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Is the new UI growing on you?
- Thread starter sigamy
- Start date
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I'm liking the new UI after the first impression of surprise with it. An unexpected benefit if that I can now turn the screen brightness way down (longer battery life) because of the overly bright UI overall. In fact I became uncomfortable with the new UI with the screen brightness at my original setting.
I've gotta say, Apple is a GREAT artist that stole GREAT ideas - and shaped it to be their own.
Jony is the bombs, betw the new Mac Pro, iOS 7 and Mavericks - wow.
Next year will be the year of the Mac, when OS X is done and over. I can't wait to see what'll happen next. One concern of mine, how much will the 4k Apple monitor be - that'll obviously be around soon to go with the Mac Pro. Yowzers!
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But yah, iOS 7 is drop dead gorgeous on a retina device - it's simple, slick and really cool. And for the record: an OS is NOT about its icons. Yeesh. =)
Jony is the bombs, betw the new Mac Pro, iOS 7 and Mavericks - wow.
Next year will be the year of the Mac, when OS X is done and over. I can't wait to see what'll happen next. One concern of mine, how much will the 4k Apple monitor be - that'll obviously be around soon to go with the Mac Pro. Yowzers!
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But yah, iOS 7 is drop dead gorgeous on a retina device - it's simple, slick and really cool. And for the record: an OS is NOT about its icons. Yeesh. =)
well, I have a lot of iOS devices around, so I installed it on an iPhone 4S and using it nonstop for the past few days. I'm not going to talk about the bugs or lags because this isn't the thread for it, and that's mostly going to be ironed out in the final release.
So let's talk about the design and overall functionality of iOS 7.
Things I like:
- Lock Screen: There is no doubt that this looks a lot more modern and it's nicer looking overall. Some users may get confused by the bottom arrow, but I think just unlocking it once or twice will do the trick.
- Animations: iOS 7 really shows off some nice animations all over the OS that makes it more 'alive' in a way, and more enjoyable overall. I think they should speed up some of those animations, because overall it feels slower just jumping from app to app or from folder to folder.
- Panoramic Wallpapers and Parallax: If you haven't tried this yet, then it's a must! Panoramic wallpapers are really nice in iOS 7, and parallax is just a neat little effect to make the icons stand out more.
- Today in Notification Center: This is Apple's Google Now competitor, and it shows you all the important information that you might look for (weather, stocks, calendar, places near you, etc..). We still don't know much about it, but it's a nice thing to have I guess.
Things I hate:
- Icons: I just need to know what happened in Apple's design department that made them approve the Safari icon. Yes, some people might say that icons aren't really that important, but I disagree. Icons are the first thing consumers will see in iOS 7, it's the first thing you'll see in the morning after unlocking the screen. Icons are important. Yes, in the end, we as people will get used to anything, but that's not design. I want to say 'wow' to something when I first see it, just how people say wow when they see a Ferrari. They look childish, and maybe they're trying to shake off the image that they're users are old people? I don't know. What I know that they need to be changed before final release.
- White Interface: Way too much white here. Phone, Messages, Mail, Safari, Music, Calendar, Photos, Maps, Clock, Notes, GameCenter, Settings, iTunes Store and App Store are ALL WHITE. Sometimes, as a user, I feel lost in which app that I'm using because they all look the same. For my taste, this isn't desirable. And I'd like to see an option to change the colors like WindowsPhone, because this looks a bit odd with a black iPhone, and if multiple color iPhones are coming this year, then I hope we'll see such an option.
- Visual Representation Replaced with Text: I think this is what I hate most about iOS 7. Flat is one thing, but what Apple has done is remove a lot of visual representation that makes it easy to glance information and replaced it with text that you have to read. Examples: Weather in Notification Center and Siri, as it showed real beautiful icons in iOS 6 is now replaced with text that you have to read to know the weather. In notes, there was a simple + sign to add notes, now it says "New". In the camera app, instead of the still and video icons we had before, we have to read Photo and Video. It's little things like this that add up to make the UI just harder to use and unpleasant to me.
- Font: At first, I disliked the font because it's too thin to read at times, and I still wonder how it'll work on iPad 2 and iPad Mini without retina displays. However, if you go to Accessibility settings, turn on "Enhance Text Legibility" and "Enhance Background Contrast". It fixes any problem with the text if you had one.
- Control Center: It's a great feature, but swiping up from the bottom is the wrong swipe. In feed apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it creates a problem, as it suddenly pops-up at times because you've swiped from the bottom.
