Why everyone thinks iOS 9 will make things better?

[El Tuga]

I'm one of the few who liked the skeumorphism. Sure, sometimes it went over board (original podcast app UI), but I generally preferred it. Higher resolution screens yet we dumb down the detail.

Forstall's problems ran much deeper than skeu' and he needed to go- I agree.

We all know Ive hates skeu'.

Yeah, I agree the old podcast app sucked. As always the question is not on skewmorphism vs flat. The question is good design vs bad design. I like good skewmorphism but the problem with that app, as with iOS 7/8, is simply bad design.

Anyway it is obvious the the app was not developed by the iOS 6 team. It was made by a separate team just to make the point that skewmorphism sucked and that forestall had to go.

 

[sziehr]

I want a 75% repairs and optimization and back end API changes and 25% user facing changes.

This will help with apps which is the core of the iOS experience and with user stability.

I also want a forked iOS for the iPad that offers break out features like user support and multi screen multi tasking.

 

[vista980622]

What Apple should have done was to move all their iDevices to 64 bit CPU/GPU. They are still selling a mix of both. It's the same problem with Microsoft's Windows. It's also layered with old outdated legacy code. They should have launched a new OS with 64 bit requirement and deleted all the old 32 bit code.

Apple has the money to start over. Unfortunately as they continue to sell outdated hardware it makes it harder for them to start from scratch.

That's not really correct. 32-bit iOS and 64-bit iOS mostly share the exact same code. The only difference is made during compilation.

(Unless extremely specific), general optimization & cleanup will benefit both 32-bit devices and 64-bit ones.

 

[A MacBook lover]

Where are the many unhappy about iOS 8 ? On forums like this ?

Right here

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If Apple can't get it together with 9, I'm getting the Galaxy S6. I'd rather have no software updates at all than ones that purposely cripple my device

A galaxy would be the last device id get

 

[Crzyrio]

iOS 5 and 8 are the only big feature updates. Definitely not iOS 6 and 7 was mostly design.

While it may only seem like a design change to the user, a lot of their developers would still have to have been involved in putting it together.

 

[MarcusCarpenter]

I don't care what anyone says;
WE NEED TO ABILITY TO CHANGE DEFAULT APPS.

 

[MaciMac100]

Remember when Apple used to charge money for iOS updates?

Wouldn't it be funny if they said: "Now that 90% of devices are using trojan horse iOS 8... You need pay us if you want working, bug-free, iOS 9."

 

[cmichaelb]

Yeah, I agree the old podcast app sucked. As always the question is not on skeumorphism vs flat. The question is good design vs bad design. I like good skeumorphism but the problem with that app, as with iOS 7/8, is simply bad design.

Anyway it is obvious the the app was not developed by the iOS 6 team. It was made by a separate team just to make the point that skeumorphism sucked and that forestall had to go.

Well, Forstall had much bigger issues then just skeu'. the stories that came out afterwards painted a much more complete picture. Maps was just the final straw for Cook.

Lol. I never thought of it being intentionally bad lol.

iOS 7/8 is totally Ive. Clean lines, Swiss modernism. I find it dull, although I do prefer the menus. I understand wanted a unified look to everything but not at the cost of not knowing what is a button and what is not.

 

[Bawstun]

I tend to agree with the people who have sided with bad design vs. good design. I don't care about skeu or flat, though I prefer a mixture of both. iOS 7/8 are just too flat. When something is white or black, it is white or black. There isn't much for the eyes to go to. Some bright colors here and there, and a fancy font (that they didn't even stick with, and changed because of readability complaints, which should have been their first red flag). Changing the OS font severely changed the 'premium' feel I think they were going with for the flat look. Now it just looks...dull.

It's also too clunky - too many features in the wrong places, too much menu navigating to get to them, etc. They need to simplify again while retaining what they've added.

A lot of tweaking and hopefully an entirely new design for iOS 9, but I doubt it. They would likely save that for iPhone 7, or 8.

 

[El Tuga]

Well, Forstall had much bigger issues then just skeu'. the stories that came out afterwards painted a much more complete picture. Maps was just the final straw for Cook.

Lol. I never thought of it being intentionally bad lol.

iOS 7/8 is totally Ive. Clean lines, Swiss modernism. I find it dull, although I do prefer the menus. I understand wanted a unified look to everything but not at the cost of not knowing what is a button and what is not.

