Since last Thursday more than 50 per cent of iOS users have found themselves staring into space, the new default wallpaper of iOS 7.
That aside, gone was the familiar tacky icons and backgrounds, replaced with a modern take on what is arguably the world’s best mobile operating system. Users are now greeted with lightweight typography, a lack of interface chrome (textures, patterns, etc), smoother and more substantial transitions, and a simpler user experience overall.
And of course, there’s that “colour” thing.
iOS 7 is a rather radical evolution completely unexpected by many. Before this announcement, rumours were circulating about a conservative approach to design, especially this soon after the departure of Scott Forstall from Apple.
If one were to examine the design of Apple’s latest hardware such as the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, they would lean towards a fusion of Windows Phone and Android; grabbing the best bits of both worlds and blending them into something unique and fit for Apple’s taste. That is to say, leather and cloth stitching is out; obscure buttons and controls are in.
Many benefits are to be reaped from flat designs, namely a reduced strain on the CPU and GPU resulting in an increase in efficiency. For the user, this means faster loading times and better battery life encapsulated in a fresh, understated experience.
A flatter user interface (UI) was a given considering its adoption by major software vendors like Microsoft and Google. The modern UI of Windows 8 is undeniably a clear but rather extreme example of the way forward. Google takes a more measured approach, focusing on careful minimisation of interface elements that won’t confuse their users.
Within a few weeks, they should be rolling out their new logo to the Google homepage, replacing over a decades worth of bevelled designs. Even the struggling Yahoo! understand consumers demand clean, simplistic, and flat interfaces, opting to redesign their entire brand to adhere to the new rules.
By the middle of 2013, Apple was the only company sticking with faux textures and skeuomorphic designs. Change was evidently imminent.
Then the above emerged from the woodwork and all were shocked.
Uploaded on the morning prior to the official announcement, the image depicted something familiar yet alien. The wallpaper carries over from iOS 6, leading some “experts” to dismiss it as a total, uneducated fabrication. One comment reads: “Looks like a 99cent jailbreak theme.”
Whether the screenshot was of a working prototype or based off insider knowledge made no difference—it was damn ugly. Bright, bold colours were everywhere, elements within icons lost their proportion, and it just looked wrong. The gradients of colour in combination with overly simplistic designs such as the camera application made for an extremely unattractive couple. The new typefaces lacked drop shadows discerning them from the background below.
On the night of the first beta release, my iPhone 5 was “reinvigorated” with pretty colours alluding to one of Jobs’ early LSD trips. That’s right—the above image isn’t a result of some accessibility setting or a cheap TN display, but the excellent wallpaper undoubtedly hand picked from billions of choices by Ive himself. This is exactly the kind of jarring transition we feared (the new default wallpaper is a nice, thought-provoking image of space) when the beta was announced.
Thankfully, a slew of normal images are available too once you leave the strawberry fields. The fresh and exciting colours feel liberating in comparison to the dull palette we’ve grown accustomed to. It’s difficult at first to adjust, but over the course of familiarisation they add to the uplifting experience.
None of this is new, after all; just take a look at Samsung and their overrated AMOLED displays. They all exhibit a ghastly, disgusting blue/green colour tinge made exponentially worse when coupled with an interface bursting with colour and overflowing with crap. Phrases like “designed for humans” and “life companion” are often thrown around by Samsung’s marketing team, who hope to sell a product in harmony with nature or something by using oversaturated colours.
While at first glance, iOS 7 seemed like a skin on top of the same old software we all know and love, diving deeper yields the discovery of smaller, more obscure features. You notice the parallax effect, giving the home screen a great sense of depth. iPhone’s might not ship with 3D panels, but this is the next best thing (look, no headaches Nintendo!).
Apple managed to breathe some life into an otherwise lifeless place. Translucency abounds: in the buttons, the lock screen, the notification centre, control centre… you could say that it’s the centre of attention! Seriously though, translucency complements the flat design extremely well as a method of adding depth and sophistication to the interface—two traits sorely lacking in Microsoft’s Modern UI.
Lightweight fonts and abstracted icons replace much of the pictorial buttons and controls of yesteryear, which may seem daunting for newcomers; however, they serve to further reinforce the simplistic and design-oriented direction Apple has always been heading.
The bright colours, the bold icons, the sharp contrast, the liberal use of Helvetica Neue. It might feel like too much to take in, and too many years of the same old erased. Even the setup screens felt too clinical and sterile for me to warrant any human inputa lack of humanity and warmth which had previously been juxtaposed with cold, industrial-feeling hardware.
Where iOS 7 fails at retaining familiarity, it succeeds in tearing down the bridge between the tangible and intangible, leaving behind a marriage of ultramodern software and hardware.
