day - and provide alternatives for those who can't/won't use it. Which could turn out to be pretty exclusionary for those people.
I am really looking forward to this new design to get some “fresh paint” for Apple OSs. Design-wise and aesthetically Apple are still ahead of Android. Features and functionality wise, however, we shall see, as after Google’s I/O performance Apple will really need to work hard to stay on top. Like it or not, the AI devices are the very near future, hence Jony Ive is working with OpenAI to get something “amazing” to the market next year.
From what we can currently see, Apple are focusing mostly on polishing details, like smaller Dynamic Islands, “only one dot” for front-facing camera (Android had it forever) and… a folding iPhone possibly next year. This is the same year when Ive’s device should come to the market and Google’s Gemini could be everywhere by then. What will Apple do? Once the new OpenAI hardware device is out, they might pull out of their Siri coop. In this case, will Gemini integration work better for Apple users than Google Maps back in the days? For now I can see more questions than answers…
From what we can currently see, Apple are focusing mostly on polishing details, like smaller Dynamic Islands, “only one dot” for front-facing camera (Android had it forever) and… a folding iPhone possibly next year. This is the same year when Ive’s device should come to the market and Google’s Gemini could be everywhere by then. What will Apple do? Once the new OpenAI hardware device is out, they might pull out of their Siri coop. In this case, will Gemini integration work better for Apple users than Google Maps back in the days? For now I can see more questions than answers…
I don't, and that's why I mentioned that it's much more convenient to pull out your phone than having to put glasses on and off all the time.
Regardless of how much value they provide, I don't think we'll have a world where people are wearing glasses constantly like people are using their smartphones constantly today.
I'm not sure why you are positioning them as a 1:1 replacement for your phone, when it's fairly obvious they have different use cases. Your phone will be more convenient for certain things, but I think we will see something similar to how people use folding phones where your "phone" where the smaller outside screen will be used for shorter sessions and the larger screen (glasses) are used for longer sessions where a big screen is nicer.
Back in BBS days no one would have predicted how we commonly use smartphones and the internet now. It's shortsighted to believe everyone will be using connected devices in 10-20 years exactly the same we do now. You are correct that older, more inflexible people will gravitate to the same kind of devices they use now; for example, I have a good friend who is in his 60s and he is perfectly content with his dumbphone and desktop computer which he keeps in an actual computer room despite his kids having smartphones.
New technology always seems awkward and unwanted by the general population during its infancy.
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Man I’m excited! Windows Vista and 7’s glass Aero interface is one of my favorite UI designs, just behind the shaded Aluminum look of Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard. A return to that glassy look would be a dream for me!
Nothing tops Tiger and prior’s Aqua UI though. I still miss it so much!
Nothing tops Tiger and prior’s Aqua UI though. I still miss it so much!
I have an idea... why not come up with something different from the same windows we have been using on computers since 1984?
Nothing in sci-fi ever shows a windowed OS. I refuse to believe no one can come up with something better after 40 years. The fact that VisionOS is the same 2D 1984 desktop windows except translucent and floating in the air... is just absurd to me. Especially with AI being integrated everywhere... we're still doing the same old thing. I just don't get it.
I also hate that MacOS windows waste so much space with their huge title bars and all the padding and rounded corners.
I don't know what something better would look like, but I expected Apple to have figured it out by now.
I have used more interesting and efficient UIs like some tiling window managers in Linux... but I'm not really talking about that, I'm thinking of something that would be more intuitive for most people, but isn't 1984 windows.
Nothing in sci-fi ever shows a windowed OS. I refuse to believe no one can come up with something better after 40 years. The fact that VisionOS is the same 2D 1984 desktop windows except translucent and floating in the air... is just absurd to me. Especially with AI being integrated everywhere... we're still doing the same old thing. I just don't get it.
I also hate that MacOS windows waste so much space with their huge title bars and all the padding and rounded corners.
I don't know what something better would look like, but I expected Apple to have figured it out by now.
I have used more interesting and efficient UIs like some tiling window managers in Linux... but I'm not really talking about that, I'm thinking of something that would be more intuitive for most people, but isn't 1984 windows.
i really like vision pro interface so be glad if this is true.
Because the context was them becoming as ubiquitous as smartphones, and I don’t think people in general will carry around two devices with such an overlap. Smart glasses will either be relegated to less ubiquitous use, or they would replace smartphones, which I don’t think will happen.
This is similar to how smartwatches or earbuds aren’t as ubiquitous as smartphones.
Lots of sci fi has people moving square or rectangular pieces of information and widgets. Sometimes they are smaller shapes like widgets; sometimes the windows have transparent backgrounds but you are still dealign with distinct pieces of information. If its not windows and widgets then its a dashboard.
Star Trek was a traditional multi monitor display but you could argue that the LCARS interface used windows with hidden borders.
The Expanse had windows
Here is Tony Stark with Jarvis and it's full of rectangular and circular windows and widgets.
Here is the minority report interface with its windows.
All that being said, a surprising amount of sci fi is having lots of screens with each one dedicated to a single app or task.
What's cool about VisionOS is that you can put those screens anywhere, not just on a single plane. In the video it shows an iapd screen floating over the iPad and he walks past the laptop screens to get to it.
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Great.
Just come up with it and show that it works.
Meanwhile, phones and tablets have largely eschewed mobile, overlapping windows.
The purpose of sci-fi in TV and movies is to look cool. Usability doesn't come into it.
...the 3d file explorer in Jurassic Park, famously, was an actual product. It didn't take off.
Or, I guess there's LCARS if you want truly obsessive levels of consistency... I'll lose my faith in the internet if someone hasn't implemented it and made it downloadable somewhere.
They could just use the existing cameras for that. The real world in real time would be great, and should be easy, just show the camera view as wallpaper.
The dock for me is something they shouldn't touch at all, traffic elements works I mean they are intuitive and people are used to so you press without thinking so I am not sure about that (tried the gray ones but prefer the colors).
I too wonder how they can reimagine things though.
I don't think the traffic lights are going away because the green one how has window management controls.
I was wondering why some apps, especially Mail, were low contrast in dark mode. Then I discovered a setting in Appearance, "Allow wallpaper tinting in windows". Turning that off brought a bit of relief.
If they bring real deal and actually good redesign I guess I will update to the first public beta straight away