I guess you're being nice! Clean lines? Swiss modernism? That could be ok...but iOS 7/8 is really a bunch of text with different purposes and sometimes different sizes and colors (some of it is content, some is labels, some is buttons, it's up to the user to figure which is which) which clearly does not work as a mobile UI.

 

[cmichaelb]

I guess you're being nice! Clean lines? Swiss modernism? That could be ok...but iOS 7/8 is really a bunch of text with different purposes and sometimes different sizes and colors (some of it is content, some is labels, some is buttons, it's up to the user to figure which is which) which clearly does not work as a mobile UI.

I don't disagree- he sacrificed clarity for design. It went to far in the opposite direction.

 

[mohammed-eg]

I hope iOS 9 is 80-90% bug fixes and performance improvements. Make the UI perform smoothly again, fix the quirks like copy and paste being broken, battery percentage skipping 30% and 60%, etc, etc, etc.

10-20% new features, useful things. Dark mode. Preferences pertaining to where to have translucency, where not to have it, open up quick reply API to third parties, split screen multitasking on iPad, make the iPad more distinctive from iPhone, but KEEP IT SMOOTH.

And on top of that a more refined UI, or a little refresh like how iOS 6 changed the settings icon, made little changes to the way headers look and the status bar inside of apps, just made things look more pretty, less stale, yet not affect performance. Maybe they could even improve performance by doing this. Like taking the translucency out of places where people would never even notice it. Any little thing like that can help. They need to pay attention to detail again.

I don't know if I'm asking for too much but I just don't want my devices stuttering so much in terms of UI performance. My 1 year old iPad mini 2 feels 2 or 3 years old, and there's been UI stuttering from the beginning (CC, NC, Siri, etc + keyboard or lock screen has always stuttered)

There's even stuttering on occasion on my iPhone 6, the newest iOS device there is. I remember I was jealous of my friend's iPad 3 back when it had iOS 6, it was a year old. Everything ran perfectly. The iPad 2 was 2 years old and it ran iOS 6 perfectly as well. Mini 1 was perfect, iPod 5 was perfect, iPhone 4S was perfect... They were on dated hardware. Felt almost impossible to slow down those things. Only time I remember UI stutter was when closing an intensive game out of nowhere, the exit animation dropped frames, depending on the situation. But that was understandable. Now, I can instantly think of anything to slow down any iOS 8 device to date. Things like this bug me, when using the pinch to close gesture on iPad, there's stutter as you are closing an app if the keyboard is open. If there's no keyboard, it's fine. Usually. Why? This makes no sense. Control Center and Notification Center stutter on iPad just because the keyboard is open as well. Why?? I'm sick of seeing this lag related to the keyboard. Everything is twice as bad with a split keyboard.

Maybe I'm only remembering the good things of iOS 6, but as far as I'm concerned, 99% of it was 60FPS. On a 1 year old device. I really want that great performance back, it's one of the only things I miss about iOS 6. I think many people agree, and that's why people are hoping iOS 9 fixes everything.

Totally agree with you man

Forstal was perfect i wish he come back

 

[TRDmanAE86]

UI refresh: the iOS 7 design is starting to look stale and a moderate design refinement taking cues from Yosemite would be greatly welcomed. I seriously hope they don't pull a Forstall and let the current UI stagnate for the next few iterations.

Music app: great app from iOS 1-6, turned to **** in 7/8, hopefully the beats integration will restore this stock app back to its former glory.

Great point, I made a visual chart to compare the music apps (from the now playing screen) Personally, I tend to lean towards the iOS 6 version because the screen looks modern (still today in 2015).

However, hopefully Apple learns its UI lesson and, starts to enhance their design. currently, in iOS 7 & 8, the material (flat) design was abused and a complete overkill On the other hand, iOS 1-6 (especially iOS 6) were built in mind of a skepticism user. If Apple in iOS 9 allows a "Middle Way" between the two preferences, it would look extremely cool!

 

[leolatarc]

I could be wrong about this, but Ive seems like a bit of a crybaby or needy. Great designer no doubt about that, but seems to pout a lot when he doesn't get his way until he eventually gets his way. Seems like Steve had that more under control then Cook does. Tim seems to let Ive have his way for the sake of him not leaving Apple.

I think iOS 7 was a much needed change, I'm just saying I keep reading stories about the guy and think he's a bit of a "me me me" kind of guy.

