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Details on Jony Ive's 'Very, Very Flat' Design for iOS 7

i think 2014 is going to be more interesting I think.

This year will be the same design of phone, plus a dry run at iOS.

Next year a new design phone, plus a more mature version if iOS7.

This year I think they'll get the iPads sorted though. At the moment the mini highlights whats wrong with the iPad (better design details / lighter), and the iPad highlights what's wrong with the mini (no retina display). Give the iPad the design cues of the mini, make it a bit lighter, and add retina to the mini, all the while keeping the original mini as a lower cost entry model, and that's those ducks lined up in a nice row.
 
bozzykid said:
Yes, the UI is stale. But changing the icons and app gradients isn't going to fix the real issues with iOS. No app interoperability (like sharing), stupid design choices like spinning wheels that are not efficient to use, the terrible notification center, no ability to set app defaults, etc. That is what is putting iOS behind.
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Zero of these mentioned above have been a problem for me and i'd like to believe am not alone.

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JazzyGB1 said:
Steve Jobs absence is really being felt now and it shows in Apple's Products.
The iPhone 5 (though a great phone), is really just an iPhone 4 with a slightly bigger screen. Yes it's lighter, but...well...it's just not enough of an upgrade.
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But I thought iPhone 5 was the last iPhone carrying SJ signature, no?
 
Looking forward to this!

I'm a skeuomorphism hater, so it's gonna be good to get rid of all that gloss and textures!

Windows 8 / WP8 is just bad. iOS 7 "flat look" will be much more Apple-like, much more sleek and great to look at.

I think we will see a "flat look" all across the UI like Google's and other companies' latest iPhone apps. If that's what comes true, I would be more than happy, as I love the sleek, simple UI.

Google Maps:
google-maps-ios-handson-2.jpg


Mailbox:
Mailbox_01.jpg


Facebook Messenger: (in contrast to Messages, this doesn't have "glossy bubbles"):
FacebookMessengeriOS2.jpg
 
Interesting how trends in design change so quickly isn't it?

Flat now just seems right. Glossy, glassy buttons and textures now look so old even though it's just a matter of a couple of years when we all though they looked great... well, not all of us. But you get the point
 
twigman08 said:
This was a good read: http://sachagreif.com/flat-pixels/

Even though I was hesitant to put the link here as I know so many people are going to say "THEY'RE GOING TOWARDS WINDOWS 8 NO!!!", but how about you read the entire article and don't just skim it or look at the pictures.
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The article goes to great lengths to say that Microsoft is leading the way with flat design and Apple is following.. so yeah, the article says they're going towards windows 8.

Eh.. you know. I don't know. I like the leather stitching in Find Friends, and I like the yellow notepad look of Notes. It makes the apps easy to distinguish and gives each their own texture and personality. Making everything a uniform solid-color tile design with some industrial-looking symbol icon will be lame and very dated in a couple years. I'll take a wait-and-see attitude but if being "timely" means copying Android and Windows phone then Apple will lose it's distinctive warm charm.
 
johngordon said:
And shows how a design can be made flatter without making it completely flat.

The buttons are less in your face, but a subtle use of shading is still used to style it.
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Yeah. I think its nice and hope they have some continuity through to the music app. The 2 different designs don't make sense to me.
 
mentaluproar said:
I'm a fan of skeuomorphism when it doesn't get in the way. I'm kind of worried about what's going happen with iOS 7. While modern versions of OS X are more functional, they are hideous. I miss brushed metal, the blue apple, the rounded corners on the top bar, pinstriping, the blue pill in the upper right and shiny blue scroll bar.

They didn't get in the way and were a nice break from the cold and dead interfaces of the time.

And multiple panels? Swipe from this side, or this side, or this corner, or...screw that! Just fix notification center and let people install widgets into it. DONE.
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I use a jailbroken iPhone5 and have a tweak called Zephyr, see the Homepage for more infos. What it does is basically enable you to switch apps by swiping left right off the screen, and show the multi-task-bar by swiping up (and more). . also, you can configure the part where it's enabled. For example chrome lets you switch tabs by swiping from the left/right side

To not interfere with that, I set Zephyr to only be enabled on the lower 1/4 of the screen. It's pretty amazing and makes multitasking on an iPhone actual fun, instead of the pretty annoying homebutton-way of doing it. A native implementation (or basically what Zephyr does) would enhance the whole experience by a lot (at least for those without a jailbreak)

Don't be too fast to judge it although you have never used it in real life. That's not very smart :cool:
 
Curious what we will see, not really bored with the OS itself because it works and I am thinking more about functionality then how it looks. People in general will get bored of things, even if it works exactly the same way yet looks newer people may feel different about it.

