
Apple’s Jony Ive said to be bringing flat design to iOS 7 - rachbelaid
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/29/apples-jony-ive-said-to-be-bringing-the-flat-design-fad-to-ios-7-with-visual-overhaul/
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api
Oh thank god... when that leather crap started to creep into OSX I took it as
a sign that Apple had peaked and was on its way down.

Things should look like what they are. A computer display is not leather, so
it should not look like leather. Making it look like leather is low-brow
kitsch, like a fake electric fireplace or fake electric arc candles.

~~~
kyro
I too thought the end was near for the billion dollar tech behemoth when I saw
that design of that one app they released for one of their products.

~~~
kmfrk
You must have loved the podcast app, then.

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ChrisNorstrom
_Edit: No I'm not an Apple fan, I genuinely have a newfound love of flat ui
(not block ui)._

I've been very hard on Flat UI in the past (and still dislike the overdone
blocky look) but I've decided to embrace it after realizing it's true purpose.

It's NOT to destroy skeuomorphism. It's to destroy "forced focus design" in
favor of "distraction free design". In the past we used gradients to aim the
eyes towards a direction, shadows to make elements pop out of the page at a
viewer, overly rounded corners to seem friendlier to the viewer, etc... We
styled elements like this so we could draw attention to certain things and
away from others. The same way people wear certain clothing to stand out or
fade in with the crowd.

However, in this era of instant gratification online property owners not only
realized that content is king but that there's too much shit to do and not
enough time to do it. They need to give the viewer what they want and give it
to as quickly as possible. Confusion breads negative feelings and pissed off
viewers leave and don't return. So pages became lighter, more minimal, and
lost unnecessary elements, and so designers adjusted to this.

By getting rid of the un-needed information on a page we no longer have to
draw attention to one thing and away from the other because everything on the
page is important. If it wasn't, it shouldn't be there in there in the first
place. The buttons don't all need to have massive rounded corners and huge
shadows because they're no longer lost in a sea of text and ads. They're easy
to spot.

This is why you'll notice a lot of Flat UI sites are a lot more minimal than
usual.

The Flat UI that I HATE is the blocky kind. Minecraft / 8-bit / designer out
of college / what the hell's an a/b test inspired extreme flat ui. The kind
where you don't know if that's a header with a colored background or a
clickable button. The flat ui where everything on the site is so white white
white you'd think the owners were clansman. That crap I hate. And it's only a
few dozen A/B tests away from disappearing off of prominent sites.

I don't think this is "just a fad" anymore. There's a reason big companies are
switching to it. Microsoft, Apple, Google. They're not stupid. They run A/B
tests. They're not going to sacrifice market share, page views, usability,
ease-of-use, and their bottom line just to blindly follow a design fad. That's
just an insult to them. To say all Flat UI is backwards while the internet's
biggest companies convert to it just goes to show how delusional and
unknowledgeable we (especially I) can be. I apologize for my past remarks.

~~~
kyro
I personally think it's just the in-style at the moment. It's different than
what we're used to, barebones, and uses vibrant colors -- the antithesis of
recent popular styles. Some seasons blacks and grays and navies are in, other
seasons women like wearing greens and oranges and yellows. UX-wise, though,
flat has more problems, but people might not care because it looks so fresh.

~~~
magic_haze
Agreed, it'll probably settle down in a few seasons to something moderate
(i.e., neither the garishness of apple's calendar, nor the usability nightmare
of the WP8 app on windows.) I just wish we won't forget the lessons of these
experiments, but most likely we'll just be reinventing the whole thing again
and again. (Recent example: the horrible 90's emoticons craze is back in
messaging apps these days, except they're now higher resolution and are called
'stickers'.)

~~~
alex_doom
Do you mean Emoji? I've never heard it called stickers.

~~~
robgough
Stickers is the name Facebook are giving to their version...

[http://newsroom.fb.com/News/604/Messaging-updates-for-
iPhone...](http://newsroom.fb.com/News/604/Messaging-updates-for-iPhone-and-a-
new-look-for-iPad)

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coob
I understand the visceral reaction to the fake leather and hatred of metaphors
taken too far, but I wouldn't go expecting iOS 7 to look like Metro.

I'd rather expect a toning down, a reduction – not banishment of gradients and
all texture and personality. Look at the iOS 6 App Store redesign and iTunes
11 for visual hints.

Just as OS X toned toned the gloss and lost the pinstripes, iOS too will have
its refinement.

~~~
Stratoscope
For a similar flattening done in a good way, look at the window chrome in the
Windows 8 desktop compared with Windows 7.

Not Metro or Modern, the desktop.

Window titlebars have lost the peekaboo effect and use a solid color instead.
The min/max/close buttons do a simple color change with a quick fade confined
to their own little rectangle, instead of glowing around the edges. It's a
subtle but pleasant improvement.

I don't like the Start screen, but not because of its flatness. It's the tiny
text that doesn't obey my screen DPI setting and the gratuitous animation that
really bothers my eyes. But that's OK, I use Start8 which brings back a non-
animated start menu with the correct font size.

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aespinoza
This kind of thing puts a smile on my face, because it breaks the omnipotence
of one company in the industry. Making the market reflect its true colors,
which is competition. In this case, it was Microsoft who got there first, and
not Apple.

I hope this kind of innovation is maintained, because we the users benefit
from this. In so many ways.

I wonder if Microsoft hadn't invested everything into flat design, would Apple
had moved away from skeuomorphism so fast ? I think not. I hope to see Apple
fighting for the design lead again.

