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iOS 19: What to Expect From Apple's Dramatic Design Overhaul?
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Get ready for the game everybody loves, "Where have they moved that damn setting I need this update? It was fine where it was!"
I mean, it didn't change the way I tapped on an icon to launch the app, but otherwise, iOS7 did change the way I used the phone.
"There hasn't been a desktop OS that materially changes the way a computer fundamentally works since the Xerox Alto 50 years ago.
Still a mouse, a color display, and tiles of windows.
New functions don't mean all new."
You can always set the bar for what qualifies as change or innovation so arbitrarily high that nothing qualifies, but it seems somewhat reductionist.
💯% agree!
In addition, instead of imposing yet another mandatory OS redesign, with weird choices, omitted favorites, and inevitable screw-ups, give us, finally, customization!
Let us set up our own Home Screen interface, with predesigned templates that users can choose among and customize as they desire. As a model, look no further than the marvelous Z Launcher from Palm days.
The left-hand side (narrow) (or right, user choice) had multi-colored user-chosen and user-labeled tabs — letting you set up your own categories — e.g., Astronomy, Books, Games, TV & Movies, Notes, Utilities. A single tap took you to that category's set of apps. You could drag-and-drop apps between categories. Convenient, fast, brilliant design. None of this scrolling through page after page of home screens.
The current folders system is an awkward substitute.
Let us also be able to customize the Lock Screen and Top Bar — and, for gosh sakes, let us finally turn off the display of the time if we desire. (And display whichever icons we want wherever we want.)
We shouldn’t have THE TIME thrust in our face every time we turn on or want to use our iPhones or iPads. In particular, when I read or do stargazing in the middle of the night, I don’t want to know or be reminded of what time it is or how long I’ve been reading or outside. Others do. So, let us decide which we want.
Let us also roll back our devices to any previous iOS or iPad OS if we want to. Too late, too many discover that they despise the new OS, lose lots of battery life, or end up with sluggish devices. People have often inadvertently upgraded. If I buy a product, I should be able to restore it to its original condition or roll it back to the previous OS. Maybe the EU can take this up… ✅ 👍🏽 😁
Resist the iOS Tyranny! The User should be King and Master of the Universe!
Though a lot of what you say is light hearted, theres much which is just not really feasible or already actually works anyway.
Biggest one is customisable Home Screen - you HAVE that already. You don't have to have screens of apps that you scroll through - you can have NO apps and just some far more useful widgets and then use the App Library which is incredibly fast and although there are arbitrary categorisations that rely on the developer to choose rather than you... its still very easy to find something and if not a pull down and type the first letter of the app name gets you there in an instant.
I stopped fussing around app placement and a screen for this, a screen for that and just hid all my pages of apps, made screen 1 some widgets, and the rest is in the App Library. very simple and quick and I don't care anymore when adding a new app where it is etc.
Fair enough on the time, wouldn't have thought that was hard to allow yo to turn off but you are the first person ive every come across that actively doesn't like to know what the time is.
Rolling back is utterly impractical - numerous 'under the hood' changes need to happen with an OS update and its not just a case of 'changing your mind' however - it is SUPER easy in the scenario you described to erase the phone and restore from the iCloud backup if you really want to go back to how it was yesterday before you updated.
There is no 'tyranny'. Not at all. I hear android phones offer some more customisation sometimes and perhaps thats more suited to your needs?
Yea I understand all about marketing. Maybe its just me but it seems like lately Apple is overly hyping up their software and under delivering.
It would be nice if we could have another Snow Leopard moment.
Round icons were present waaaayyyy before they were introduced in Android skins. These people keep acting like Android introduced everything.
While I do prefer the squcircle icons, circles ones would be that bad, that is if they don’t go the route Google has with Android and ChromeOS. Those icons are very generic and ugly in comparison to visionOS’s. What I could see happening is that the end up keeping squcircle for the icons on iOS/iPadOS/macOS and just update them to be consistent across all OSs (like changing the notes app to match visionOS's piece of paper on a yellow background) and match the new unified design language. That doesn’t mean I don’t see them having any rounded icons anywhere in the OSs as I could see them justifying using them in various apps, like in the settings concept that has been making the rounds. I feel that would be the best of both worlds, besides, the squcircle shape matches the shape of the screens of at least the iPhone and iPad perfectly, though I’ve never looked closely at the iMac or studio display to know if it matches them as well.
