Only thing Ive/Federighi did was reskin Forstall's app grid to make it look more feminine and add a few new features
This is not a big deal and all they did was buy iOS a couple more years before it starts to feel old again
What Mobile OS doesn't look old after 2 years?
I also find it funny that people continue to refrence the icon look as being somehow feminine. Since I like the icons, does that mean I should now be labeled effeminate?
Personally I like the lack of shadows, less Skeuomorphic appearance of the icons, and more washed out colors. Reminds me of the clean and simple look of Google Chrome applications.
Not really that much you can do with a grid of icons to make it interesting, without sacrificing efficiency and ease of use. Likely why the Application screen / drawer on Android phones, iOS, and other similar devices look quite similar to the old Newton OS, and Palm OS grid of icons.
Apple could have added in Live animated widgets to the home screen to spice things up, however I personally would demand a way to disable such eye candy.
And the iPhone wouldn't have been the best selling smartphone of all time without Forstall's work, the guy doesn't get enough respect IMO, history is being rewritten
I fully agree with this. Forstall was likely a big part of building what goes on in the background of our iOS devices. Many of the back end processes and services we don't work with, are contributors to making our iOS devices so stable / smooth in operation.
That said, I think seperation of Coding and Design may help make the platform a faster moving target in the world of Smart Phones, and I am curios to see what iOS 8 will have in store for us on the ever improving hardware iOS runs on.