Even for non-colorblind folks, Apple's use of white text over light colored or detail heavy images (depending on your background or for example what song you are listening to in the case of the lock screen) is extremely troublesome.
It took three tries, I was about to tell you that that it was perfectly readable. I was only seeing slide to unlock and the top icons, I'm guessing that proves your point.
Yes. And I saw both immediately. The only issue is not visibility -- it's that people might conflate them as parts of the background image.
But that's just because you only see them now over that one image. After you've seen them with the background (album art?) changed, you'd know immediately what it is and where.
Visibility is an issue. If the album artwork has a white background the time and date are actually impossible to discern. But even in the image I posted it's unacceptably difficult. In fact even with the default background and no album artwork it is unacceptably difficult (in my opinion) with the text being white, with no shadow or outline and such a thin typeface.
I do assume that the album artwork will be repositioned or some other measures will be taken before release though, given how egregious the issues are (specifically regarding the album artwork). I'm less hopeful that they'll add a layer between the text and background as in the old version, or just a text shadow or outline, but that is what they ought to do.
>Visibility is an issue. If the album artwork has a white background the time and date are actually impossible to discern.
Sure, but only having seen the image and not the UI live, I don't know if they change the date/time colours when the background image changes to whiter. Perhaps they do?
If the BG is set to entirely white then the text will indeed be black. However, even quite light BG's (which aren't fully white) do not trigger this switch. So hopefully they adjust this threshold. (Edit: they only do this for the background currently, not album artwork. I've seen album art which was white, completely drowning out the time and date.)
Unfortunately, even if they did that, it would not alleviate issues where there is too much detail in the background (as in a photo or perhaps some abstract art design). In that case the text would still be difficult or impossible to read, regardless of color, since it would blend into all that detail.
From what I've seen via daltonize/XScope/etc iOS 7 is significantly clearer for many apps for the common 2 types of color blindness. Do you have tritanopia or something else?
The weather app isn't in "iOS7" default style and is a little hard to read for normal trichromates. And honestly, if only the weather app is crap, not like there aren't 203948203498 weather apps.
Are any of the other apps hard for you to read? I know I'm constantly checking contrast/colorblind appearance in apps from designers who don't necessarily look at designs with CB people in mind.
Invert colors almost certainly will fix things if all else fails, but I suspect "enhance text legibility" or "increase font size" will do the trick for 99% of apps.
It's a shame that we've developed all of these beautiful high-resolution/high-contrast displays...and now we're putting everything on-screen in light grey on a bright white background in Helvetica Light.
My eyes just can't take this. I'm not colorblind but I do need reading glasses. I wiped the iOS Gmail app just because the contrast gave me headaches.
Lowering the brightness actually makes it worse. It has nothing to do with brightness and everything to do with contrast. The older you get, the more contrast you need.
Way to make one feel good: "oh, you were fine using our previous product, but you're clearly not good enough for this one. There, have a look at the options for differently-able people, you're now officially in that category. Do you need help crossing the road, by the way?"
How else should s/he make the point? As someone with "normal" eyesight, I should not have to enable accessibility aids in order to read the clock on my iPhone.
In a sane world, iOS 7's graphic design decisions alone would already have knocked ten billion dollars off of AAPL's market cap. Slavishly copying the people who slavishly copied you in the last round is not the way forward.
What you are saying is that the option would be fine if it was in a fonts menu but it’s offensive because it is in accessibility. That is not right.
You are absolutely free to think the font choice is poor and that the existence of that option proves it, but you should not use the accessibility menu as your rationalization excuse.
Apologies, but that's exactly the point: people who wouldn't otherwise think of themselves as different are now forced to go through the accessibility features, which inevitably carry some baggage. Would BMW ever force left-handed people to install a visibly different steering-wheel?
No, it's not the point. Is the UI difficult for many people to see? Maybe, but unlike you, I don't hear Apple telling people who need to use their accessibility tools that they're "not good enough."
Thank you for classifying me as "not good enough."
As somebody who has to wear glasses, I can assure you that the day I was diagnosed, my ego took a hit. One of the worst aspects of getting old is that one is forced to accept the increased loss of independence from aides of any sort. Of course you get over it, in time (well, some people don't), but it's far from a pleasant experience -- and "I'm not good enough" is exactly what you think, deep down, especially if you're male and proud. It's bad enough that we all have to go through that by default, but being forced by Apple to relive the experience for no good reason, it's fairly humiliating, wouldn't you say?
