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Concept Video Demonstrates Apple Watch-Style Interface on iPhone
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Icaras
macrumors 603
I don't know. I user folders heavily and only have 3 pages of apps: Apple Apps on page 1, all third party, non-game apps on page 2, and all games on page 3. It's easy enough for me to remember, but I'd also like to see folders implemented in the Apple Watch layout to see how efficient that could be.
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That's a very unlikely setup for a user to have a folder with 9 pages. iPhone 6 and 6 Plus screens now add another row of icons so it's even less likely. As I said before, I use folders heavily myself on only 3 pages, and my iPhone 6 128GB has 419 apps on it, and I don't have a single folder with 9 pages on it. In fact, I only have one folder that goes up to 4 pages. Every other folder is 1-3 pages each folder, mostly 2 pages.
I seriously doubt Apple will mandate circular icons and render all existing ones as circles. I too would love to see a refresh of the boring app/folder grid, but nothing for the sake of change. Maybe some different paging animations, maybe allowing apps to be placed wherever, and widgets, but then we've just become Android...
so you have to swipe to page three, tap on a folder, swipe to page folder 3...
a lot easier to either: spotlight search or siri launch.
Pretty cool. Think the way it could work is your most used apps will automatically be positioned around the center icon (phone, mail or safari) the home screen would hold probably 40 or so icons. When you zoom out a Spotlight search bar should appear on top or bottom so you can search. (That's how I launch all my apps anyways, I have to many and can't find them)
So Ithink this could definitely be a workable ui
So Ithink this could definitely be a workable ui
This is the coolest concept video ever, because he made an actual prototype. It's not some dumb iPhone 7 concept put out on YouTube to leach views.
rwilliams
macrumors 68040
It would only become a mess if you made it one. Such is the beauty of giving users the freedom to customize their own phones. Some could be gorgeous, some could be hideous.
cmChimera
macrumors 601
zencowboy
macrumors member
Or for jailbreakers I use infinitedock to put popular apps there and can scroll easy for them (not yet updated for ios 8 yet but ios 7 works great on other phone).
Cylinder works on JB ios8 and is free and fun on random setting.
Change for the sake of change is stupid. This looks cool, but it doesn't do anything better than the current grid, infact it does most things worse.
Icaras
macrumors 603
Oh yea I agree. Spotlight is invaluable. But as for the Apple watch setup, unless they implement folders in some creative way, there's no way I'm going to want to navigate 419 apps scattered all over the place.
designaholic
macrumors 6502
Same ****** different toilet. I'm done with the old app centric UI, it wastes all the screen real estate. What we really need is a search / notification centric style of UI.
Have a read of this, really nails it: http://blog.intercom.io/the-end-of-apps-as-we-know-them/
(Have to say, the round icon UI really works well on the Apple Watch though).
Have a read of this, really nails it: http://blog.intercom.io/the-end-of-apps-as-we-know-them/
(Have to say, the round icon UI really works well on the Apple Watch though).
69Mustang
macrumors 604
This. I think with the additional screen real estate, widgets are going to break out of control center sooner rather than later. Think Different is apropos. Every iPhone user isn't the exact same as every other iPhone user. People have personality and some like to express it with their tech.
Not sure who's Android phone you've been looking at but calling the homescreen a mess is an over exaggeration. I've seen tons of homescreens. Some look horrible and some look great... the caveat... to me. To the phone's owners I'm sure they all look great. Just like I think my homescreen looks great. The owners count. Not you or me. I think that goes to the crux of rwilliams argument. Once purchased, that iPhone belongs to an individual; not a group. Your grid looking like his grid looking like her grid looking like their grid has no tangible benefit. Let people express themselves. It doesn't hurt Apple. They already have the money.🙄
SchneiderMan
macrumors G3
I would be surprised if Apple hired this guy. That looks to be working flawlessly. But it's just a cluttered UI.
RobertMartens
macrumors 65816
bigjnyc
Suspended
Why would they hire this guy? They already have the original guy/team who did this on the watch.
Although this is a fresh look .. It is very difficult to use.. U u have to remember where ur app is.. It's like a map and we have to find the icon.. Is it in north, south, west, easy, northwest south east, etc.. Ppl have 100 apps on their phones.. I don't think they'll like finding an app in this way.. They'll resort to spotlight which practically makes your whole home screen idea useless.. The video itself put so many icons and it's already showing its not that easy to find the app, cause the relative location of the app changes everytine.. The user will have to zoom out every time to find the app..
It felt nice on the watch but I don't know how wil be able to find 1 app out of so many apps on the iwatch on such a small screen...
It felt nice on the watch but I don't know how wil be able to find 1 app out of so many apps on the iwatch on such a small screen...
Dargoth
macrumors regular
I think the practicality issues could be worked out over time. Maybe allow for divided "regions" where you can cluster similar apps as you see fit. That would be pretty neat!
This arrangement is perfectly suited to a tiny display on your wrist. On an expansive iPhone 6 Plus display, I'm not as sold on. Don't get me wrong, it's stunningly beautiful and LOOKS really cool. But I just don't think it works as well, from a mental organization/human interface perspective. Pagination/folders is a really effective and useful way to organize a large collection of apps. It may be a little more boring, but it's effective. I don't even like on other platforms how the app list is scrolling rather than paginated, it's just a lot easier to form a spatial model of items existing on different individual pages, rather than as part of a single long list. The Watch interface adds horizontal scrolling, making it a mosaic of icons. I think that's a great solution for a tiny display, just not on iPhone. The whole point of the icons shrinking when they approach the edge of the display is to maximize the density of icons on the small screen, while emphasizing the icons in the center.
There's definitely a ton of potential for new home screen interactions and layouts on iOS that build on top of the current paginated layout. But what we have now works and is very easy to understand intuitively.
There's definitely a ton of potential for new home screen interactions and layouts on iOS that build on top of the current paginated layout. But what we have now works and is very easy to understand intuitively.