
Designers Complaining about iOS7 - ot
http://designerscomplaining.tumblr.com/
======
pilif
Having played around with iOS7 a bit, I can say that I mostly like the new
interface. Even the new icons if you ignore the Safari one - something really
must have gone wrong there - it feels totally out of place for me.

OTOH, this is the first beta out of probably many (considering how stable
thing thing currently is - jokingly I'm telling my colleagues that it's as
stable as the average Android phone now), so we might still see some changes
there.

Of course, the thing that sold iOS 7 to me is the fact that you can finally
place the unused and empty newsstand in a folder :-)

~~~
corresation
Your "joke" would have some element of humor to it if there were any
instability at all with current (or last year, or the year before) Android
phones. Amazing how that little bit of irrelevant swill diminishes an entire
post.

~~~
drobati
My Galaxy Nexus was riddled with terrible problems. I love Android and am not
trolling. Android still has stability issues.

Unfortunately, my phone was stolen yesterday and now I'm back to using a
dumbphone until I can find something better.

~~~
corresation
These sorts of anecdotes always appear. Here's mine -- Currently have a Galaxy
S3 and a Nexus 4. Previously had a Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Glide. Prior to that
had a Nexus One. Prior to that had a HTC G1 and G2.

The last time there was any system instability _at all_ was early in the life
of the Nexus One. The OS has been absolutely rock solid since.

Of course apps crash on occasion, just as they crash on my 3rd gen iPad and
5th gen iPod Touch. The system stability ruse, however, is noise.

------
gurkendoktor
iOS 7 is the first time that I have seen such arrogant designer elitism ever.
If someone does not like the new style, they are of course _objectively_ wrong
because _every good human knows_ that Helvetica is without fault, and so are
low-contrast flat colours. If you disagree, you should feel bad and obsolete.
Oh and be sure to mention stitched leather even though iOS6 didn't ever have
that on the phone.

Note that many of the quoted people are not even angry. They are just saying
they don't like it, sometimes giving reason. Let's shame this scum! LOL it's
just Forstall posting under fake names anyway!

~~~
untog
Who exactly is saying that? I haven't seen anyone say that the iOS7 design is
objectively brilliant, just that it's here and everyone has to adjust to it-
complaining about it is going to achieve next to nothing because Apple is
rarely interested in community feedback.

In all honesty, most of the comments I have seen simply reflect the fact that
(warning: generalisation approaching) iOS designers have been on a high horse
about how iOS's design is superior to all other platforms, and are now being
forced to re-evaluate that stance after Apple has rejected that design.

~~~
Cooler-gent
@Gruber: If you don’t think iOS 7 is beautiful, I don’t know what to say to
you.

[https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344179342764568577](https://twitter.com/gruber/status/344179342764568577)

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
...says a guy entirely reliant on his influence in the Apple marketspace up to
and including his newly released software application only available on the
Apple App Store?

------
protitap
I'm sorry but it really does look very bad. This
[http://dribbble.com/shots/1109343-iOS-7-Redesign/attachments...](http://dribbble.com/shots/1109343-iOS-7-Redesign/attachments/140304)
redesign shows how much better it could be.

~~~
chiph
This designer gets the weather icon correct - the gradient should go in the
same direction as the sunrise & sunset - lighter at the horizon, darker above.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Logically, it should be a radial gradient with the light end centered on the
sun and the dark end away from it. Ideally, all icons should look like they're
lit from above for consistency (light end of gradient at top, dark at bottom).
Having some buttons lit from above and some lit from below (or some bulging
out and some carved inwards) looks terrible.

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seangransee
Same thing happens anytime Facebook changes their layout. After a month of
using iOS 7, these people will forget what it used to look like.

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nate_martin
What's funny about this situation is that most of these designers have
probably not even tried iOS 7 and they are already judging the design. All of
this coming after Apple emphasized the fact that "design is how it works, not
how it looks". I agree that there is room for improvement in the design, but I
am starting to sense some elitism and bandwagoning from the design community.

~~~
cbs
_I am starting to sense some elitism and bandwagoning from the design
community._

Starting to? That's kind of what the cutting edge of design is all about. When
a design advances past certain middle of the road thresholds of usability and
tolerably it become more and more just a matter of personal taste. When a
bandwagon (or pieces of it) has appeal, it becomes a wider trend. It's still a
bandwagon though, styles in the 1980's are(/were?) the go-to example of things
that appealed to tastes at the time but are laughable in retrospect.

Design is important in giving products pleasant appearances and interactions,
but it's also capable of turning people insufferable.
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57508907-71/at-apple-hq-
ey...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57508907-71/at-apple-hq-eye-for-
design-extends-to-mens-room/)

------
ChikkaChiChi
Apple didn't innovate.

They are following the trends set by others (Microsoft and Google) and I think
that is what is infuriating designers.

------
acuozzo
Can a designer please explain to me what's so bad about the new iOS 7 UI?

(FWIW, I still think the IRIX Indigo Magic Desktop is pretty good looking.)

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
It's not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just not very "innovative"

The new design can be classified as a "Flat UI" a recent movement in interface
design where things like reflective surfaces, borders, and photo-realistic
elements are eschewed in favor of a minimalist, iconographic look with bold
coloring offsetting neutrally colored text. The aesthetic was heavily
popularized by Microsoft in Windows 8 when they introduced the Metro UI.
Google also picked up on the aesthetic in their redesign of their web services
as well as recent iterations of the Android OS.

Apple has always been the darling of the design community so for them to be
late to the party leaves the Apple faithful with a bit of egg on their face.
How dare Microsoft dictate what is cool in a world where everything Apple
makes is the very definition of hip.

Not only that, there are several major faux paus in the unveiled design that
designers are having fits over. Many of the icons in the default interface
lack a consistency across different parts of the iOS (like the camera). Any
sort of organic rhythm is lost in the palette and seen as jarring. Worst of
all, the prized "golden ratio" that Apple has been well known for in their
design seems to be gone.

To people who pay that kind of attention to things like this, its an
unmitigated disaster.

PS: Also, skeuomorphism. Because it was horrible until Apple got rid of it,
apparently.