Maybe this is just bitching and whining, but as far as I am concerned iOS 7 is another "Apple Maps"-style upgrade disaster if they don't make a lot of UI changes. I really think people are going to hate it. I know it's just a beta, but I had the same hopes that Apple Maps would be improved during its beta (and commented to people that Apple was going to have big problems if it didn't) and look where that went.
It's a shame too because they added a lot of good things like the new notifications layout, Siri improvements, control pane slide-out, etc.
Apple Maps was a regression in functionality. The design of the home screen is a subjective opinion. Whether good or bad, it seems to have created more self proclaimed graphic designers and experts on the Internet than anything else in recent memory.
In my opinion this UI update is a regression in functionality in terms of the icons being harder to discern and the text being harder to read (and significantly so). And since this affects the entire OS (not just one app) I think the blowback could be just as high even if it isn't as bad as maps was. Hopefully they'll make changes though and I'll eat my words.
Making things more difficult to read is a valid argument for regression. Even if it is for some people (where previously it wasn't) that should be pointed out and complained about (as you are rightly doing ).
The whole brouhaha in the armchair designer community over icons, colors & design is simply nuts though. "Designers" are coming out of the woodwork in droves to prove that they can do better in 1 hour what Johny Ives & Co took many months to do.
Apple Maps was trying to replace a service that had almost a decade of engineering and data powering it. It's kind of a miracle they were able to ship anything at all, IMHO, when you consider the weight of what they were trying to accomplish.
Now, some time later, it's disappointing to see that Apple Maps fails to work well in a lot of places. I'm not so sure this says anything about Apple per se, or is more of a testament to just how advanced Google's technology is.
True, but even the look and feel of Apple Maps (the map display content specifically) was shoddy in my opinion. It's actually improved in this current beta, but really that's a testament that Maps should have been worked on for another update cycle, and I think the same is true of this UI refresh. Hopefully they can make the needed changes before release later this year (assuming that is when they plan to release).
Edit: Also just a comment along the lines of your second paragraph... it's crazy that Apple Maps still can't find the News Corp. building in Manhattan (at least by that well-known name). It's a building that I noticed it couldn't find at launch and continually checked for over the months just to take the temperature of Apple's data updates. Still nothing.
I think there were external factors that forced a hard deadline for Apple Maps: the Google contract expiring, and the fact that for a service like mapping, not releasing the app into the wild serves as a blocker on a lot of engineering work that cannot begin until there is real-world usage data to work with.
Really? When have we seen Apple change its game like that before?
Don't like Mission Control? Too bad, get used to it. Want Google Maps back after Apple pushed their maps too soon? Sorry, your stuck with Apple maps. Bad cell reception? You're just holding your phone wrong.
There are many examples like this. I've seen many people say something along the lines of, "oh don't worry, this is just beta, it will all be better when it is released." It may, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Mission Control? Redone in 10.9. Apologies if their engineers work too slowly for your pace.
Google Maps? Google didn't want to license their data without Apple giving them location data. Apple can't force Google to let them use Google's data. The next best thing was Google Maps on the App Store, which his what happened.
Bad cell reception? Sort of a silly example, given they provided video examples on their site of every other major cell phone sold at the time exhibiting that behavior. However, they gave out free bumpers and extended the return period if it was an issue worthy of return. Also, they redesigned the phone _on the very next release_, the Verizon iPhone 4. This was unheard of at the time, and to this time, core hardware usually doesn't change on the *S releases, much less before then.
You can continue to enumerate the many examples you know like this (sic), if you'd like.
However, they gave out free bumpers and extended the return period if it was an issue worthy of return.
It took quite a bit of community anger for them to get to this point. They spent a lot of effort doing the "you're just holding it wrong" angle first. The issue isn't that they fixed it by doing -foo-, it's that they considered the fault to be in the user, not their design.
Why should they be necessary though? Presumably the original commenter was indicating that iOS 6 and earlier worked well for him/her in their default state. So how is it better to make the default state in iOS 7 less usable thus requiring the use of accessibility settings for a larger group of people?
It's also a pain if you are new to the platform. For evidence, go to any website which uses light grey (or worse, red) to indicate links (instead of the standard color).
I like that the "Music" icon has perfectly chosen colors... coincidentally, those are nearly the exact same ones used in the Zune branding and app: http://i.imgur.com/Mzw6bta.png
Really, though, I do not like almost any of the new icons. I love the flat thing, and I reskinned my Android phone with the minimal MIUI icon set (quite well done), but Apple just did it wrong.