 

[wesk702]

I definitely want a "snow leopard-esque" performance update, but at the same time feel that stability and speed should be apart of every update and not a feature.

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Great point, I made a visual chart to compare the music apps (from the now playing screen) Personally, I tend to lean towards the iOS 6 version because the screen looks modern (still today in 2015).

However, hopefully Apple learns its UI lesson and, starts to enhance their design. currently, in iOS 7 & 8, the material (flat) design was abused and a complete overkill On the other hand, iOS 1-6 (especially iOS 6) were built in mind of a skepticism user. If Apple in iOS 9 allows a "Middle Way" between the two preferences, it would look extremely cool!

Yeah, I really miss the original cover flow.

 

[iamMacPerson]

I think it's just a rumor. If Apple fixes things and speeds up UI transitions to 60 fps on all devices, there will be lesser incentive for many to upgrade to newer model of iPhone.

My prediction is that all current lags and stutters will remain unchanged in iOS 9 but Apple will make double, triple sure that it does not show performance problems on iPhone 6S. I also expect all A6 devices artifically brought to a crawl with iOS 9.

That's it. Ultimately it's money above anything else.

I find that hard to believe. There are all these conspiracy theories that Apple is trying to kill old devices to get people to move to new ones and they're ridiculous. If Apple wanted to do that, would Yosemite still run pretty damn good on laptops from 5-7 years ago? iOS 9 I think is going to be a major under the hood upgrade, but iOS 10 will bring a major rewrite of the OS. By then, Apple should be able to shed iOS of all 32-bit code and make it 64-bit only. iOS 10 will see the biggest performance increase ever, but iOS 9 will make good progress.

Personally I am not begging for a snow leopard-esq update that most users here seem to really, really want.

I'm all for a polished os but if that all iOS 9 is, then it would be boring.

I don't think we need a huge slew of new features but the ones that come to mind for me are:

UI refresh: the iOS 7 design is starting to look stale and a moderate design refinement taking cues from Yosemite would be greatly welcomed. I seriously hope they don't pull a Forstall and let the current UI stagnate for the next few iterations.

Music app: great app from iOS 1-6, turned to **** in 7/8, hopefully the beats integration will restore this stock app back to its former glory.

Really? I am. iOS needs a Snow Leopard upgrade ASAP. Sure it won't add any new features, but at least the current ones will work better. I don't see how a UI refresh is needed already. They updated the UI less then 2 years ago and it still looks modern. Its not like iOS 6 which was a great modern OS with an interface from the mid-2000's. I do agree though that iOS should take some cues from Yosemite, maybe adding some drop shadows back to add a bit more depth. I think something that would look nice would be round app icons like on the watch. I see Apple updating the interface with little tweaks here and there over the next few years to keep it modern, however nothing drastic. It shouldn't come in this release though. iOS 9 should focus solely on the code and the way the OS runs. It has to big of an overhead ATM and that needs to be fixed.

Also, why all the hate on the Music app? It works just fine for me; sorts my playlists, shuffles my music etc. The interface is kinda plain and has a lot of wasted white space, but it works just fine.

In my opinion iOS 8 is the best iOS ever. IOS 8 is what iOS 7 should have been since the beginning.
It's not perfect. It does have glitches. But it still is the best iOS so far, with a lot of new functions and improvements compared to previous versions.

IMO iOS 8 should not have left the testing lab until they were able to get half the new features to work properly. There are UI glitches in the OS that shouldn't have been there from the beginning, let alone 7 months and 7 updates after its release. For example the copy and paste bug, where the dialog dismisses itself after selecting text. Or just selecting text to begin with is harder under iOS. Trying to select a paragraph in iOS 8 will do one of two things, 1) select the entire page or 2) dismiss the select box. Half the time it won't select the text you want. Don't even get me started on the floating courser in Safari. None of these problems happened in iOS 7 and do not tell me to restore as new, trust me I have tried it and it continues to happen and has since Beta 4 of iOS 8.0 back in the Summer.

The best feature of iOS 8 IMO is AirDrop between iOS devices and Macs, when it decides to work. Every Mac I have tried AirDropping something to or sending something from to my phone has had problems. Sometimes the device won't show up, sometimes it stops mid transfer its really intermittent. AirDropping from iOS to iOS and OS X to OS X is fine, but try to cross them and problems ensue.

Do you know why they changed the UI ? Because they changed people in charge for it, Scott Forestall first.
And I'm glad about that, because I wasn't an huge fan of skeuomorphism.