All in all, iOS 7 is pretty much the Windows 8 for iOS. It's a major shift in design, and it feels unfinished and lacks polish. If the final release doesn't fix these issues in the design for me, I may skip this update and wait for iOS 8 when they refine it.
So let's talk about the design and overall functionality of iOS 7.
Things I like:
- Lock Screen: There is no doubt that this looks a lot more modern and it's nicer looking overall. Some users may get confused by the bottom arrow, but I think just unlocking it once or twice will do the trick.
- Animations: iOS 7 really shows off some nice animations all over the OS that makes it more 'alive' in a way, and more enjoyable overall. I think they should speed up some of those animations, because overall it feels slower just jumping from app to app or from folder to folder.
- Panoramic Wallpapers and Parallax: If you haven't tried this yet, then it's a must! Panoramic wallpapers are really nice in iOS 7, and parallax is just a neat little effect to make the icons stand out more.
- Today in Notification Center: This is Apple's Google Now competitor, and it shows you all the important information that you might look for (weather, stocks, calendar, places near you, etc..). We still don't know much about it, but it's a nice thing to have I guess.
Things I hate:
- Icons: I just need to know what happened in Apple's design department that made them approve the Safari icon. Yes, some people might say that icons aren't really that important, but I disagree. Icons are the first thing consumers will see in iOS 7, it's the first thing you'll see in the morning after unlocking the screen. Icons are important. Yes, in the end, we as people will get used to anything, but that's not design. I want to say 'wow' to something when I first see it, just how people say wow when they see a Ferrari. They look childish, and maybe they're trying to shake off the image that they're users are old people? I don't know. What I know that they need to be changed before final release.
- White Interface: Way too much white here. Phone, Messages, Mail, Safari, Music, Calendar, Photos, Maps, Clock, Notes, GameCenter, Settings, iTunes Store and App Store are ALL WHITE. Sometimes, as a user, I feel lost in which app that I'm using because they all look the same. For my taste, this isn't desirable. And I'd like to see an option to change the colors like WindowsPhone, because this looks a bit odd with a black iPhone, and if multiple color iPhones are coming this year, then I hope we'll see such an option.
- Visual Representation Replaced with Text: I think this is what I hate most about iOS 7. Flat is one thing, but what Apple has done is remove a lot of visual representation that makes it easy to glance information and replaced it with text that you have to read. Examples: Weather in Notification Center and Siri, as it showed real beautiful icons in iOS 6 is now replaced with text that you have to read to know the weather. In notes, there was a simple + sign to add notes, now it says "New". In the camera app, instead of the still and video icons we had before, we have to read Photo and Video. It's little things like this that add up to make the UI just harder to use and unpleasant to me.
- Font: At first, I disliked the font because it's too thin to read at times, and I still wonder how it'll work on iPad 2 and iPad Mini without retina displays. However, if you go to Accessibility settings, turn on "Enhance Text Legibility" and "Enhance Background Contrast". It fixes any problem with the text if you had one.
- Control Center: It's a great feature, but swiping up from the bottom is the wrong swipe. In feed apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it creates a problem, as it suddenly pops-up at times because you've swiped from the bottom.
All in all, iOS 7 is pretty much the Windows 8 for iOS. It's a major shift in design, and it feels unfinished and lacks polish. If the final release doesn't fix these issues in the design for me, I may skip this update and wait for iOS 8 when they refine it.
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I liked it from the WWDC presentation, and enjoy it while using it. My battery does drain way faster, but I know it's a beta. The one area I don't like is if you click the box say in Safari to send a weblink, the top row of options is nice bright icons and the bottom row is black outlines. Seems to really clash.
Growing on me a little bit..but
I thi apple should just go back to the original icons and kep everything else about iOS 7.
It's not growing on me enough though because I am actively pursuing a note 2 again.
I thi apple should just go back to the original icons and kep everything else about iOS 7.
It's not growing on me enough though because I am actively pursuing a note 2 again.
Thanks for the review, but when I saw this last paragraph I laughed.. yah right, let's see you sit through iOS 7 in all it's under-the-hood goodness, and just skip it. =)
My bet, you'll install!
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Just as Maps during navigation has a dark mode, I hope the entire iOS system has a dark mode - that's either automatic with sunrise and sunset, or manually adjustable.
