6 visionOS-Inspired Design Elements Coming to iOS 26

[fatTribble]

I do like the Vision Pro interface so I’m excited to see what they actually announce.

Personally I like options. So any toggles and sliders they can provide to allow some degree of customization is a good thing I think.

 

[lilkwarrior]

That sounds like after-the-fact rationalisation for “because we can”.

There’s a limited use for transparency if you want to dim/blur the background to draw attention to a modal dialog - but a rather better design solution is to try to find a way to avoid the modal dialog (“modal is bad” has been a part of Mac design principles since day one). I’ve used it for that on websites - but mainly because of either the limitations of cross-browser html/scripting when it comes to asynchronous programming or (to be fair) laziness.

Having a translucent background behind anything you need to read just makes it harder to read - full stop. Having a translucent border then means you need another internal border around the content,wasting screen space.

…My comment does not suggest nor encourage modals which is indeed not a preferred UI component and user interaction to use, but nonetheless has meaningful contexts to be used in most design systems.

There’s a wide variety of reasons for translucency than just the one you highlighted as well a the ones I did. It isn’t an either-or affair.

Again apps like creative professional apps have various real-time adjustment use cases that enables or justify use of translucency to meaningfully not be too detached from the content now in the background of other UX patterns (modals, menus, overlays, popovers, drawers, etc)

 

[wdfly]

Hopefully we can turn these off. I prefer the way it works and looks now.

 

[antonrg]

Aesthetically you are correct, in particular it reminds me of the iOS7 Control Center, but the redesign is supposed to be structurally deeper than just adding round icons and a transparent skin.

Hopefully they will do an actual redesign. It has been reported so far as just a cosmetic change.

 

[darngooddesign]

Hopefully they will do an actual redesign. It has been reported so far as just a cosmetic change.

We have to remember that the only people saying “the most significant redesign in history” are the rumor mill people who benefit from clicks. So there will be a new style, some organizational/structural changes, but they’re not going to be hitting us with WindowsPhone-level changes.

 

[ab2c4]

This looks like it might cause a lot of eye strain. Hopefully it will give the option to disable a lot of this stuff.

 

[Manzzle]

Am I the only one not seeing this "redesign" if anything it just reminds me of Windows Vista, remember her?

 

[darngooddesign]

Am I the only one not seeing this "redesign" if anything it just reminds me of Windows Vista, remember her?

The only Vista thing is translucency because Vista was shiny and glossy, kind of an extension of early Aqua, but OSX also used translucency in its dock and trasnparency in its menus. Other than translucency, which was in iOS 7 COntrol Center and Notification Center, there is nothing Vista about these renders.

 

[Sophytaylor6@]

I am looking forward to seeing the new advancements, but Apple is getting by Vision Pro nowadays!

 

[antonrg]

We have to remember that the only people saying “the most significant redesign in history” are the rumor mill people who benefit from clicks. So there will be a new style, some organizational/structural changes, but they’re not going to be hitting us with WindowsPhone-level changes.

As long as they don't dumb it down or bloat it, I'm fine with it.

 

[cocky jeremy]

I am afraid that this iOS redesign will be even worse than redeisign from iOS 6 to iOS 7.

6 to 7 was great. I hated the old iOS. "You can tell it's a note app because it looks like a physical notepad.. DERRP"

 

[Gobeatty]

I am looking forward to this. As someone with anxiety, I find calm, clean environments relaxing.

 

[bcortens]

6 to 7 was great. I hated the old iOS. "You can tell it's a note app because it looks like a physical notepad.. DERRP"

iOS 6 was much better at conveying information through design. Instead of turning everything into monochromatic thin lines you had buttons that mostly looked like buttons.

iOS 7 also killed the iPad for nearly a decade as the redesign got rid of most iPad specific UI in favour of blown up iPhone apps.

Sure the skeumorphism was excessive in iOS 6 but iOS 7 ran so far away from usability affordances that it took another decade to get mostly back to a good place again.

 

[mr.datsun]

What works on a VR system does not necessarily work on a desktop OS. The ideas floated (forgive the accidental pun) in this article just might not make the best usability-led OS in the world. Hope the ‘turn off transparency’ option is still there. Ridding the UI of detailing like window bars and window edges is a dubious direction. Hope the actual UI makes some concessions to clarity of purpose.

 

[McScooby]

Made for a big screen translated to a small screen, hmm.

 

[mr.datsun]

Am I the only one not seeing this "redesign" if anything it just reminds me of Windows Vista, remember her?

This is far worse than Vista. Vista had colour icons. These transparent icons are hard to see. I wonder what the high contrast options are like.