~~~
acuozzo
Thanks for this explanation. It's exactly what I was looking for.

------
joeblau
I've been playing around with iOS7 for a few hours and a lot of the issues
could be addressed in the next 3 months. Someone should do a redesign like
that guy did for the NSA slides[1]. I think the color palette is taking all of
the spotlight away from the key technical updates. Even though the updates are
features that Android and WinMo users have had for a while, many iOS users are
only getting these for the first time. This is a first cut and there is still
three months to clean it up.

[1] - [http://fr.slideshare.net/EmilandDC/dear-nsa-let-me-take-
care...](http://fr.slideshare.net/EmilandDC/dear-nsa-let-me-take-care-ou)

------
jljljl
All the images that Apple has posted so far (unless I've missed some) seem to
use the white iPhone, with a blue/pastel background. I'm curious to see how
the icons look in different contexts.

~~~
objclxt
I have a white iPhone, so I can't answer that side of your question, but the
icon labels change color according to the background (i.e, a dark background
gets white labels, a light background gets black ones).

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danmaz74
I haven't seen this new design, but one thing I noticed with the flat design
trend is that too many strong colors are used, and this causes fatigue in the
long run; for example I noticed this in the latest updates to gmail on
android.

But I also guess that with a flat design it is inevitable to resort more to
color to differentiate your design elements.

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mkmkmmmmm
I like most of the new flat design but let's be fair those icons are
objectively terrible.

~~~
ryanglasgow
Agreed. The icons are easiest part of a redesign to redo and implement tho,
and designers on Dribbble have already posted versions that are significantly
better. Apple's design team has a few months to fix things up and I'm
confident that they will.

[http://dribbble.com/shots/1109343-iOS-7-Redesign/attachments...](http://dribbble.com/shots/1109343-iOS-7-Redesign/attachments/140192)

~~~
freyr
> The icons are easiest part of a redesign to redo and implement tho

Agreed, but that's why it's so puzzling that these icons were released in the
first place. If they're the easiest to do and redo, they should be the easiest
to get right.

Also, the iOS 7 video spoke of their new "harmonious" grid system used to
design the icons. So I'm unconvinced that the powers-that-be at Apple believe
they need fixing.

~~~
ryanglasgow
This is a new style for their designers, and I'm not surprised the visual
design still needs some work. This is analogous to a developer learning a new
framework - it takes time to learn it and get things right.

------
kreek
If you can get past the icons, the UI itself appears to be much improved. Just
looking at the compass app it's much clearer to glance at and get your
information without the Master and Commander design of the old one getting in
the way.

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smackfu
A lot of people are objecting to the color palette, like which gradients Apple
choose to use. Well, you don't accidentally make the iTunes store icon purple.
That's a deliberate choice Apple made to be bold.

------
hcarvalhoalves
iOS7 design is weak, with reason. This page is just quoting tweets, but there
many in-depth criticism on the many obvious flaws everywhere on the
blogosphere.

From the objective to the subjective:

\- Complete redesign makes it too different from iOS 6 and OS X, throws away
all learnability

\- Icons have no consistency whatsoever

\- Toolbar icons are so abstract as to be useless

\- Legibility suffers from Helvetica Light on bright white, everywhere

\- Got rid of affordances, you don't know what is a button anymore (same
mistake as WP and some Google apps)

\- Control panel is a mess

\- Color palette is poor and tacky. You have a true to life display to work
with, but limit yourself to primary and secondary, over-saturated hues... just
stupid

To be fair, usability increased in many places as in multi-tasking and better
use of gesture, although that's hardly innovation - they are just copying
tried and true interactions from software both on iOS platform (e.g. Gmail for
iOS, Mailbox) and others (webOS, Android).

Overall the UI looks like designed by someone who designs print media and has
no clue what they are doing.

