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Ars Technica Reviews iOS 7
Ars Technica has posted a pretty thorough review of iOS 7, which brings a few radical changes to at least the visual design of the system. From the article: "In one sense, iOS 7 changes nearly everything about iOS. A couple of wallpapers have made the jump, but otherwise you'd be hard-pressed to find anything in iOS 7 that looks quite like it did in iOS 6. In another sense, iOS 7 is the latest in a string of incremental updates. It adds a few new features and changes some existing ones, but this doesn't radically alter the way that you use the OS from day to day."
Breaking with the design trajectory of the last few releases of most of Apple's software, the oft maligned skeumorphism of the interface has been considerably toned down.
The only reason skeumorphism is maligned is because it's become unfashionable, not because of any inherent flaw in the aesthetic. Mind you, I've a big fan of Microsoft's flat look, but I also think Apple's former approach was distinctive and quite good. All it needed was a refresh, akin to what Google has done with their aesthetic. Instead, Apple goes and dumps the design resulting in a design that looks like Android with a bit of Windows Phone mixed in. Fortunately for Apple, unlike any other company on Earth, they're being lavished with praise instead of maligned for coming up with such a derivative design.
I get the impression that Apple well aware of how derivative the OS feels, hence the low contrast aesthetic and heavy use of blur filters. The problem is that there isn't enough contrast throughout; at times it feels like trying to use the phone through a frosted screen protector. This isn't helped by the fact that Apple's designers generally seem a too impressed with themselves. So they approached the design with the mindset that too much of a good thing is a great thing. And they're so intent on your savoring their design that they actually hinder usability, as evidenced by the slower animations.
There are plenty of things that iOS has never done right. The argument Apple fans inevitably use to defend iOS is that it "just works". But all that means is that they're used to Apple's particular set of quirks and are unwilling to learning anything new. With Windows Phone, personal preferences aside, at least it's evident that Microsoft placed clarity of the UI and user experience as high priorities. They dropped the ball in a few aspects, the lack of a traditional notifications list and quick-access control center being two examples. But otherwise the experience is excellent. It seems Apple's only goal was to make iOS 7 look relevant by following prevailing design trends which, ironically, Microsoft helped establish.
If the future of smartphones is at the software level, then Apple is screwed because that's where they're furthest behind. The only thing they've still got going for them is the App Store and even there their days are numbered.
In the post-WWII era, there was an architectural trend called Brutalism. This school of thought held that ornamentation was unnecessary and that buildings were "machines for living in". They should therefore be made out of raw, unadorned concrete. These buildings are still around, especially in large cities, and most people hate them. Turns out that functionality isn't enough; people actually want things to look nice.
It appears that UI designers are in the process of making the same mistakes that architects did decades ago. The new crusade against "skeuomorphism" is, in practice, a campaign for ugly square boxes with low-color icons. It's basically a return to the graphics of the early 1990s, except this time there isn't the excuse of technical limitations to justify it. I had hoped that this trend would stop with Windows 8, but for some inexplicable reason, Apple seems to have decided to degrade their far superior touch OS to a similar degree. The sublime beauty of Aero and iOS 6 gives way to the stark ugliness of Metro and iOS 7. For God's sake, why?