iOS 7 is All About the Experience

[djtech42]

Prepare for a wall of text.

When I first saw iOS 7, I was surprised at the bad design of the icons and the general look of the operating system. Simple things like exaggerated gradients (and gradients in opposite directions on one screen), light text on translucent backgrounds, and text replacing buttons seemed to scream "This goes against all design rules!" Looking at screenshots on Apple's website and Macrumors seemed to confirm how terrible the new operating system looked. I still had hope though, that the experience would somehow make up for it all.

And it did. I installed iOS 7 Beta 3 despite all the warnings about kernel panics and missed calls, not to mention the fact that I don't have a developer account eek:Oh boy. Here come the complaints. I develop software though, just not for iOS, so I understand beta software) Luckily, my install started out with the light text option instead of bold text, which introduced me to a totally different looking iOS.

And it is beautiful. Looking at the OS on an actual phone screen with all the animations and dynamic aspects makes a HUGE difference. My phone has come back to life. The boring iOS 6 Windows Vista-like look and way of doing things is finally gone, and I actually enjoy using my phone again.

Looking at the operating system as a whole vs. looking at specific details is where the major difference lies. Jony Ive's approach with iOS 7 is different than iOS 6 in the way that he integrates all the parts of the operating system into a perfect, simple, natural, and fresh way of doing things. The icons and design decisions may seem weird, unnatural, or downright stupid when looking at them individually. But looking at everything combined into a product, just like the iPhone itself, brings out the beauty of iOS 7.

I have found that through using the operating system, I am beginning to like and actually enjoy the new icons. When I am using an OS like iOS 7, I want simple and colorful icons. It is a delightful surprise compared to the rumors (black and white interface). All of the things that bothered me about individual elements in the operating system don’t seem to matter anymore. If anything, these so-called “problems” improve the operating system.

Luckily, I haven’t had too many bugs with the beta. Apple seems to be doing a good job of releasing betas frequently. I can tell they really care about this release. I think iOS 7 will be good for Apple, not a disaster. People will learn to like it once they use it.

Anyway, these were just my thoughts about iOS 7 and all the complaints that have been posted in these forums. If you haven’t used iOS 7 yet, don’t write it off just yet. I think you will be pleasantly surprised when you get to experience it firsthand. So, my question to you would be, have you had the same experience with iOS 7? Do you think it will be a huge improvement to the iPhone?

 

[FlatlinerG]

As I was reading that I became increasingly more aware that it sounded almost like a reworded Jony Ives speech. Weirdest feeling ever..

On to the topic, I couldn't agree more. Screenshots and individual images of icons don't do iOS 7 any justice.

 

[hamiltonDSi]

Well, for me it has been the exact opposite.
Love'd iOS 7 in the Keynote, hate it in "real life".
It's to damn colorfull.

 

[KenAFSPC]

So, my question to you would be, have you had the same experience with iOS 7? Do you think it will be a huge improvement to the iPhone?

No to the first question. As for whether it will be a huge improvement, that would depend on the decisions Apple makes between now and release. I'm not a big fan for many of the reasons articulated by mcdj.

I don't mind flat. The new icons are fine, whatever. But I do take exception to change for change's sake, which I feel drives a disproportionate share of the decisions made by the iOS7 designers.

Fonts, line drawings, status animations, etc; all pencil thin, and as often as not, illegible. Buttons that don't press, or give any feedback at all. White fonts on white backgrounds. Why? I'm all for updating the look of something, but please don't make design the first priority over usability.

iOS7 looks like it was put together by hipster art students obsessed with the 80s New Wave album covers...and they're art students with 20 year old eyes who can discern a 1 pixel progress bar on a Retina display. I sure can't.

And to think they spent a single minute more on the parallax home screen effect than they did on sytem wide font legibility...amazing. The number of emails on the red badge on the email app looks like a rendering error. It's so thin and barely readable, it looks like a scratch in the glass. This is not progress. This is art school masturbation.