Here we go again. Not to be cynical, but that's just unfair. Apple has plenty of time improve their icons before iOS 7 releases to the public, assuming they acknowledge it wasn't a brilliant idea to outsource design to the local children's art school.
They've already released their icons to the public in the form of an incredibly public keynote. Criticism is entirely fair at this point. If they redesign them, then great. We'll talk about that, too.
It's absolutely not unfair. Even to the beta Apple has invested a ton of time putting their UI designs front and center. If they didn't want them to be the travesty they are now they would have made them differently.
It's hard to believe that there's any other reason the icons look this way other than through intention. And then the question becomes about Apple's taste level.
So, something on a blog on the internet is now "enlightenment" ?
*edit. I found this link quoted in other places in this thread. Turns out all of them were you. What makes you believe that information there is fact ?
You said you couldn't see how the result could be unintended. I showed you how it could be unintended. You replied with sarcasm. So now I'm assuming you're not seriously interested in the answer to your second question. But I could be wrong, so here you go:
1. Experience: I've worked on design teams that did not suffer from incoherent, committee driven management, and others that did. This attuned me to the signature patterns that both approaches inevitably imprint on their products.
2. Direct Observation: Like everyone else, I can see the work for myself. If you know what to look for, it's not hard to recognize the tell-tale signs of a badly directed, poorly managed process.
3. Judgement: Being familiar with the work and reputation of the publication, I consider them a reasonably reliable source of sound reporting. The fact that their account dovetails with my own experience lends credence to the story. I can also see that that account they're providing could be easily falsified if it were untrue (making this an unlikely place to stretch the truth).
4. General Knowledge: I am aware that Ive is new to this kind of design, and relatively inexperienced. I am also aware that having good taste isn't enough. Only the combination of good taste and long practice will produce desirable results. In his defense, he's having to develop expertise quickly, under a spotlight. I sympathise with his struggles. At the same time, knowing that the company is going through a major transition means that missteps like these aren't unexpected. Indeed, it would be astonishing if they nailed it on the first try.
Go to www.apple.com - front and center is an appeal to watch the iOS 7 keynote. If they don't want to show this to the public they're going about it in an awfully strange way.
As an Android user, I find the whole brouhaha over the new IOS look rather ridiculous - because I have no idea what Android stock icons even look like.
I've been using a shell for many years (doesn't matter which - can't even recall name now) which comes with its own icons. So to me this sounds as childish (ie Apple treating its customers as children who can't be trusted with picking their own icons) - as if my laptop had a set of preconfigured directory names and I could not rename them myself.
It's rather telling that all these people take the concept that icons on their pocket computer are G-d given and immutable, like a law of nature and that the most they can do is whine if they don't like them.
That's one of the major (real) differences between the iOS and Android camps... while so much of the divide is just silly, I think it's reasonable to say that Android users more often expect and utilize options regarding how the OS looks and behaves than iOS users, who are used to a stable, familiar, cohesive, consistent experience (as mandated by Apple for iOS developers).
If Google ran its ship the same way with regard to hammering UI guidelines down everyone's throat, this would likely happen there as well. I don't know which is better or worse, but the two are certainly different, and it's either created a divide or pointed out a difference between people who strongly prefer one over the other.
What I find funny is that the people who are writing these articles are advanced users and not some grandmother who needs protection. Ie - if you are either a designer who deeply cares about how your icons look - don't be a sheep and customize your pocket computer the way you want.
Wow. I'm sure there are examples that might prove your point, but those are some of ugliest icons I've ever seen. The second one looks like it's straight from Windows 3.1.
The icon is a perfect representation of the game. I don't have to guess what it might be.
I chose icons I consider good looking. If you think they are ugly, that is a subjective matter. Also keep in mind that they are displayed much smaller on the screen.
The point I was trying to imply is that icons can much better represent their app if they are not forced to abide to a standard of shape or style.
Yeah. Someone in one of the earlier iOS 7 threads was complaining that Android icons didn't have consistent outlines like on iOS, but giving them their own distinctive silhouettes seems to be Android's icon style.
The strong selling point of iOS is consistency and order across all concepts. To me Android is like a mutagenic factory sewage - anything is possible for better of worth.
Well, I don't know about that, but the icons have two purposes:
1. Allow new users to guess at the functionality of apps before tapping them. This is important for first impressions (like trying out the phone at the store before buying it).
