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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.
"iOS 7 changes nearly everything about iOS..." "...but this doesn't radically alter the way that you use the OS from day to day."
mind blown
I RTFA'ed. The short version seems to be:
1) Icons and dialogs are "flat" (similar to Windows 7, etc.)
2) "iOS 7’s animations are the kind that will prompt an 'ooh, neat' upon first use and then a slowly increasing sense of frustration as you begin noticing that trivial tasks take just a bit longer than they used to."
3) There's more content on the screen when browsing because common toolbars are shorter or disappear when not in use
4) Safari's new tabs view is cool because it displays content on multiple tabs at once (think looking down from a 3d perspective on the old tab views)
Ars is not a technical website. They are a tech news site.
It's been conventional to keep all settings in the app, except for seldom-needed or particularly technical settings, for several years now. I don't know what apps you're using but I only need to drop out into Settings once every few months unless I'm modifying something system-wide.
The idea of not including physical "back" and "menu" buttons is:
1) Nobody's quite sure where "back" should go back to, and what menu "menu" should open
2) You're using up space on the device on functions that not every app needs
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Leave that up to the app to decide maybe? I've never had a problem on my Android phones understanding what the back button did after pressing it once or twice with a new app.
With apps that have multiple screens that change, it usually takes you back a screen, such as back to the main menu. If you're at the main menu, it exits. With apps that do everything in the same screen, such as a web browser, it takes you back a page or back to your home screen. Press it again or double tap it at any point and it closes the app.
Not saying that the indeterminate nature of letting the programmer is better or worse than the IOS nature. It's just another example where Apple has chosen to rigorously enforce what they think is best, where Android has chosen to allow the app developer or the end user what is best.
You mean the empty space on the left and right of the button on all iPhones that's essentially wasted? If the entire face of the phone was the screen and the phone relied exclusively on soft buttons then you'd have a point. But as it stands now, there could be buttons on either side. Look at the S4 for an example.
IMHO, all operating systems follow design trends. First it was just plain buttons. Then 3D buttons in the early 1990s. Then color and graphics.
Now, the cycle has begun anew and we are back to flat buttons. Next thing we will see will be NeXTStep style black/white icons with a philosophy of "the content in the app is the stuff with colors, everything else is black/white/grey to support it."
Most of the reviews I've read just parrot what Apple said which is sad.
Been using it for a couple months. The control panel is great. They killed the calendar, much less usable. I don't use siri so I can't comment there. Being able to have more than 9 icons in a folder is nice.
The rest is fluff. They exchanged textures for a bunch of superfluous animation and transparency. It looks a lot different obviously. No easier or harder to use though. I'm not a big fan of the new look but was tired of the old look. Other than getting used to a different look, I didn't notice a big improvement or drop off in the other apps.
In the end, if you already have an iphone, I would recommend it for the control panel.
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.
The interface looks more or less the same as I remember on my wife's iphone 3G years ago.
you sir have a very poor memory. you should have that checked.
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?
From a interface stand point I find the Windows Phone to provide the best experience. The new iOS does nothing but pretty up and old way of using a mobile device. I know I'm going to get the boot for mentioning an MS product on /. but if you try one you will agree with me that it is a very good experience. Like the Android phone it has a back button.
FYI, I have owned all 3 phones. More recently I have purchased an S3 but use a Ativ day to day. Best phone I owned.
That's an Android 4.0 thing, actually. The menu button is deprecated and having used both Android and iOS, I really dislike the menu button.
I tend to find it easily forgettable - and it seems a lot of devs like to hide essential functionality inside a menu leading to all sorts of "this app doesn't have X feature" type things because people forget to hit the menu bar.
Since ICS, it's a LOT better - the triple dot thing isn't intuitive, but at least it seems to imply tapping it does something when it shows up.
As for back, I do prefer the iOS way - the pentagon at the top telling you where you're going back to (especially if you're entering a screen layout from multiple paths). Of course, it's very frustrating in things that don't obey the conventions like games that put the back button on some other corner of the screen. Or on Android where the back button may or may not work in a game.
In the end, it comes down to preferences. I prefer the iOS way where an app is forced to expose all its functionality and not hide it. I think this comes from the whole "single mouse button" mentality where you're not supposed to hide any functions that are only accessible via a right-click menu. I'm sure everyone has dozens of applications on Windows and Linux where unless you right click, you won't realize there's a lot more depth to what can be done.
We've had such a backlash against the current habit of putting one paragraph per page in order to increase hits that we've forgotten pagination does have it's place, such as when the pages are very long as in this case.
It's just another example where Apple has chosen to rigorously enforce what they think is best, where Android has chosen to allow the app developer or the end user what is best.
It just goes both ways. I could equally claim that Android forces the app developer to handle a back and menu button - however useless in said app while Apple lets freedom to the developer to do whatever (s)he chooses. I could also claim Android enforce two buttons on users in a space that is usually used to hold a phone while Apple leaves this precious space free of any UI elements.
So you see, each OS is enforcing its own vision, but you can't claim that one is enforcing their closed view while the other is enforcing freedom. This is just trollish at best.
Write boring code, not shiny code!