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Apple Engineers Working Overtime on iOS 7's 'DeForstallization'

good riddance - I find the fake leather crap etc. absolutely disgusting. I hope they're doing the same for the address book and calendar apps on OS X.

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Jimrod said:
I'm hoping we don't end up with iOS7 being iOS 6 with all the shiny bits taken out and nothing new about the functionality here.
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This has to be a major overhaul or Apple is screwed (especially if they're trying to get away with yet another iPhone that looks and feels the same as the previous models).
 
I've always hated the yellow notepad look and crappy font in Notes. Looking forward to Ive minimalism in software to match hardware.
 
I think skeuomorphism if good as long a it serves a purpose. When you flip a page in iBooks, you have the intuitive feel of having flipped a page like when reading a real book, unlike looking at a set of pages side-by-side.

Leather-stitches around the edge, however, is totally redundant. It's only purpose is decoration. I'm sure there are people out there who find it aesthetically pleasing, but this thread (among others) suggests that it's no longer in fashion.
 
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alephnull12 said:
Oh. Was it maps then? Still seems like a dumb idea, but for different reasons.
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Again, another load of crap - this is all speculation about what he was fired for - firstly it was maps then it was your claim of his use of skueforphism, then it was someone else who said that he had a arrogant personality that caused more problems than what he could deliver. The fact that people like you claim, "this is what he was fired for" tells me that for some reason you think that you know the actual reason for him losing his job when no official reason was ever given in the first place! I mean, holly crap, can't people realise everything so far has all been speculation and pundits giving their five cents worth on the topic - it is a giant circle jerk that isn't based on any factual evidence aka Apple or Forstall explaining why he is out of a job.
 
kis said:
This has to be a major overhaul or Apple is screwed (especially if they're trying to get away with yet another iPhone that looks and feels the same as the previous models).
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Actually, I know everyone says this but if iOS 7 is nothing more than a mild makeover of app appearance I'll probably jump off the Apple ship.

I've got an iPad 2 and had iPhone 3G, 4 and 5's but my 5 is the first one that's disappointed me:

1. They went 16:9 because everyone else did but didn't make the screen any wider so you can see web pages better (in landscape mode you see even less due to height/width ratio), I don't want a giant phone but 4.2-4.3" would have been ideal.

2. The choice of anodised aluminium was poor and mine has a couple of chips despite never having been dropped or banged on anything.

3. For the first time I've Jailbroken but only because the yellow tinted screen looked really poor - with a colour profile app I've made it perfect but either give me inbuilt functionality to do that or have better QC - my iPhone was 106% Green, 91% Blue and 81% Red on a lightmeter before I adjusted it.

I know this isn't an iPhone thread but for me standards are slipping at Apple, not anecdotally but in my actual personal experience. The maps thing was a cock-up that for the first time lowered functionality for customers because of arrogance on Apple's part, if iOS 7 isn't genuinely something new but simply a visual simplification that we're expected to ooh and ahh at as fawning fanboys then my next phone will be one of the many very good alternatives now available. We have far more legitimate, competitive choice now than we did five years ago.
 
Orlandoech.com said:
For the love of God, hire more damn engineers and stop being so greedy with your damn cash reserves.

So annoying.
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If more engineers resulted in better software, everything Microsoft did would be amazing.

Small focused teams result in creativity & productivity. Get too big and you get mired in corporate politics and beauracracy. It becomes hard to make excellent, innovative products. I'm sure many of us have worked in companies like that.
 
Boys, give this guy a break.

I don't like skeumorphism either and I'm glad something might change. But just giving Mr. Forstall the finger, kick his ass and cut his balls over and over again is childish. We got it the first time.
 
Reason077 said:
If more engineers resulted in better software, everything Microsoft did would be amazing.

Small focused teams result in creativity & productivity. Get too big and you get mired in corporate politics and beauracracy. It becomes hard to make excellent, innovative products. I'm sure many of us have worked in companies like that.
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Yup! I now design all my company's products in their entirety, visual and mechanical and I couldn't be happier with them. Still some directorial interference and a little "design by committee" just to soothe ego's but unless you work solo that's sadly unavoidable.

(my latest product - http://www.acoustic-energy.co.uk/Default.aspx?pagename=3-Series-301-loudspeaker ) :)
 
I wish people would get over the " Steve Jobs is God and infallible" crap because it's not true. He made mistakes too. The biggest mistake he made was bringing Eric Schmidt to the Board of Directors which single handily created the position Apple is in now.
 
Who knows if this has been covered in the last 12 pages but...
I hope it's selective deforstallization, and not just massive clear cutting.

Sometimes you want to know what something on the screen is just by looking at it. Like when a button is a button, a note a note, etc. We interact with siri using English; is that a skeuomorphisim?
 
Most people i know...

.. like the glitzy pseudo-realistic look of apps.

Personally I hate the gray in gray look of Mountain Lions Finder etc.
By my count, every designer has a favorite color to which everything must bow. Looking on my desk, Jons Color is gray, Aluminium Gray... Or shall I say - star wars gray?

Whatever! Guys - consider color! It makes live so much more worth while.
 
Its funny how all of you "assume" what Apple is going to do. Nothing has even been announced yet. Lots of people are complaining about a redesign that hasn't even happened yet. WTF
 
Peace said:
I wish people would get over the " Steve Jobs is God and infallible" crap because it's not true. He made mistakes too. The biggest mistake he made was bringing Eric Schmidt to the Board of Directors which single handily created the position Apple is in now.
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The biggest, most profitable company in the world?
 