2. Allow current users to quickly and reliably navigate to the app they intend to use.
It seems to me that instead of arguing about skeuomorphism, there should just be some good old A/B testing for these two use cases. And whatever wins is best. Maybe Apple has done this, maybe not.
They chose grey because the icons will be slightly semi-transparent in the final build and will take on color from your background. In that sense, it's a pretty brilliant design.
The change to the camera icon makes a lot of sense if you've ever watched a first-time phone user looking for the Camera app.
Differences between music, video and photos again seems to emphasize their very different bodies of users. They actually do very different things because they service very different needs—people who buy music in iTunes or pirate it (as opposed to using Pandora, etc.), people who buy movies in iTunes or pirate them (as opposed to using HBO Go), and people who want to show their photos to someone. None of these use cases require personality and it seems like putting personality in a software icon meant to be universally understood is a bad idea.
I can't decide which one is worse, Safari or Settings.
Apple's always had quality control issues, but when the main theme of the keynote is iOS 7's new look, and the first thing they show you are those icons, it makes me think that they are having serious execution issues.
Even if they improve them later (one can hope), it's a lost chance to wow us, which has always been Apple's thing and the whole reason for the keynote.
There's nobody at the top furiously rattling the cage until all the designs are up to par. Jobs of course reviewed every aesthetic, and was more than willing to live by that sword and die by that sword (if it wasn't good enough, it shouldn't ship; he made a few mistakes on that front, but it was a core theme non-the-less).
Personally, I've never liked the Camera and Safari icons -- somehow my brain never associated "round thingie" with "taking a picture" and "compass" with "reading web pages" (remember the old Netscape light-tower? I've always thought that was so weird). In that sense, I kinda like the new Camera more than the old one (although Ian's suggestion to make it dynamic is great).
I agree 100000% on the Videos icon. It's a relic: when every Mac user was a pro video-maker using video-editing tools every day, I guess it made sense to keep it consistent. I don't come from that background, so that icon never felt natural; I agree that a "Play button" would be so much better.
The idea of making icons dynamic is great and would go some way towards compensating for the lack of real-time home-screen apps. Newsstand proves that it can be done, and Apple should probably use it a bit more, battery be damned. There is a risk in opening such an API to third parties, that developers will start blinkifying their icons to jump at you, transforming one's home screen in a giant flashy billboard; but it would certainly be a nice touch for homegrown system icons.
I completely disagree on the dynamic icons. When I want to play some music, I know I'm looking for a two-eighth-note icon on a pink-orange background, and I don't want that background to change to black cause I listened to Dark Side last.
One of the aims of dynamic icons is to avoid having to actually tap on them, if the required information is simple enough to be displayable in the icon itself (e.g. weather, stock). Apps that want to encourage launch could modify just half the icon, or a quarter, or none.
After reading the article, the last thing I wanted was dynamic icons. But your take on it makes sense.
I don't want 'photos' to show me the latest photo I took as that could have been days ago and now finding the photos app is really difficult.
But if just part of the icon changed to indicate something, like your stock folio position (without the red/green background idea) then it works both ways. The icon always looks generally the same - it's a graph - but it changes to indicate some data point that may save opening the app.
That said, how would the icons update if you don't open the app. Each app's developer would either have to send out an icon update notification or would have to provide some level of running the app on a regular basis to regenerate the icon.
I guess apps would have to provide a static function that returns an updated icon, which iOS would call every X minutes/hours. I don't think it'd be hard for developers, it's Apple who would have to do most of the job.
Ah, that is a good point. Retaining a significant amount of the original design probably goes a long way towards keeping the icon quickly-recognizable.
And that's the thing IMHO - to some people Safari is an established brand, just like Firefox with its red-and-blue icon, or Chrome. I am rarely aware of the fact that Safari is a compass. If Apple didn't want to build a brand, they should probably just change the label to "Internet" (sic).
And the new Safari icon throws that brand away, which means that everyone has to learn -again- that the skinny white compass means "browser". And that the icon is inconsistent with every use of the icon before. All things that could have been avoided while still making the icon flat.
Totally agree there would be problems to solve with 3rd party applications changing their icons. I was actually thinking Apple could do something smart about the intervals that the icons are allowed to change.
For example, the icon has free reign to update itself when the application is active. This would be useful for things like Newsstand, where the user purchasing new items affects the icon. But wouldn't need to be abused since the icon can't be seen while the application is active, so no one is going to blink it.
Then you could allow applications to update at a constrained interval when they aren't active as well. Except what if the amount of time required for the icon to update itself determined how often it happened. So an icon like "Clock" literally takes the tiniest sliver of time to update would be allowed to update more freely. (Clock is a bad example since even that is excessive, but you get the idea.)