This article wraps it up: [https://medium.com/i-m-
h-o/275a56688510](https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/275a56688510)

~~~
moogleii
I agree. The more I use it, the more I dislike it. I'm not a designer, but
having worked with several for extended periods, I guess their attention to
detail has rubbed off on me. The initial welcome screen on iOS 6 was cool and
usable. The new one on iOS 7 kinda just dumps you on a parade of "welcome"
without any clear indication on what to do next. So I tapped. And clicked.
Then I swiped around. Until, bingo, I found the correct swipe direction. Ditto
with the initial lock screen.
[https://vine.co/v/blZZqDX9dA2](https://vine.co/v/blZZqDX9dA2) (this is not
me).

I was hoping for a common design language, but there really isn't one.
[http://i.imgur.com/zdMBUGT.png](http://i.imgur.com/zdMBUGT.png)

As someone on reddit said, it looks like a Chinese knockoff of iOS running on
Android.

*Oh yeah and the new calendar. Looks great, but now you can't see if you have any events coming up from the calendar view...Ok...That's a step backwards.

------
mcintyre1994
I think I'm missing the point - is this supposed to suggest that these people
complaining have no right to do so unless they're also elite designers?

------
cpeterso
Why are all iOS7 screenshots using the iPhone? I suspect iOS7's excessively-
detailed icons will look better on a big screen device like the iPad.

~~~
kyleslattery
The first beta of iOS 7 is only available for iPhone. I'm guessing they're not
done with the iPad version yet.

------
evo_9
I think if you are going to throw out criticism like this and you yourself are
a designer then you should provide some samples of your own work for critique;
in an ideal world each would provide their own 'superior' iOS design, or at
the minimum a design for a particular feature (icons, use of color, etc).

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
You don't have to bring your own theories to point flaws in a particular one.
You just have to point at an inconsistency. iOS7 has plenty.

------
pacomerh
I like the new look, not sure what all the fuzz is about. Looks very artistic,
specially safari. I prefer this to having lots of detail and shadows in a
small icon, that can be left to the app developer. I'm not an iphone user but
I'd definitely use one.

------
ChikkaChiChi
The new design cues are more of a technical issue to me than an aesthetic one.

Darker themed phones consume less energy...on more modern screen hardware.
While an LCD backlight draws the same power regardless of the colors on
screen, AMOLED does not. In fact, AMOLED and a red only profile grants you an
amazing device for night use; be it astronomy, reading, etc. because it does
not dilate your eyes.

Not only that, AMOLED is the current frontrunner in engineering design to
allow for an "infinite bezel" where you aren't sure where the screen ends and
the edge begins.

By switching to this bright white look in IOS7, Apple has all be publicly
admitted that the next several years will continue to be dominated by LCD
technology that drags the progress of screen technology and cost down.

------
kunai
"Design is not just how something looks; it's about how it works." \- Steve
Jobs, Sir Jony Ive, Dieter Rams and every other half-decent designer worth a
damn

~~~
ChikkaChiChi
I'm not sure if you are offering this as a counterpoint; but "not just" seems
to reaffirm the point that how it looks still matters.

~~~
kunai
I think it looks fine. The icons only need to be proportioned a little better
with regards to the grid they used for the designs, and the translucency could
be dialed down slightly.

Other than that, it looks great. It's amazing how nobody complains about the
preschool look of Windows Phone 8, but when iOS icons have a slight
disproportion to them, everybody loses their minds.

------
offsky
As a founder who also does our customer support, I got a big chuckle out of
this. Its amazing how many people have such visceral reactions to change.

------
Turing_Machine
The screenshots I've seen so far remind me of nothing so much as Windows XP.

------
pearjuice
Funny how it is almost a complete copy of every feature already existent in
Android and WP8. They are playing catch-on and it is going too well it seems.

------
at-fates-hands
Is this how the smartphone OS market is going to go now? Companies imitating
other companies design?

Besides WP7 and WP8's interface, there really hasn't been a huge leap in this
space for a while. Is this because companies are simply following the market
leader and playing it safe?

~~~
Groxx
when has this not been the case? heck, iOS was just a less-useful PalmOS clone
at the start (with better default apps and hardware).

~~~
at-fates-hands
Am I being too optimistic in thinking these interfaces could be a lot better
than they are?

It's the copying of what seems like mediocrity is what I was trying to get
across.

~~~
Groxx
No, I very much think they could be better :) And tbh, I'm not all that much
of a fan of the iOS7 changes, but I'll have to wait and see how it all works
together. Screenshots are usually poor examples of a system as a whole.

As to copying mediocrity, what's the best flat style out there now? Or are you
referring to flat styles in general? I would expect improvements through
iteration, but I can't recall seeing any _great_ flat-ish UIs. I think Windows
8 / phone 7 has some great concepts (live tiles) but poor execution (live
tiles, button == label visually). Android is overall decent (though those neon
underlines are a bit odd) but they're not very consistent. Individual app
implementations are sometimes awe-inspiringly well done but don't necessarily
scale up to an OS as a whole.

I'm not sure there's anything _but_ mediocrity right now, similar to when
Apple got into the phone market (with something relatively mediocre).