Now if they would go the circle route for icons, what would they do with the Finder app’s icon? While it isn’t exactly the same as it was prior to Big Sur, it still is very familiar and changing it to a circle would take away from the iconic icon that has been with us since the original Mac OSX and even before, if I remember correctly. I could see them just trying to adapt it to a circle without changing the overall design, but I’m afraid out of all the stock app icons, it would be the one that would look out of place the most.
Now if they would go the circle route for icons, what would they do with the Finder app’s icon? While it isn’t exactly the same as it was prior to Big Sur, it still is very familiar and changing it to a circle would take away from the iconic icon that has been with us since the original Mac OSX and even before, if I remember correctly. I could see them just trying to adapt it to a circle without changing the overall design, but I’m afraid out of all the stock app icons, it would be the one that would look out of place the most.
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If they would just make Siri smarter and more practical, as well as, unifying the design language of the OSs more while keeping macOS uniquely macOS, then that would be a solid win in my book. When you have many different design elements competing, even just within macOS, it’s kind of confusing. Simplification doesn’t mean, making macOS function like iOS and vice versa, but keeping the styling similar so you can easily switch between each OS without having to hunt for commonly used functions and apps. Should all the OSs have circular icons though, I don’t see it as necessary, but the design of this icons however, no matter what the shape, need to be consistent. Doesn’t mean there can’t be any minor differences in the icons between OSs though, like with the notes app, it’s icon across the board should match that of visionOS (it just looks better in my opinion).
This is not a revamp, merely new skin at best. Why they talk about it so much? So they change icons to circles, so what? Are they going to improve usability? Nope.
How about making features available at less clicking? Nope? I thought so. So you will have more scrolling, more useless UI crap and same old paradigm. This should be mentioned somewhere down in a corner not among the best new features. 🙄
How about making features available at less clicking? Nope? I thought so. So you will have more scrolling, more useless UI crap and same old paradigm. This should be mentioned somewhere down in a corner not among the best new features. 🙄
I really like the appearance of those icons and the dock, just not particularly fond of the circles (except for those that are already round inside the squircle, like Safari and Settings), would rather see that style applied to the squircles we currently have. I understand why the search button looks the way it does, it’s the only way to do such a small button with the round radius they are using on the rest of the icons, widgets, etc. I expect circles to be everywhere (buttons, etc.) but not for the home screen app icons, especially if they keep the screen grid square instead of hexagon. I do expect the settings app to have round/circle icons though, their justification will probably be to differentiate between an actual app icon and just a setting or in-app icon. If they go with a circle for the icons though then I expect to start hearing from app designers of the change in some form or another as they should already of known by now of the change. It’s not as easy as just changing the color or even the overall appearance , some apps may need a total redesign to fit in a circle. If we don’t hear anything soon, then either their lips are extremely tight (we know that isn’t usually the case though) or the shape is to stay the same and just the overall appearance is to change to reflex a greater system wide appearing change. In that case, I hope the notes app icon changes to reflect visionOS’s counterpart (which is a just a piece of paper that looks like it was torn out of a notebook within a yellow circle) for consistency’s sake.
Yeah, I agree, circle icons wouldn’t make much sense. And there aren’t any real leaks or rumors from inside Apple indicating they will switch to circle icons, this is just some people wishcasting for it and creating mockups. While it’s true that visionOS has circle app icons, it places them on a honeycomb grid like watchOS, and they don’t live alongside square and rectangular widgets. Circle icons with square and rectangular widgets placed on a square grid looks ugly, and just looks like bad design. There are zero indicators that iOS, iPadOS, and macOS are switching to circle icons…
Exactly. That's what Steve Jobs did, and the result was Snow Leopard, which turned out to be the most stable and reliable operating system Apple has ever made.
No new features for an entire year would be a bad idea in my opinion. And it’s not like there are many bugs. I’ve never run into any bugs in the public versions of iOS 18.