Whereas an icon that needed to make an HTTP request to get new information to update itself would take 100's of milliseconds, and thus would be rate limited to only update maybe once an hour at most.
No idea if it could work technically, but it seems like an interesting solution.
There are security issues with letting 3rd party apps change their icons. What if one changed itself to look like Facebook, then pretended to be Facebook and asked you to login?
I think he means Netscape Communicator, which used the lighthouse icon (where the metaphor has something to do with guiding you around in the dark?); Navigator had the boat wheel icon.
You're right. I think the lighthouse was also used in some version (or theme) of the animated icon in the top right corner, which was usually a big N [1].
Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything in here. And I also imagine that the icons (and general new "flat" look) will get refined over the next months/years.
Also, though many of the icons are a bit odd (and some, like the calculator and camera, frankly suck), upon use, iOS 7 really does feel like a natural improvement upon past version of iOS and not some attempt to make iOS more like Windows Mobile or Android.
I'm excited that Apple's shaken things up a bit visually. It'll force app makers (self included) to think in fresh ways about their interfaces. Which will lead to more novelty, innovation, and (hopefully) better products.
Some people are upset about the look of iOS, Android and WP converging, but I'm quite happy about it. At the moment many apps get written to fit the iOS style and when they are ported over to Android they look horrible.
I think now many cross platform apps are going to start looking a lot better.
People get stuck on the word 'skeuomorphism' here but the key word is 'unnecessary':
Find My Friends is often condemned for being too skeuomorphic. Mythbusted: Find My Friends uses standard iOS UI that is themed using custom graphics. The fine corinthian leather and stitching does not harken back to a day of fine corinthian leather products we used to use to find our friends. There is no connection to real world objects by using these materials.
Skeuomorphism is an attempt at reproducing physical items digitally. The problem is that in a few years, nobody is going to relate to most of these objects.
The same thing is still true for any icon (such as the "save" floppy disk or the old-style trash can), but at least they're simple and don't require realism. They'll simply become abstract symbols that represent some actions.
I'm an absolute fan of flat design, and my favorite mobile OS is Windows Phone. However, I still prefer iOS 6 to iOS 7, if only for the look of third party apps.
I think they might have taken skeuomorphism to the extreme in some of the recent apps (Calendar, Notes, and Reminders, I'm looking at you) but after looking through the screenshots of the new app UIs and these icon comparison I think they went too far in the other direction.
To me an icon is a quick way of telling me what the app is and for lack of that (I tend to hoard apps) some clue as to what it might do. I really have to wonder if they did any tests on this. For example, show someone an icon and see how long it takes for them to correctly say what it does. Amorphous blobs just doesn't do it for me for things like Game Center.
It's inconsistent with the entire OS. Having 7 or 8 apps look completely different is inconsistent and jarring when you shift from app to app. And the linen was just plain fugly.
We live in an age where flatter, more consistent UI designs are a necessity. Not flat to the point where you can't tell what the hell is going on, like Metro, but minimalist with visual cues to let you know what is happening, which is similar to Google's interface for Android and their web services.
We don't need to be reminded that games used to be played in casinos. We don't need to be reminded of how a ledger notepad with leather binding looks. We don't need to be reminded of how a bookshelf looks.
Why?
Because we don't use bookshelfs, game tables, or ledger pads on our phones.
We use digital representations of games, text, and input devices. The need to have an analog analogue is gone. And apart from the horrid icons in iOS 7, it's a step forward in every way. Except, of course, for the icons.
> We live in an age where flatter, more consistent UI designs are a necessity.
There's probably some specific scope of "necessity" which would make this something other than fairly extreme hyperbole, but its certainly not one which it is obvious is the intended scope of this posting.
Now, I would agree that I like fairly flat design, and I actively dislike skeuomorphism for the sake of skeuomorphism, since it tends to add visual clutter that doesn't contribute to (and often impairs) usability.
But that's a preference (there are people that like baroque UIs, and that's not objectively wrong), not a necessity.
> Having 7 or 8 apps look completely different is inconsistent and jarring when you shift from app to app.
Which also meant that apps were actually distinguishable at a glance. You could be the slowest user ever and it was hard to miss that "yellow with lines across the page" meant Notes - on OS X, iOS and iCloud.com. There was zero disconnect between the icon and the actual app. Same for Reminders and GameCenter. iOS7 doesn't bother to develop a "mini-brand" for each app - the 'link colour' in each app is different but there aren't even enough colours for the stock apps.