Even in gradients? =)
but a dark mode would certainly be welcomed by all
Problem is all future devices will come with IOS7. So it may be either update or leave Apple.
Hahahhahha
They've gotta do a dark mode.. but if not, I'm certainly sticking around with Apple. Mac Pro is dark.. Hm?!
Yep.
Ive and co. spent ~7 months redesigning the whole thing.
iPhone OS was originally built over 2-3 years.
It's not going to be perfect initially.
I was soooo wrong !!! and huh ?
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I was afraid Ive would stick us with a palid, bloodless, khaki, veal of an UI looking like a model airplane before painting and decals.
Instead I saw the most beautimous and fantabulous frosted beauty I could hope for. The translucent layer and the vibrant color palette just blew me away. Let's hope the fine print viz., we might change this and some of it won't work in your gadget ... doesn't come true.
One thing I am thinking: it looks great in a white iPhone. But it might not look as good in a black one: the happy colors would clash with the "bad-boy" look of the black iPhone. I was planning on upgrading to a black 5S , since I have a white 4S now. But after seeing the Keynote, I will absolutely get a white 5S ASAP.
FEATURE REQUEST: Since we are to have frosted layers, why not let us make our folders with our chosen jpeg showing on the folder's icon for instant visual identification for those of us who have trouble reading the tiny captions on the current folders. Also,, a folder ought to look different from a single file: the icon ought to look like a tabbed hanging folder or something equivalent. There is a utility for Rosetta Stone OSX (Leopard) called iCoco that lets me do this easily. A tabbed folder with a translucent jpeg of my choice on it's face is FAR FAR easier to find (especially if I don't remember it's name to key into Spotlight) in a long window full of hundreds of folders.
I have tried to attach a sample of an iCoco folder icon.
Can you tell it's for my automobile files ?
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I was afraid Ive would stick us with a palid, bloodless, khaki, veal of an UI looking like a model airplane before painting and decals.
Instead I saw the most beautimous and fantabulous frosted beauty I could hope for. The translucent layer and the vibrant color palette just blew me away. Let's hope the fine print viz., we might change this and some of it won't work in your gadget ... doesn't come true.
One thing I am thinking: it looks great in a white iPhone. But it might not look as good in a black one: the happy colors would clash with the "bad-boy" look of the black iPhone. I was planning on upgrading to a black 5S , since I have a white 4S now. But after seeing the Keynote, I will absolutely get a white 5S ASAP.
FEATURE REQUEST: Since we are to have frosted layers, why not let us make our folders with our chosen jpeg showing on the folder's icon for instant visual identification for those of us who have trouble reading the tiny captions on the current folders. Also,, a folder ought to look different from a single file: the icon ought to look like a tabbed hanging folder or something equivalent. There is a utility for Rosetta Stone OSX (Leopard) called iCoco that lets me do this easily. A tabbed folder with a translucent jpeg of my choice on it's face is FAR FAR easier to find (especially if I don't remember it's name to key into Spotlight) in a long window full of hundreds of folders.
I have tried to attach a sample of an iCoco folder icon.
Can you tell it's for my automobile files ?
Attachments
It was love at first sight for me while watching WWDC. I find myself turning it on quite often just to take a look at the new sexy UI. I love it. I know it will definitely get better as time passes with each new update. So I'm not worried there. But for a 1st beta, it is looking quite nice to me.
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That blue compass is incredibly beautiful.
I studied physics because of my first experience with a compass and a magnet ( yes, yes, so did some Albert guy ... but it's a common affliction ).
Gawd only knows what I will do after this gorgeous compass !
Apple HAS GOT TO USE IT and pay this designer whatever it takes.
And the Safari icon can be re-done, if it is too similar.
This compass stays and the Safari goes.
I never understood why surfing the net is like going to kill innocent animals in Africa to hang their heads on the wall of an unmanly idiot.
I'd rather see a surfboard.
I saved the compass for my photo collection.
Cc and NS need to look more similar is all I want . It really bothers me that they are so far apart in looks.
Envisioning Information
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212rikanmofo,
I was looking at the frosted control panel alternative you posted and wondering what the differences were. When I put it side-by-side with Ive's, I saw why it looked better. Mainly, he eliminated unnecessary separator lines around icons. These lines, in Ive's design, act as barricades for the information inside of them.
I don't know why he left a white disk around the Wi-fi bars: it seems just as unnecessary - maybe he thought it needed a ground to help us count the bars. But the huge white disk joins visually with the small white knobs of the sliders that are not related to it.
