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Gotta be honest about the new flat design

B

ben824

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 12, 2012
192
6
GA
I have been playing around with my iPhone 5 since I installed iOS 7 last night and so far I am missing the old look and feel that was the iPhone for so long. I have had an iPhone since the original came out and this just doesn't fell like and iPhone anymore. I compared the new flat look of Apple Maps to the Google Maps app and they are virtually the same look and feel now. The look and feel is throughout the entire phone. Since this is still a Beta, some apps still pull up the old keyboard and when that does I feel like I am at home again.

Now don't get me wrong some of the new looks are nice. I like the new feel of the Weather app and the Stocks app. I never liked the Forstall felt and wood in some places, that just felt out of place.

But some areas of the new design make it hard to look at. It almost makes things harder to use. Running through the menu in settings is more difficult since there is very little contrast.

The notifications that pop up at the top of the screen like when a text message comes in fell almost double the size that they were before. Were't they supposed to be small and less intrusive?

Apps opening and closing seem to take longer simply because of the way they launch. When an app is launched it expands out from where the app icon was. Now this could change and speed up as time goes on because this is a Beta so I am not convinced yet that this will always be slow.

I am loving the new features but unhappy with the new design. I understand flat is supposed to be the new thing but if I wanted and Android I would have bought the S4.

But again I am not knocking all the new features! The new features are wonderful and much welcomed! The design will take some getting used to and I will miss the old look and feel to the phone that was iPhone for so long.

I will say this, after all this change they still refused to put more info right there on the lock screen. Is it really so much to ask to put the weather on there?

Well that is my quick little personal review on the new design. Flame away my friends! haha
 
Glad you started a whole new thread JUST for your review! :apple:

XEGgG.gif
 
I personally have not tried the beta, but can only comment on the screen shots I have seen. I really like flat designs, but you still have to have contrast. Everything looks like a white background with black writing and no other contrast. I would imagine that would be hard on the eyes.
 
I completely agree with you Ben..I think the only solution lies with a jailbreak...then we can somewhat customize the kindergarden design, take away the heavy blur with massively high saturations and definitely change up a few icons.

Featurewise iOS7 seems top notch. I also noticed the slight lags, I am on a 4s, hopefully these would be ironed out in the upcoming updates.
 
Cliche but it is still a beta, a working concept.

They have changed icons before, they have tweaked styles before.

The final release will be great and likely tweaked from the first beta you are seeing.
 
Apple mentioned an impressive stat yesterday 93% of devices were updated to iOS 6. Just cant see that happening with iOS 7 not even close.

If J Ive has such vision in design why does he always wear the same t shirt :)
 
I just think that it'll be interesting to see where we're at in 5 years. Obviously flat design is in right now, and I like many versions of it. But I think it is more prone to becoming tiresome because of the simplicity of it. Won't be surprised to see this look considered "antiquated" in a few years, and we'll begin the cycle all over again.
 
Troneas said:
Its not the flattiness you dont like.

Its the cheap flattiness theyve introduced here that makes us all rise an eyebrow.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It is very poorly done. I frankly can't believe something like this came from Apple.
 
I agree with OP. I am and have been a huge Apple fan for years, not because of fanboyism, because the design and use of the OS has been second to none IMHO. However, this new beta has left a really bad taste in my mouth. The white backgrounds are distracting and a little TOO plain in my opinion. Notification center is a step backwards and the lack of customization all around is starting to get unbearable. The new calendar is a step backwards too imo.

These are of course just my opinions and what does/doesn't work for me. We are lucky to live in an age where there are so many good choices. I have a feeling that it's the end of an era for me tho in terms of iOS use. You will however, have to rip my iPad from my cold dead hands. Nothing even touches that yet (for non productivity related tasks which I don't do on a tablet).

Looking forward to see how the beta progresses.
 
bgro said:
I agree with OP. I am and have been a huge Apple fan for years, not because of fanboyism, because the design and use of the OS has been second to none IMHO. However, this new beta has left a really bad taste in my mouth. The white backgrounds are distracting and a little TOO plain in my opinion. Notification center is a step backwards and the lack of customization all around is starting to get unbearable. The new calendar is a step backwards too imo.

These are of course just my opinions and what does/doesn't work for me. We are lucky to live in an age where there are so many good choices. I have a feeling that it's the end of an era for me tho in terms of iOS use. You will however, have to rip my iPad from my cold dead hands. Nothing even touches that yet (for non productivity related tasks which I don't do on a tablet).

Looking forward to see how the beta progresses.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised by your comment regarding the notification center. I believe the updates to it are a huge step forward in terms of functionality and usefulness. In fact, I think the current Notification Center in iOS 6 is a terrible, useless, and unorganized mess that I never touch.
 
Zombiechow said:
I'm surprised by your comment regarding the notification center. I believe the updates to it are a huge step forward in terms of functionality and usefulness. In fact, I think the current Notification Center in iOS 6 is a terrible, useless, and unorganized mess that I never touch.
Click to expand...

There were definitely things in the old notification center that were useless and unorganized. However, things like the weather and stock tickers were HUGELY useful imo. Also, I don't like how it defaults to an hourly view of your calendar. I much prefer the old way with a list of your appointments with the time to the left of the appointment. Very clean and only showed pertinent information.

WIth the new notification center, I don't need to see a list of hours when I have nothing scheduled. Also I now have to read a sentence to see the weather. These are not dealbreakers by any means but I do believe that there were no improvements.
 
I haven't installed the beta so all I've seen of iOS7 is screenshots. But I really like the flat design. I'm a fan of flat designs in general and I think this is an excellent change. In my opinion, it was time for apple to change things up a little. iOS hasn't changed very much in terms of looks since the first iPhone was released and I think it was getting to be a little stale. Again, this is just my opinion.
 
bgro said:
There were definitely things in the old notification center that were useless and unorganized. However, things like the weather and stock tickers were HUGELY useful imo. Also, I don't like how it defaults to an hourly view of your calendar. I much prefer the old way with a list of your appointments with the time to the left of the appointment. Very clean and only showed pertinent information.

WIth the new notification center, I don't need to see a list of hours when I have nothing scheduled. Also I now have to read a sentence to see the weather. These are not dealbreakers by any means but I do believe that there were no improvements.
Click to expand...

Fair enough! Totally understandable.
 
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