I guarantee there will be UI visual design updates before this goes live...

[Shockwave78]

Option to toggle between old icons and new is a must IMO

 

[portishead]

It is very un-Apple-like to share very incomplete and unpolished software, and that is what is not obvious and why it needs to be shared.

It's a beta man, get over it. It's a totally revamped design, that's what beta's are for. Maybe they didn't finish everything before WWDC release, but it is what it is. And it's pretty good I don't mind saying.

 

[KenAFSPC]

And at the same time this beta is pretty much unlike any other iOS beta before it--first major iOS redesign. So, in some sense, nothing from before would necessarily apply, or at least there's really no certainty that it would (or wouldn't) apply.

Evidence for significant change:

1. Macosrumors article
2. Member wishes

Evidence for minimal change:

1. History. For the past decade, Apple has made virtually no aesthetic changes to its software between beta and final. Apple has repeatedly ignored suggestions / criticisms of its interface during betas.

2. Apple devoted a section of their public web site to publicizing and promoting the aesthetic changes (http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/design/). As far as I know, Apple has never changed an interface after posting a software preview to its public web site.


What am I missing?

 

[C DM]

Evidence for significant change:

1. Macosrumors article
2. Member wishes

Evidence for minimal change:

1. History. For the past decade, Apple has made virtually no aesthetic changes to its software between beta and final. Apple has repeatedly ignored suggestions / criticisms of its interface during betas.

2. Apple devoted a section of their public web site to publicizing and promoting the aesthetic changes (http://www.apple.com/ios/ios7/design/). As far as I know, Apple has never changed an interface after posting a software preview to its public web site.


What am I missing?

At least that item 1 from "evidence for minimal change" wouldn't necessarily apply. The fact that no significant aesthetic changes haven't been made historically, doesn't mean that will apply in a case where there's a huge redesign of an OS as popular as iOS. This is the first time that is happening, so there's no way to really say that history would apply the same way to it as it did to other releases before.

As for item 1 in "evidence for significant change", it's not really just a MacRumors article, it comes from other sources as well, and mainly The Next Web, which has known inside sources and a more "serious" tech reporting credibility (for lack of a better phrase). That doesn't guarantee anything of course, but it does bring more support for it than just any random rumor article.

But, again, having said all of that, it would be fair to say that we can't simply say that there will or won't be actual fairly noticeable changes between now and the final version. We mainly just have to wait and see.

 

[fmalloy]

And at the same time this beta is pretty much unlike any other iOS beta before it--first major iOS redesign. So, in some sense, nothing from before would necessarily apply, or at least there's really no certainty that it would (or wouldn't) apply.

True, but if you look at the first new products (iPhone) or major OS updates (OS X) the UIs still looked like what was demoed at MacWorld/WWDC.

This clearly looks like it was rushed out the door half-done to show something for WWDC.

 

[C DM]

True, but if you look at the first new products (iPhone) or major OS updates (OS X) the UIs still looked like what was demoed at MacWorld/WWDC.

This clearly looks like it was rushed out the door half-done to show something for WWDC.

And there's another rather big (missing) factor when it comes to it all: Steve Jobs. This is definitely the first major redesign/launch of a popular OS like iOS without Steve Jobs. And also without Scott Forstall as well, which might play a role too as far as how betas are done and what might be getting changed, when, and how.

So, again, hard to really say one way or another at this point. There's historical precedent that things don't change much, and there are other items that point to it being different enough from earlier releases that things might change more than before. Which one really would apply remains to be seen.