Also, I would have kept the vertical black line in the music progress bar. It is attractive and, without it, the thin white progress filler is too difficult to follow.
The circles around the icons he took out remind me of a study of the real "backward masking" experiments of the fifties, wherein a block letter was flashed at subjects so briefly that they could perceive it consciously (supraliminally) only 50% of the time. By following the block letter flash with a circle flash, the perception of the preceding block letter dropped drastically even though the circle came after the letter, whence "backward masking" subliminal stimulus. This study was no trendy, urban legend hype. It was a very serious study of human visual perception.
I have a book that I treasure: Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte . This book is itself a work of art. I have not found a single typo or other error in it.
It has the most beautiful illustrations of good and bad graphic design I have seen to date.
I hope you can get your hands on a copy; you will really enjoy it.
One of the first sins it warns against is the use of unnecessary boundary lines to demarcate sections of text or icons.
He recommends the use of "white space" instead.
The side-by-side comparisons are very telling.
It seems that the designer whose work you posted read or wrote this book !
Could you please source these images for our convenience ?
I'd love to see more examples of their work.
By the way, don't you think Ive's icon for stocks looks more like the electro-cardiogram of a man in fibrillation ?
A jagged, climbing line with an arrow at the end would suffice and be less macabre.
Thanks,
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212rikanmofo,
I was looking at the frosted control panel alternative you posted and wondering what the differences were. When I put it side-by-side with Ive's, I saw why it looked better. Mainly, he eliminated unnecessary separator lines around icons. These lines, in Ive's design, act as barricades for the information inside of them.
I don't know why he left a white disk around the Wi-fi bars: it seems just as unnecessary - maybe he thought it needed a ground to help us count the bars. But the huge white disk joins visually with the small white knobs of the sliders that are not related to it.
Also, I would have kept the vertical black line in the music progress bar. It is attractive and, without it, the thin white progress filler is too difficult to follow.
The circles around the icons he took out remind me of a study of the real "backward masking" experiments of the fifties, wherein a block letter was flashed at subjects so briefly that they could perceive it consciously (supraliminally) only 50% of the time. By following the block letter flash with a circle flash, the perception of the preceding block letter dropped drastically even though the circle came after the letter, whence "backward masking" subliminal stimulus. This study was no trendy, urban legend hype. It was a very serious study of human visual perception.
I have a book that I treasure: Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte . This book is itself a work of art. I have not found a single typo or other error in it.
It has the most beautiful illustrations of good and bad graphic design I have seen to date.
I hope you can get your hands on a copy; you will really enjoy it.
One of the first sins it warns against is the use of unnecessary boundary lines to demarcate sections of text or icons.
He recommends the use of "white space" instead.
The side-by-side comparisons are very telling.
It seems that the designer whose work you posted read or wrote this book !
Could you please source these images for our convenience ?
I'd love to see more examples of their work.
By the way, don't you think Ive's icon for stocks looks more like the electro-cardiogram of a man in fibrillation ?
A jagged, climbing line with an arrow at the end would suffice and be less macabre.
Thanks,
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My thoughts
I've used Android religiously for years, and before that BB. I only switched to iPhone Feb of this year. I got the iPhone 5 16GB white after selling my beloved Galaxy S3.
1) I will never go back to Android. Simply stated IOS is smoother, more fluid and more reliable. I've yet to have a crash or F/C. I don't need to go on about that here, clearly. Also, the physical design of the iPhone superior, IMO.
Now that that's out of the way, my take on IOS7:
There are some aspects of Google's OS that I miss, and not many of the items I've longed for since making the switch seem to be incorporated in 7.
That being said, I feel that in 7, Apple has adapted some of Android's better, more crowd-pleasing base features. Swipe gestures, simple OTA sharing, control center. I don't see it as copying. I don't see it as catching up. I see it as Apple's first tentative steps at spreading it's wings under new 'direction'. Maybe it will fail, maybe not. They won't lose my business over it, that's for sure.
As a person new to IOS-sphere, I'm not hooked on the old interface (6.1.4 currently), nor do I feel it was stagnant. And I'm SUPER looking forward to installing 7 on my phone. My partner has the beta-version one of his 5's, and I love it. Personally I really like the colors and one-dimensional icons. Pictures of the UI are not really like having it in hand.
In any event, from a user new to Apple, the reasons I stick with Apple and probably never will revert to Android are simple: physical design, fluidity and reliability. Not innovation and exclusivity. And as long as those three attributes stay strong, I'm going to stick around. In fact I just bought and iPad and I love it too!