Of course this branding in iOS6 could have been pulled of with fewer textures and shadows :)
Not at all. Flat is not a better design than Sku. Sku was just a way to fake static 3D lighting and dimension, and flat is the needed halfstep to get to realtime 3D rendering for the OS.
Skeuomorphism was important to transition users from physical objects to virtual objects in a meaningful way. It enabled you and I to understand what tap/touch/pinchNzoom etc are.
Now that we know what virtual objects are about, we can move to a design scheme that's made for virtual objects.
I inherently don't like the phrase 'Flat Design' - there is so much more to this.
I'm not convinced iOS 5-6 was skeuomorphic to begin with. Aside from a few effects - camera shutter and page flips comes to mind - the core workflow is pretty abstract.
in many of the comparison screenshots of ios 6vs7 it looks like they just switched from textured background to a solid background, and left the workflow the same. Not an eschewing of skeuomorphism but a change in visual style.
I have a feeling that in a few decades we'll be looking back on the 2010s like we do the 80s and 70s, and "flat design" would be one of the trends that mark this decade.
This is understood. The point I'm making is that I believe flat is not inherently better or even good. Its a fad right now that apple is using for a good half step to a realtime 3D UI.
Sku was teaching designers to fake dimension by hand, flat will aid them to getting to the point of texturing real 3D objects. And if you think iOS7 doesn't still use 3D space to make skumorphic metaphors you haven't looked at Safari' tabs yet.
In this context, what do you mean by 'realtime' 3D? You can already use 3D transforms to your heart's content without any stutter, since at least the iPod 3G / iOS5.
oddly, I am in almost complete disagreement with this article. The only point of agreement is I hate the camera icon (the full camera looks clunky. they should just use a diaphram shutter.) The other icon I hate is the new music icon. The music notes look wrong. The note heads aren't the correct oval shape, but more of a blobish rectangle. iOS6 wasn't great either because the beam was too thick, and the noteheads were too horizontal (the left of the notehead should be a bit lower than the right), but for some reason it just wasn't that noticeable.
Had to scroll down a long way to find this comment, but I agree with you that these suggested alternatives are not necessarily improvements.
The "poor color choice" Calculator, for example, his alternative is worse than iOS 7 which is worse than iOS 6. Dark keys with a colored totals key are recognizable as a calculator at a glance. No idea what his suggested alternative is smoking.
My main takeaway from this article, like the many other "here's what they should have done" write-ups is: "This is harder than it looks."
Just like the camera and other elements in the design https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5883125 the shape of the notes is a pastiche of an (I think) roughly mid-'60s commercial-art style.
Agreed. I can't shake the feeling that, while a UI / UX refresh was absolutely necessary, this lack of polish and consistency would have never made the light of day with Jobs at the helm.
And the gloss on the Game Center icon is just downright bizarre!
"Even designing just one simple, clean, good-looking icon is not an easy task. Multiply that by 25 and there was a ton of work to do in the 8 months since Forstall was booted, which led to certain things being overlooked"
Well that's dramatizing more than just a little bit. Apple has $143 billion in the bank, a nearly unlimited budget, a design obsession, and they had over half a year. Clearly the time it takes to create a nice icon was not the problem (regardless of if it was 25 icons or 250 icons).
"Drawing from the fashion world, there was a period of time where you’d find hipsters around town wearing neon clothing, but they’ve long since passed neon onto the bros. Never take fashion advice from the bros."
Hahaha pretty much agreed, it was right next to the Multitasking and Siri icons on their promotion page. That's what happens when you combine the "straight from the tube" green with pure black and tack on a purely resized Siri icon.
Can some kind graphic designer or art historian pinpoint what the art style (including the colour scheme) of the new app icons is based on? (Most obviously Photos, Camera, Clock, Game Center and Newsstand, but you can add Music and iTunes and more subtly Maps too.) I know that it's a (probably) mid-late '60s colour-printing, cartoon-art or children's-book style (based on cut-outs or stencils?) but I can't identify it any more precisely than that.
(I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone say anything about this yet. I thought designers were attuned to and familiar with things like this? It's weird to see professionals not considering any influences on the iPhone's new style apart from other smartphone OSes and skins from the past 5 years.)
Regarding the OP, Camera is fairly consistent with the other icons as it's based on the same flavour of retro. The same is true of Game Center. You can see how the colours imitate the dodgy colour values from colour printing about the '60s.
