I love it. But Apple has poor design thought and have gone overboard by using it everywhere. That is damn idiotic.
Imagine if transparency was not there on
1. Keyboard (Absolutely not needed. Implemented only to render old incapable devices to become obsolete)
2. Safari titlebar drop down menu (Not needed. Only Air 2 handles it without stutter)
3. Control and notification centre (Might be needed but can do without it)
Lag and stutter complaints would have reduced by 80%.
Completely agree. I love the translucency, it's a huge part of what makes me like the iOS 7+ design. However, like you said, they went way overboard, adding it into every little nook and cranny of the UI. It's insane.
Adding in that little drop down window in Safari when you tap the URL bar? Unnecessary. Translucency of keyboard? Unnecessary. Translucency of other window-menu like things (Seen in maps when you drop a pin, tapping the share button in safari, hitting the info button on a reminder you're editing, etc) is unnecessary as well. All those things cause such severe lag yet you barely EVER see the translucency effects of them because they put such a heavy white tint on them.
Plus, if you take those areas of translucency into context, the translucent share sheet and URL bar drop down menu, they appear in safari. Most all web pages are primarily white anyway, so the translucency is putting a huge unnecessary load on the system.
Same thing can be seen in the headers of settings and messages, for example. You know how scrolling in the wallpapers section of settings is stuttery? Probably is primarily caused by the blurring at the top of the screen (which you will barely notice at all). You know how messages sometimes stutters? The white bar at the top has translucency effects as well, causing strain. Combined with the translucent text entry box and the momentum-based bounce of the messages, it can be a lag fest on older devices. Take away the translucency of the header, take away the translucency of the text entry box, take away the translucency of the keyboard, and bam. You have an iPhone 4S running messages at 60FPS all the way through, and the UI looks almost identical.
I think sacrificing that little tiny bit of blue/green color you see in the keyboard when sending a message is perfectly fine to do if it makes the animation smoother. I mean, cmon. My mini 2 is a year old and simply sending messages often has quite a lot of stuttering to it. Turn on increase contrast and the animation is perfect, but everything looks almost exactly the same.
I don't think they should get rid of the blurring of CC/NC though. Those are probably the most awesome implementations of the translucency. Currently, their main issues are with the lockscreen, the keyboard, and open folders.
They could fix the lockscreen issue by making "Slide to Unlock" disappear AS SOON as NC/CC start to enter the screen.
They could fix the keyboard issue by removing the unnecessary transparency of the keyboard.
And for the folders, I'm not even sure. It seems that there is some sort of general inefficient code there, because on an iPad if you are in portrait, CC/NC lag with open folders but they aren't even blurring the folder. Just fading it in the background. Don't understand why CC/NC run smooth in, for example, safari tab view, blurring an already blurred scene, but it doesn't run smooth over folders.
Anyway, I think I'm finally done with that tangent. There's a lot of beauty to translucency, but it has to be used in moderation, and it has to be implemented carefully and intelligently.