I've used Android religiously for years, and before that BB. I only switched to iPhone Feb of this year. I got the iPhone 5 16GB white after selling my beloved Galaxy S3.
1) I will never go back to Android. Simply stated IOS is smoother, more fluid and more reliable. I've yet to have a crash or F/C. I don't need to go on about that here, clearly. Also, the physical design of the iPhone superior, IMO.
Now that that's out of the way, my take on IOS7:
There are some aspects of Google's OS that I miss, and not many of the items I've longed for since making the switch seem to be incorporated in 7.
That being said, I feel that in 7, Apple has adapted some of Android's better, more crowd-pleasing base features. Swipe gestures, simple OTA sharing, control center. I don't see it as copying. I don't see it as catching up. I see it as Apple's first tentative steps at spreading it's wings under new 'direction'. Maybe it will fail, maybe not. They won't lose my business over it, that's for sure.
As a person new to IOS-sphere, I'm not hooked on the old interface (6.1.4 currently), nor do I feel it was stagnant. And I'm SUPER looking forward to installing 7 on my phone. My partner has the beta-version one of his 5's, and I love it. Personally I really like the colors and one-dimensional icons. Pictures of the UI are not really like having it in hand.
In any event, from a user new to Apple, the reasons I stick with Apple and probably never will revert to Android are simple: physical design, fluidity and reliability. Not innovation and exclusivity. And as long as those three attributes stay strong, I'm going to stick around. In fact I just bought and iPad and I love it too!
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I was about to start an "official IOS 7 Positive thread" because I love it.
Sure there is some overlapping text, and some emails not showing in lock screen, some delays here and there (imessaging pictures..) but it is a small price to pay. I love it, its beautiful and functional and will only get better.
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My battery is better on IOS 7 then on 6. Not by much, but it is noticeable.
Sure there is some overlapping text, and some emails not showing in lock screen, some delays here and there (imessaging pictures..) but it is a small price to pay. I love it, its beautiful and functional and will only get better.
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My battery is better on IOS 7 then on 6. Not by much, but it is noticeable.
I agree. iOS 7 is very inconsistent all over. I like the theme and where it's going but they need to refine it and add a little "pop" to it. Right now it's too bland and flat. I just needs a little kick honestly. Not much, just a little. I still like it though. Hopefully the finished product will look a lot better.
No. Its not growing on me.I think it is an ugly UI .The icons are ugly, the flat design means you have to be careful what wallpaper you have as some of the text disappears, have a white background and parts of icons disappear, such as calendar.
The dialler is like something from the 90s., whats with the circles, and the circle pictures for Contacts looks dated already.
The folder backgrounds also have that dated look to them, as well as being a waste of space.Whats the point of the extra screen space with the 5 when you only get 9 icons on display?
The music app with its pink text, Safari with its blue unrecognisable icons and the disappearing bar that seems to be a bit of a pain (for me at least), the very fine font used is horrible,especially so on the keyboard.
Parallax on the springboard? It was a good Cydia tweak a couple of years ago, for 5 minutes(at least you can turn it off)
The Vista-esque frosted glass in control centre isnt too bad, but on the dock ,again, depending on wallpaper can be quite ugly.
Thats my take on the looks ,and only the looks of it.
The dialler is like something from the 90s., whats with the circles, and the circle pictures for Contacts looks dated already.
The folder backgrounds also have that dated look to them, as well as being a waste of space.Whats the point of the extra screen space with the 5 when you only get 9 icons on display?
The music app with its pink text, Safari with its blue unrecognisable icons and the disappearing bar that seems to be a bit of a pain (for me at least), the very fine font used is horrible,especially so on the keyboard.
Parallax on the springboard? It was a good Cydia tweak a couple of years ago, for 5 minutes(at least you can turn it off)
The Vista-esque frosted glass in control centre isnt too bad, but on the dock ,again, depending on wallpaper can be quite ugly.
Thats my take on the looks ,and only the looks of it.
When I first saw the keynote I thought iOS 7 looked a little childish. But after using it I'll have a hard time going back to iOS 6 should I need to for whatever reason. I still have iOS 6 on my iPhone 4, and in going back to that, iOS 6 looks more childish than iOS 7. Everything in 7 just seems to flow better, be a lot smoother, and everything connected. iOS 6 just seems so buttony.