Some people may think "Wow, this travesty looks like design by committee". Others may say "No, no, this looks like design by multiple, competing committees with no clear direction or coordination."
Of course I read it. And the key passage (to my mind) was this one:
"We’ve also been hearing that there wasn’t a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design."
I've spent a bit of time with the icons and I like them. iOS is just so different now that it takes a bit to settle in. I think many people judge too quickly sometimes without using it.
If this is really an issue, the large, talented group of designers at Apple will fix it before GM.
They are employed by probably the most design-sensitive company around precisely because they're at the top of their game – they won't be oblivious to blundering inconsistencies.
If it's not, it will be forgotten about within days of the OS's release by nearly all users.
This five thousand times. This is precisely my sentiment on the matter.
I'm not such a fanboy as to believe Apple's infallible, but I do firmly believe they'll know when they've screwed up. You can bet there are plenty of people running around Apple gauging the public reaction to iOS7. If they think it's really a major pain point for the public, they'll do something about it. Otherwise, it won't really matter.
Remember when the iPad came out and thought it was a rushed joke with an awful name?
Counterpoint: one thing that history's greatest designers have most certainly not done is pay a lot of attention to the public's immediate reaction.
It will make them look worse, in a way, if we see them making a lot of concessions to popular outrage. The core look and feel of the UI was something they really should have taken the time to get right the first time, before going public. It's hard to save face in this business.
Ian has nailed down what's exactly wrong with iOS 7's icons. But misses a very important point - The redesign has largely been pointless.
Windows Phone chose "Flat design" and ran with it, the "Live Tile" was invented - More interactive, informative minimal icons. Also it brought over some beautiful uniformity, a design language that actually worked. iOS 7 does nothing of that sort, and IMO is a redesign for the sake of a redesign.
Infact, it goes ahead and destroys everything that was great about its previous iterations - Accessible, Simple, Functional, etc.
To say the least, Apple Design[1] has failed colossally, they could and should learn a lot from Microsoft and Google designers.
[1] - Not the same as Apple Designers, since I'm damn well sure that no Interface designer worth his salt would ever allow iOS 7 to happen. I'm sure past design leads on iOS and even Forstall are having a chuckle over this mess.
I get the strong feeling that, as you say, its a redesign for the sake of redesign..... but I think, more to it than that, is Ive’s distaste for anything Forestall, and this is his crusade to remove any last vestige of “him” from iOS...
Thats just my subjective opinion, but it comes across strongly from everything I’ve read and heard..... I don’t really care one way or the other, but I hope for their sake they can improve what they’ve shown and pull off something insanely great (though I’m not holding my breath).
Once you start getting vengeful there's no going back. And if I must say so myself, Apple has failed at Flat icon design - Heck, even the DesignModo guys had better icons than the ones Apple put out.
Apple seems to be losing its edge. I'd be looking keenly at how the next version of Android shapes up, and if HTC continues its awesome hardware design, there's no reason not to get their next phone.
I think what's wrong with the icons can be summed up by the following:
• Inconsistency
• Unnecessary complexity
I don't have much of a problem with the colours. The icons are only half the problem though. Both the text and icons do not stand out enough against the background, and the text and icons seem too close together. The homescreen just looks half finished.
I don't even think that unnecessary complexity is the issue. If the icons were consistently complex, it'd be fine!
You have a wildly varying base palette, a wild variety of light sources (that's what a gradient indicates, remember!), and a wild variety in complexity (contrast "phone" with "settings").
The net result is an icon package that feels haphazardly thrown-together by multiple teams of wildly variant skill levels who didn't communicate at all.
Even if all the icons looked like Passbook or Safari, it'd be better than the current setup, because it would at least be consistent.
The thing I realized after installing iOS7 was how few of the stock icons still resided on my home screen. Sure, some of the required ones need work - but when mixed with a well-chosen background, and mixed in with the other app icons from my collection - the overall aesthetic isn't as jarring.
I freaked out in the beginning because I thought the crummy icons were representative of Apple screwing up the entire new design direction for iOS. But now that I’ve seen the rest of iOS, I’m not that worried.
After a couple days with the beta, it's pretty obvious that Apple didn't, like, FIRE their UI designers or anything. There are a few strange choices, but most of the new OS feels like an improvement when you use it.
Why is that I disagree with every article from Ian Storm Taylor? Media Queries are not hacks and the new IOS7 looks slick to me.