This I can agree with. iOS needed a facelift and bad. Scott Forestall was horrible at updating the UI and I will not miss the skeuomorphic past of iOS.

 

[Badrottie]

I think it's just a rumor. If Apple fixes things and speeds up UI transitions to 60 fps on all devices, there will be lesser incentive for many to upgrade to newer model of iPhone.

My prediction is that all current lags and stutters will remain unchanged in iOS 9 but Apple will make double, triple sure that it does not show performance problems on iPhone 6S. I also expect all A6 devices artifically brought to a crawl with iOS 9.

That's it. Ultimately it's money above anything else.

Without Steve Jobs watching them nobody cares, iOS 9 will be buggy when it releases next fall. They should wait and test for a least 2 years to be perfect. Look at how Snow Leopard took many years to finish it.

 

[TRDmanAE86]

iOS 9 will fail but, the future looks bright

Without Steve Jobs watching them nobody cares, iOS 9 will be buggy when it releases next fall. They should wait and test for a least 2 years to be perfect. Look at how Snow Leopard took many years to finish it.

Such a great solution! As technology advances, programming and is harder to achieve in a year. Look at Call of Duty. They also have a annual release. However, due to the advancement in technology, in order to build the perfect quality game, they have to use a 3 year rotating platform. Thus, by the time the game comes out, the graphics and gamelay have none or few noticible bugs.

On the other hand like you said, Apple releases annual updates from the same team every year. Code needs time and practice to ensure its flawless. Currently, the designers are being rushed and/or, don't feel like finishing the job on the day of release.

iOS 9 is set to fail and, hopefully Apple will learn their lesson, plan ahead and, have a rotating team developing their software for every other year.

This would even solve the UI issues

Right now, Jony iVes is getting his way. He has great ideas however, some people do not like them (like me) Apple should make 2 UI development teams who release their work every other year thus, keeping the tradition of annual releases.



Even iOS's could be enhancements of the Classic Skepticism UI and, odd number iOS's could be enhancements of the Modern Material UI

Finally, Apple should strip FaceTime certificates every 2.5 years to not pressure users to update to a version they do not like.

Bam, problem solved between the UI and, ensuring a finished product is released to the public

 

[TRDmanAE86]

[/COLOR]

Yeah, I really miss the original cover flow.

Same I look at the new one and, think why have they changed it? The white background really irritates me!

_______
Its funny yesterday, I was in a car with a ton of my friends and, they got jealous looking at my iPod Touch 4G and iPhone 4S still running iOS 6 ! They were surprised and, even admitted my iPhone was better than theirs (in speed, functionality, and design) ! One of them was so irritated he tried to rip my phone out of my hands to update it! Fortunately, I had a passcode on it and, he failed!

This just shows you how irritated people are with iOS 7 & 8 . Both of these updates had potential but, in the end, all of the little things ended up causing problems. Some people have gotten used to it and, others have not.

Upon this baisis, I am concerned about iOS 9. I am crossing my fingers I can be proven wrong by the innovation at Apple!

 

[sanke1]

A galaxy would be the last device id get

So get it.

 

[Statusnone88]

Oh, we're still playing that whole "Apple intentionally slows older devices down" game. Gotcha.

Why do people seriously think any company would do that? It's not in Apple, Microsoft, Google, or anybody's best interest to have slow software. You kill people's desire to use your software, and you also kill their desire to buy more hardware from you.

With the exception of iOS 8 being sloppy on even new devices, every previous version of iOS has added new features that make the OS bigger, therefore making older hardware work harder to get the job done. Apple isn't going to bend over backwards to keep the oldest supported devices running like they did out of the box, because that would take resources away from moving the platform forward.

Same people who think the moon landing was staged, 9/11 was an inside job, and Obama is a Muslim operative taking us down from the inside out (Death Star style).

 

[duffman9000]

Also, why all the hate on the Music app? It works just fine for me; sorts my playlists, shuffles my music etc. The interface is kinda plain and has a lot of wasted white space, but it works just fine.

For me, along with other people here, trouble begins when you have a lot albums from one artist. Grouping the albums (without listing the songs) in older iOS versions of Music made picking the right album much faster. It's as if the people who updated the app thought no one has more than 2 albums per artist or that people should remember the names of all albums under an artist.

I also have other nitpicks that make me wonder if the designers ran any usability tests.