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Does Jonny Ive really understand interface design?

W

Wiesenlooser

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 9, 2010
989
1,562
Now hear me out. Mostly I like the visuals of iOS 7. It's much more modern and fresh looking than the current version. And there are some clever elements to it.

But I'm really talking about the small details that made iOS feel so good. To me iOS looked very dated lately but it always seemed very thought through in many ways.


From what I've seen so far there is a lot of confusing elements. Take the lock screen. It says slide to unlock and just beneath it is an arrow facing up.

The icons are probably the most criticized thing about iOS 7. I'm not talking about the plain ugliness of the safari icon. But about the whole concept of what an icon is and what it is supposed to do. To me it's about to give you necessary informations about which app it is on the very slightest glance.

Look at the photos icon. It's not ugly per se but how does it tell me it's about photos? And why is
It's color scheme so similar to Game Center. They don't even remotely share the same
Functionality.

The flatness of the icons is going to make them hard to see
On certain backgrounds. In general I feel like readability has been sacrificed for style. Helvetcia neue is stylish but hardly readable. Specially the calendar icon. Compare it to the current one.

There are a lot of other places where the system feels a bit unstructured and unorganized for the sheer sake of making it look stylish (notification center )



All in a I do like it but I am worried that the comfort feeling of iOS will be sacrificed a bit. I really hope the new language is just a foundation and there will be fine tuning. And please make the icons prettier some of them
Are horrendous.
 
Wiesenlooser said:
All in a I do like it but I am worried that the comfort feeling of iOS will be sacrificed a bit. I really hope the new language is just a foundation and there will be fine tuning. And please make the icons prettier some of them
Are horrendous.
Click to expand...

Just because Johnathon Ive understands hardware design, doesn't mean he understands interface design. iOS is beginning to feel crammed with crap despite the removal of interface elements left and right.

I think you hit the nail on the head. A lot of the icons are disjointed. Why is Game Center the only icon with gloss? Not flat at all. Newsstand is quite possibly the ugliest of all the icons. The icon design themselves feel as though these are prototype icons from the creation of icons in the history of icon design itself. Simple can be ugly also as clearly demonstrated here.

I basically feel as though the system has been redesigned by a Windows Independent Developer. You know what I'm talking about. The same developers who develop apps for iOS that developed apps for Windows so they are ugly. Think Windows 3.1.

As for the interface, it's all magic and flash. It seems like now that Steve is dead (please come back and haunt everyone at Apple to get it right), let's just cram all the jailbreak tweaks we can into the system in a flashy way to get people to stop jailbreaking. The springboard feels weird now. Before there was clearly a feeling of where you were in the system. Now, it's all a blur of layers and slides and movement.

That said, this update doesn't seem all that revolutionary to me. It just feels like a facelift with tweaks we had now as standard features.

I mean, the filters in the camera and photos app are the same filters that have been around forever. Why even add them? Add them just to add them? It's stupid. The filters kinda suck. I think I saw Sepia there. Why not add the same level of quality filters that exist in other apps that people download all the time. Otherwise, they will end up using them anyway for the filters. Get my point? Why add it just to add something? Square camera option? Why? Because people use Instagram, but they don't use it for square photos, they use it for the filters, film, social aspects, so on. It's not being done for a specific reason the way say Samsung's Flagship Android phone added camera features you don't find on an iPhone or any other phone. You see where I'm going with this? It's not innovation, it's boring and quite frankly a weak attempt.

The most common response I get from Android users is how they can do whatever they want without having to jailbreak in order to get features we can ONLY get by jailbreaking.

Why does the tasks app have a texture where all other apps don't? It's all just craziness slapped together. I think Steve must have been keeping everyone's cocaine habit in check.

Additionally, have you taken a look at the title/menu bars in the apps? Clutter everywhere. Text shoved up against each other for functions that should be replaced with icons. It's all a big jumbled mess. Like Ive had a whooooole bunch of ideas and wanted all of them implemented regardless of whether they worked well. It feels rushed and crammed, and hard to discern certain areas of each application due to the lack of interface elements which were removed to give it this new look. Altogether, highly disappointed. Even the older iOS betas were more cohesive. Steve knew what he was doing, Ive doesn't seem to.
 
Last edited:
PrometheusGeek said:
Exactly. It does only because we got used to it. We'll get used to the color wheel too. By spring we'll all be looking back at iOS 6 in the same way we look back at 80s hair styles.
Click to expand...

Yes because the color pallets in ios 7 doesn't scream 80s tie die and fluorescence. :confused:
 
Yeah because Jony Ive designed the entire OS himself. Get a grip people. :rolleyes:
 
Dont forget, what you see in beta 1 is exactly what the final version is going to be. They wont care about the other 4+ beta's :rolleyes:
 
Does Jonny Ive really understand interface design?

I am going to say no. I was worried when they appointed him to this new position. He is a hardware guy, UI design is completely different.

My thinking is that his leadership in this new position is somewhat symbolic. How can you go from doing all the hardware only (and most likely working 60 hrs a week doing just that), to doing all the hardware AND being the head of iOS...it is too much work and the work is too different. (duh, I do not think he does it alone).

Ive has been Stretched too thin. An appropriate pun, seeing as ultra-thin, difficult to read fonts are now littered throughout the OS.

I honestly think Apple needs to hire someone else specifically as head of iOS.
 
doug in albq said:
Does Jonny Ive really understand interface design?

I am going to say no. I was worried when they appointed him to this new position. He is a hardware guy, UI design is completely different.