I spent 5 minutes updating apps in the App store on iOS7, staring at the blue progress circles...were they getting thicker as the apps downloaded? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Should there be ANY question as to what the circle is doing? Should anyone really have to squint to decipher its status? All in the name of a cool "fresh" design? Nonsense.

Is a clean Safari screen so incredibly important to the almighty LOOK of the app, that I should now be required to tap 3 more times than previously to access my bookmarks bar? And if the look is so important, why does the jumbled mix of favicons and disjointed text that my formerly tidy bookmarks bar has become look like an afterthought?

Is it so important to maintain a clean look that the camera app no longer allows you to see the photo you've just taken, without exiting the app and opening the photos app (which has traded traditional simpllicty and quick navigability for an unintuitive, confusing, but oh so "clean" and trendy visual overhaul).

In too many places, buttons and dialogs have been reduced to simple text, sometimes without so much as a box around it. In iOS7, tapping a word is in; visual feedback following that tap is often out. Am I supposed to think that's cool? Edgy? Hip? Maybe it is those things, but one thing I can tell you it's not...useful. Did my tap register? Hmm. Is the app frozen? Hmm. Should I re-tap in a different place or manner? Hmm.

iOS7 has stripped away so many of the visual clues we have grown accustomed to...clues we have become versed in, not just by using touch screen devices from Apple for the past few years, but a visual vocabulary honed in the civilized physical world, over the course of hundreds of years.

The color red means something serious. It has since the dawn of man. A red delete button means business. iOS7 has reduced delete to just a word. A casual word. Delete? No biggie man, go for it. Or not. Your choice. It's cool. Just tap a word!

There's a reason traffic lights aren't just backlit words. There's a reason currency isn't just printed words on white paper. There's a reason UI designers have used fake button press animations since day one.

Up until iOS7, Apple has spoken, and supremely understood, the universal languages of the physical world, and translated them to near perfection in their 2D interfaces. Universal shapes. Universal colors. Visual feedback that confirmed when something could, and denied when it couldn't.

With iOS7, Apple seems to have forgotten what has made Apple Apple; that they understood the physical world better than most anyone, and turned the universal language of the physical world into pure poetry. It's why the iPod was such a hit. It's why the iPhone redefined the mobile phone. It's why every laptop now looks like a MacBook.

iOS7 looks like Android and Windows Metro had sex in a blender, snorted some coke, dropped some acid, lost too much weight, spent all their money on 80s albums, and forgot everything anyone ever knew about user interfaces.

Restoring now.

I have a number of other concerns too, such as the lengthy animations which seem cool until you realize that they make every operation in IOS7 slower and more cumbersome than IOS6.

 

[fullauto]

The boring iOS 6 Windows Vista-like look and way of doing things is finally gone, and I actually enjoy using my phone again.

I feel iOS 7 looks more like Windows Vista than iOS 6.

Have been using it on an iPad mini for several weeks and have grown to like it.

Like:

Home screen on wake.
Animations including parallax, hover menus in Safari, zooming in and out of apps.
Layered feeling overall.
Control centre.

Dislike:

Length of animations and inability to stop an animation, resulting in double taps (beta - yeah yeah).
Only 9 items in a folder.
Butchering of photos, as quoted, too much fuss from camera to get to pictures.
Too much white in some apps inc. Safari, Notes.
Yellow on white in Notes.
Using it on a mini as the resolution sucks on all these new 'thin' elements.

 

[Night Spring]

The boring iOS 6 Windows Vista-like look and way of doing things is finally gone, and I actually enjoy using my phone again.

To each their own, but I loved the "boring" look of iOS 6, and qute enjoyed using it. It did what it needed to do without calling attention to itself, which is what I think operating systems should do. iOS 7, to my mind, is too flashy and attention seeking. Contrary to Ive's stated goals, I feel like wiith iOS 7, it's the operating system that draws your eyes, to the detraction of content. I could probably grow to tolerate it, but I can't imagine I'd ever enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed iOS up to 6.

But then, I like Windows (up to 7, not the horrible hybrid 8) better than OS X, so it might just be that my personal aesthetic taste doesn't lean that way.