Word of the thread: skeumorphism

Yeah, I hate skeumorphism like the rest if you. I wish the clock looked like a dinosaur. I really like dinosaurs. That notes app has also been the topic of discussion. I hate notes. Lets just get a simple .txt document. That should suffice. Oh, what about maps? I always thought that rather than seeing the map with a symbol showing my location on it, a dancing rabbit might be nice. I think dancing rabbits are pretty funny. That phone icon especially irks me too. I'd rather see an image of my hairy left nipple.
 
In simple terms, if this iOS refresh is all about removing skeuomorphism - where is the benefit for the consumer?

It's good for Ive's ego but while a visual refresh is nice, it's nothing innovative and doesn't improve functionality. Thinner iMacs don't improve functionality. Maps which lead you to the wrong place don't improve functionality. A slightly taller phone doesn't improve functionality for the way it is used the vast majority of the time. The new lightning connector, while good, actually cost many people rather than benefited them in the short term.

Seems to me that many of Apple's recent "upgrades" are making their products worse in quite a few areas. I do hope iOS 7 is more than just "flatter". We'll just have to wait and see but pandering to ego seems to be becoming more important to Apple than the consumer and that is very bad for business in the long term. Arrogance can destroy a company of any size.
 
lordofthereef said:
Word of the thread: skeumorphism

Yeah, I hate skeumorphism like the rest if you. I wish the clock looked like a dinosaur. I really like dinosaurs. That notes app has also been the topic of discussion. I hate notes. Lets just get a simple .txt document. That should suffice. Oh, what about maps? I always thought that rather than seeing the map with a symbol showing my location on it, a dancing rabbit might be nice. I think dancing rabbits are pretty funny. That phone icon especially irks me too. I'd rather see an image of my hairy left nipple.
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I'm getting the feeling that there are two types of people here: the ones that agree with everything Apple does without thinking and the ones that actually have their own opinion.

I think that you are one of the few people in this thread that belongs to the second group, and it's really nice to see someone having the same way of thinking I have.

I really think the "skeuomorphic" look of Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Reminders on OS X and iOS and Pages and iBooks on iOS contributes to their functionality and ease-of-use.
I hated the Calendar-app on OS X pre-Lion because it was just incredibly boring and not like a calendar. Same thing for Contacts; I just didn't enjoy using them because they were too 'abstract' to me. To me, they're way more easier to use nowadays.

Now, iOS has been looking the same for quite some time indeed but change for the sake of change is seldom a good idea. Now, ironically, people in this thread justify their opinion by saying 'glossy icons are soooo 2007!' whereas the Mac Pro's design stems from 2004, aluminum design stems from 2004, the MacBook Pro's design stems from 2008.

Should we change those designs as well, just for the sake of changing 'em? Ofcourse not! They still look beautiful.
 
MrNomNoms said:
Again, another load of crap - this is all speculation about what he was fired for - firstly it was maps then it was your claim of his use of skueforphism, then it was someone else who said that he had a arrogant personality that caused more problems than what he could deliver. The fact that people like you claim, "this is what he was fired for" tells me that for some reason you think that you know the actual reason for him losing his job when no official reason was ever given in the first place....
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Whatever. It's not really relevant to my post anyway, which was really 99% about skeumorphism.

OK, I edited it. Doesn't change anything important that I had to say.

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Jimrod said:
In simple terms, if this iOS refresh is all about removing skeuomorphism - where is the benefit for the consumer?

It's good for Ive's ego but while a visual refresh is nice, it's nothing innovative and doesn't improve functionality. Thinner iMacs don't improve functionality. Maps which lead you to the wrong place don't improve functionality. A slightly taller phone doesn't improve functionality for the way it is used the vast majority of the time. The new lightning connector, while good, actually cost many people rather than benefited them in the short term.

Seems to me that many of Apple's recent "upgrades" are making their products worse in quite a few areas. I do hope iOS 7 is more than just "flatter". We'll just have to wait and see but pandering to ego seems to be becoming more important to Apple than the consumer and that is very bad for business in the long term. Arrogance can destroy a company of any size.
Click to expand...

Also true.

Although, I have to think that Maps is not as bad as people seem to say it is.

The taller iphone seems silly to me. My wife has one. I see no reason to upgrade.

I don't really see the benefit of the lightning connector. The old one is very durable. Lightning just seems to break compatibility with people's currently held chargers and peripheral equipment and make it more likely for someone upgrading to move to a difference brand of phone.

Ditto for Magsafe 2. Seems to be an unwise decision, provides no serious benefits that I can think of, and penalizes people for brand loyalty.

These are not good improvements and seem to be change for the sake of change with few if any real-world benefits.

Unless there are real features / innovations, it also hearkens back to the bad old days of the 90's when there were upgrades to UI for Mac OS 7.x 8.x 9.x etc.. with little change to the underlying technology.

OSX appearance has been pretty stable, consistent, and selling well for years and years. If it's not boke, why fix it?
 
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What if the dock was gone ?

Instead of swiping right or left through different pages of app icons you would scroll down through categories and each catagory had a title .

First page would be most used apps.
Second page down would be IOS preferences
Third and each of the other pages down would be customizable .

Swiping left or right would switch you through the various open apps that were in the background when not on the front page.

One could also customize the bottom of each page where if you swiped at the bottom down across the edge the dock would flip open . Swiping down again would flip the dock closed.

Swiping from the top edge down across the top would open notification center.
Included in this separate top layer page would be the typical ones like weather,twitter,mail,texts etc.

In the center of the notification layer was space for four app icons. These icons ( like every other app icon ) could be opened by tapping on the icon and it opened in the center and could be brought full screen by pinching and zooming .
The app would close by the same method of pinching.

All the while one can still swipe left and right between apps.

The flipping dock will happen. Mark my words.
 
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