My thinking is that his leadership in this new position is somewhat symbolic. How can you go from doing all the hardware only (and most likely working 60 hrs a week doing just that), to doing all the hardware AND being the head of iOS...it is too much work and the work is too different. (duh, I do not think he does it alone).

Ive has been Stretched too thin. An appropriate pun, seeing as ultra-thin, difficult to read fonts are now littered throughout the OS.

I honestly think Apple needs to hire someone else specifically as head of iOS.
Click to expand...
So have you downloaded a beta and used it? Because there is an option to increase the font size as well as an accessibility option that makes the text thicker/darker.
 
I feel bad for Jony.

I feel guilty not liking iOS 7.

But it's just so bad!

Are first beta versions usually higher quality or is this common?
 
Rogifan said:
Yeah because Jony Ive designed the entire OS himself. Get a grip people. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

He didn't, but he's the one that had to look at it at the end of the day and say "This is good, this is the direction we should be going."

He did not design the entire OS by hand. But the responsibility for the choices made, ultimately, lies with him.
 
macrumorschamp said:
Additionally, have you taken a look at the title/menu bars in the apps? Clutter everywhere. Text shoved up against each other for functions that should be replaced with icons. It's all a big jumbled mess.
Click to expand...

The back and done icons look really wrong.

And for some reason, in the music app when you view the tracklist of an album in the now playing view, there's a "done" button. That's....not the right word really .
 
iGuardian said:
He didn't, but he's the one that had to look at it at the end of the day and say "This is good, this is the direction we should be going."

He did not design the entire OS by hand. But the responsibility for the choices made, ultimately, lies with him.
Click to expand...

They redesigned the entire OS in like 6 months. It's Ive's first major foray in to software design. I think we can cut Apple a little slack here. iOS 7 might not be perfect but it will get refined and improved upon. I suppose Apple could have waited until iOS 8 for the full redesign but then people would have complained about the UI being stale, Apple is doomed etc. I'm not judging iOS 7 until its installed on my phone and I get the opportunity to actually use it.
 
Rogifan said:
So have you downloaded a beta and used it? Because there is an option to increase the font size as well as an accessibility option that makes the text thicker/darker.
Click to expand...

No. So I did not know about that thicker font thing, will have to see how that actually looks/works.

People, in general, from a readability point of view, will eventually grow tired of the INSERT SAN SERIF FONT NAME ultra light/thin fonts all over their mobile OS, I know I will. It is not a matter of getting used to it, ultra thin variants of san serif fonts have been around forever, and they have always lacked a bit of readability, especially when kerned so very tight together, which is also part of this new design theme all over the place, not just iOS. While flatter design for device OS's is fine, and will stick around, I think ultra thin and tightly kerned fonts are a revolving fad that will, once again, go out of style rather quickly.

Edit: did not notice you said it was in the accessibility area. That is not the same as an option, that is more like for the visually impaired. Therefore, I am guessing that it will not be that great.
 
I like the new Safari Icon. It spells out minimalism.

In fact, I wouldn't mind a blue box with just an S.

Or, just an S and no background whatsoever. (or just the reverse, a blue box with nothing on it).:apple:
 
doug in albq said:
No. So I did not know about that thicker font thing, will have to see how that actually looks/works.

People, in general, from a readability point of view, will eventually grow tired of the INSERT SAN SERIF FONT NAME ultra light/thin fonts all over their mobile OS, I know I will. It is not a matter of getting used to it, ultra thin variants of san serif fonts have been around forever, and they have always lacked a bit of readability, especially when kerned so very tight together, which is also part of this new design theme all over the place, not just iOS. While flatter design for device OS's is fine, and will stick around, I think ultra thin and tightly kerned fonts are a revolving fad that will, once again, go out of style rather quickly.

Edit: did not notice you said it was in the accessibility area. That is not the same as an option, that is more like for the visually impaired. Therefore, I am guessing that it will not be that great.
Click to expand...

I saw it in one of the developer session videos. I could tell the difference. Font was definitely bolder.
 
Rogifan said:
They redesigned the entire OS in like 6 months. It's Ive's first major foray in to software design. I think we can cut Apple a little slack here. iOS 7 might not be perfect but it will get refined and improved upon. I suppose Apple could have waited until iOS 8 for the full redesign but then people would have complained about the UI being stale, Apple is doomed etc. I'm not judging iOS 7 until its installed on my phone and I get the opportunity to actually use it.
Click to expand...

Problem is that I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of change from beta to full release, if the past is any indication. Then you're going to have to wait another year for another major upgrade. That's a long time for Android and WP8 to vastly improve their offerings.
 
Johnny did a awesome job imho. This new version will bring Apple back in the winners booth for a lot of people and sales will soar.
 
beyondthepale35 said:
Problem is that I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of change from beta to full release, if the past is any indication. Then you're going to have to wait another year for another major upgrade. That's a long time for Android and WP8 to vastly improve their offerings.
Click to expand...

So what was Apple supposed to do? Have another iOS 6 type release where they'd really fall behind? iOS 7 won't be perfect and might feel a bit rushed or unfinished but I don't think Apple could afford to wait another year. I still think once its released and people start using it opinions will change. Right now we're getting a lot of knee jerk reactions because it is so different.
 
Lol. I'll bite.

People want change they get it. They bite the hand the feeds and say it wasn't really what we were expecting. Honestly this is the first step of many that Ive will be making into his career with iOS. Before this iOS didn't get polished over night or become the best OS by one single person. A lot of people want a myth to guide them to the ultimate experience that they can hang their name on. It just isn't how the world works. To me iOS 7 has added everything I wanted. Now it's time to continue that pace and bring inovation to the OS.
 
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