Real world characteristics were used for a long time as a crutch. It helped the non tech savvy connect to technology, because they were utilizing things they recognized from the real world.
Fast forward and now people don't need this crutch. Flat design and minimalism are proof of that. Don't be scared of change.
Not sure, although it seems like you didn't read the article. Also you don't disagree with _every_ article of mine because I argued exactly what you are arguing in this comment a couple years back: http://ianstormtaylor.com/skeumorphism-on-the-ipad/
ok, so I read the article and I see what you are saying now. Knee jerk reaction on my part. I guess they should have removed more of the real world references than they did.
It seems they can't go full non-skeuomorphic without looking like a WP rip-off? Finding new symbols for abstract concepts is even harder though, some will stay until we have brain-computer interfaces that will give us new senses.
They did, however, create a set of design principles for user interfaces for computer applications (inspired in large part by particular pre-computing graphic design styles, but also including particular principles for providing affordances and feedback for interactive applications within that graphic style.)
Yeah, and iOS isn't following most of them. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/windowsphone/design/... I didn't look at every single one, but having used Windows Phone 7&8 for over a year, and scrutinized the released slides from iOS 7, I don't see any place where they are especially similar.
I didn't mean to suggest that it was, I was trying to suggest a better focus for discussions of whether iOS design was following Microsoft in any substantial way than either "flat rectangles", or even "what bits seem generally similar to Win 8".
This is presented as a an objective take, yet it is entirely subjective subject matter. While I do take issue with the inconsistency of the new iOS icon design (gradients going each direction, residual depths and multi-generational design philosophies mixed together), in this case the proposed "better" icons simply aren't better...in my opinion....because it's subjective.
And then there's this-
Just like you don’t want to use pure black, you also never want to use “straight from the tube” colors. They come off as tacky and cheap.
(followed by some thing about bros and neon)
All colors are "straight from the tube" in this medium. There is no additional complexity or uniqueness with any variation of reds, greens and blues. Applying what can only be considered colour hipsterism diminishes the message enormously.
Maybe the colors simply aren't right among their peers, or for the purpose, but the notion that they're simply too easy or "bro-ish" is silly.
I think you're misunderstanding the part about pure colors. I am not a designer, but I think it's that you won't really find pure colors around in the real world. Greys will always have some tint, blueish or yellowish perhaps. People will consider one colder and the other warm. If you use pure grey, the design will look dull, the same is true with other colours. The same thing in music, if you only use simple non-embelished chords, your music will sound amateurish, dull and un-inspired.
Their example replaced gray with pure white, and I'd guess that the former is far more prevalent in the world than the latter. They also complain about colors being too saturated (even though the colors they talk about range from 60 - 80% saturated, and are in no way "pure", ignoring that such a notion is an artificial one to begin with).
But I'm not sure why prevalence in the real world is relevant at all. We're not talking about some Samsung claim of being inspired by nature, and skeudomorphs are not the goal. I don't think natural prevalence is relevant at all.
So white is "better" than gray. Less saturated is "better" than more saturated. At least in the author's opinion. Narrative beyond that (such as the notion that some colors are too easy) is just trying to build some structural justification for those notions.
Yes, replaced with white because it enhances contrast, to liven it up a bit (also the white portion is somewhat an inversion of the orange buttons). The overly saturated colors look too bright and intensive, they overpower everything else.
It's just not pleasant to the eye.
I think you're confused about what objective and subjective mean. It doesn't mean that you declare that doth now maketh an objective statement. Instead it's a manner of speaking where subjective evaluations are instead stated as if they are fact.
Hamburgers are better than hot dogs. Dogs are better than cats.
Okay, bad examples, because those are objective truths. How about-
Yellow is better than blue.
It was clear enough, after the whole hipster "not like bros" nonsense, with the "Actually if we’re being completely honest, its colors look like they were pulled straight out of Windows Metro. (And that’s not a good thing!)" bit.
Microsoft has a lot of designers. I'll bet a bunch of them will objectively make statements of claimed factual truth if given the chance. Metro has a lot of designer boosters (indeed, many in the iOS camp are boosters of the overall mix of design found in Metro). But instead of apparently realizing that they have a particular impression, the blog author is under the confused delusion that they have observations of fundamental truth. Maybe it's a narrative exercise to make an argument more convincing, but alas, such yields the sort of reply that I made.
Using ONLY color to differentiate clickable things is a travesty for colorblind people. I'm colorblind and iOS 7 is proving really frustrating.
The weather app, for example, is almost impossible for me to read.