Not that I am immune to aesthetics of any given thing. We could have websites that look like they were made in the late nineties and work perfectly yet they look horrible. (I cannot believe some of the sites out there, UPDATE YOUR SITE!!!)
 
I can't wait for those orgasmic explanations on how we have fused the hardware and human interface together to create a truly remarkable experience when you emerse yourself in iOS 7 & OSX 10.9 :D
 
Menneisyys2 said:
We could make use of a restricted file system like creating aliases (symlinks) to files in other apps' Documents (or any other) directory. It'd tremendously help accessing the same, say, large video file from several apps without having to transfer the same file from iTunes.

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Or they could implement a feature where when you open an app, you can access a list of all documents in the device which that app can open. For that they do not need a file browser.
 
ppdix said:
Macintosh_System_7.5.3_screenshot.png


Yeah, right.... Flatness is just what Apple needs to compete with Android... :rolleyes:
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Escape Velocity! WOO! YEAH! Good times.

Oh, back on topic: I'd love a flat, different-looking iOS. Since upgrading to W8, I've become enamoured by the flat look of explorer. I should point out that I've added a 'MacType' extension to change all the font rendering to be more Apple-like. I highly recommend it if you use Windows!
 
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In general I think I'm starting to accept that Apple is not going to give me what I want with iOS 7. I don't want a new aesthetic look. (Although I have no problems with them changing that up). What I want is customization ability! They are shunning the "techies" and early adopters of the phone that made them so popular in the first place for the grandmas and tech idiots who can pick the phone up and use it. Again, I have no problem with that, but give some of the rest of us the ability to make the OS behave how we want. I should be able to put the newsstand app in a folder for #$%# sake without having to trick the OS.

I'm at a proverbial crossroad with my iPhone. I feel slightly stuck in the ecosystem as I have a macbook pro and iPad (which I love them both), but I don't love my iPhone. I'm honestly considering everything from the Blackberry Q10 (yes, thats right) to a Galaxy Note 2/3 at this point.
 
iBug2 said:
Or they could implement a feature where when you open an app, you can access a list of all documents in the device which that app can open. For that they do not need a file browser.
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That's not the best solution, privacy-wise. Think of secure keys or just private docs you don't want any other app access on your iPad.

However, a user-initiated symlink-based sharing model very similar to the current "Open In" would be of great use. You start the source app, tap Open In after selecting the document / video file / anything you'd like to share with another app, select the target app and iOS just creates a (weak, meaning it'll go away if the original file is deleted) symlink to the file you want to share in the target app's Documents/Inbox or anything. Just like now, but without the silly and very restricted physical file copying.

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GuitarDTO said:
In general I think I'm starting to accept that Apple is not going to give me what I want with iOS 7. I don't want a new aesthetic look. (Although I have no problems with them changing that up). What I want is customization ability! They are shunning the "techies" and early adopters of the phone that made them so popular in the first place for the grandmas and tech idiots who can pick the phone up and use it. Again, I have no problem with that, but give some of the rest of us the ability to make the OS behave how we want. I should be able to put the newsstand app in a folder for #$%# sake without having to trick the OS.
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Absoutely agreed. New features already common in competing mobile OS'es (or, for that matter, jailbreak tweaks) should be implemented:

- multi-windowing at least on iPads (see Android, Windows RT etc., where it's stock functionality and works just GREAT)

- OS-level equivalent of f.lux (currently only via jailbreaking)

- symlink creation capabilities for quick, user-controlled file sharing

etc.
 
GuitarDTO said:
(Although I have no problems with them changing that up). What I want is customization ability!
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That is my stance as well, if they change the look fine yet I would rather have updates that allow me to have more control.
 
rshroff2 said:
They're two different companies with different views on how a mobile OS should look and function. The only reason they mentioned wp8 is because of its flat design which is something iOS 7 will have. That's it. It will not look nor function like wp8.
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The amount of users here assuming that a flat design means windos 8 look like is shoocking!! Seriosly!!!
 
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