~~~
wlesieutre
I doubt Ive is going to take it as flat as Metro. It seems more likely that it
will take cues from recent changes like iOS 6's App Store and Passbook, which
dropped the shiny glass appearance but still have some amount of lighting on
them.

My personal hope is that they push it a bit flatter than that to something
like what Google did in their new iOS Maps app. We'll see.

~~~
aespinoza
I agree. Apple will try to do it is own thing with Falt UIs. And that is also
great. The fact that things are progressing and Apple is again willing to
experiment on that front is all that matters. Google will have its own take on
Flat UIs as well, and that is cool too.

~~~
wlesieutre
On the other hand, 9to5mac says:

 _The new interface is said to be “very, very flat,” according to one source.
Another person said that the interface loses all signs of gloss, shine, and
skeuomorphism seen across current and past versions of iOS. Another source
framed the new OS as having a level of “flatness” approaching recent releases
of Microsoft’s Windows Phone “Metro” UI._

So maybe I'm wrong. At the very least I expect it to keep the rounded corners
instead of taking things to uniformly shaded boxes.

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hkmurakami
I'm no expert in design, but when trends change so consistently, I have to
wonder whether this is like automobile design or fashion where UI design kind
of just "rotates" and churns indefinitely rather than head towards "the true
answer"

I have no idea and no opinion on which is better etc, just genuinely curious.

~~~
morsch
Fashion and automobile design are quite mature fields, though, compared to
human machine interfaces. This is reflected in the fact that most changes in
digital interfaces include shifts in terms of functionality. These kinds of
changes are very rare in fashion: pants (either BE or AE) all work mostly the
same -- and so do cars. The choices made seem to affect mostly aesthetics as
opposed to functions.

I guess it's possible that at some point the major interface methods will be
standardized to such a degree that future changes will be aesthetic, to avoid
putting off people, if nothing else. For instance, there was considerable
resistance to MS changing the functional interface of Office not too long ago.
But even mature consumer interfaces such as windowing systems continue to
introduce additional functionality, although I guess some might characterize
those changes as mere window dressing (heh), as well.

Some computer interfaces do head towards what some conceive to be the true
answer, with a slow stream of incremental improvements, e.g. the Unix shell.
But that's a professional interface subject to other kinds of pressures than
consumer technology.

IANAD.

~~~
brudgers
Automotive design has changed radically around function - safety and
aerodynamics being the most obvious visible changes which could be trivialized
as styling.

~~~
morsch
Ok, obviously you're right about that, but I was thinking just in terms of the
human-machine interface. Even then, automotive engineering is much less
"stale" than fashion, and any new technology may push towards more radical
change.

~~~
brudgers
Touch screen navigation, voice control, DVD players, third row seating,
dynamic stability control, launch mode, dial-in suspension...etc.

------
DigitalSea
While it's possible, it's highly doubtful Apple will radically shift away from
their current look. Microsoft are currently associated with the whole flat-
design UI trend and I can only speculate that changing to a completely flat
look would only fuel the speculation that Apple are out of ideas and lack
vision to keep innovating thus driving their share price down further and
undoing all of their hard work over the years. You're only as good as your
last hit as they say in the music industry.

I am envisioning if Apple does change to a flat UI look, it'll have their own
little twist on it. I think it's a given they'll drop the skeuomorphism from
iOS, because lets face it, skeuomorphic elements like leather books and note
paper backgrounds look dated when used anywhere (not just mobile
applications). I would expect things will get flatter, but evident by their
latest Mac OS and iTunes redesigns which I think give us a sneak peek of the
direction: not completely flat, still dabs of light & aluminium as well as
rounded corners on things. Whatever the end result is, I think we can all
agree Apple needs to evolve. The iOS interface has remained basically
untouched since 2007, it's time for a change because the aging operating
system is starting to show its age.

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nwh
I can't see Apple being able to do this even if they tried. So many apps in
iOS rely on the standard elements, mix them with others, make overlays using
them and so forth. For them to "remake" the OS now would break tens of
thousands of apps, and to offer a new UI as an upgrade would stunt adoption.

No matter what happens in this scenario, Apple is left with two half
interfaces. Not clean at all.

~~~
0x0
They could make redesigned standard elements opt-in, so old apps would still
use the old styles and continue to work.

(I've certainly seen apps change behavior simply by being recompiled by a
newer SDK, so there must be something in the binary loader that sets a bunch
of compability flags or something)

~~~
Snoptic
Right. This is how Aqua migrated to Brushed Metal

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geuis
Even if they don't go as far as I wish they would (complete UI redesign) I'll
be fairly happy with modest updates to the overall UI. I'm not a big fan of
Win8, but I've quite liked the MetroUI look on their phones. A nice middle
ground between the two would be a great update.

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suyash
Personally I would have liked if iOS kept the skeumorphism look and feel. I
prefer that to Flat Design. Now I guess all the platforms would look and feel
similar :( (Android, Windows and iOS) I hope iOS 7 look and feel much
different.

~~~
Jack000
I agree, that design style strongly distinguished Apple from Android and MS.

~~~
rubinelli
On the other hand, it will make it much easier for developers to create cross-
platform apps that don't look like complete aliens in one OS or the other.

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mikec3k
I really hate the flat design. I prefer to see some depth as a indicator that
something is clickable & active.

~~~
Shooti
Android 4.x/Holo doesn't get enough credit for absolutely nailing the right
balance. It's "flat", but has depth.

Going purely by the strength of their design team, I'd expect iOS 7 to be
closer to Android-flat rather than Metro-flat.

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sgdesign
"The changes would likely be welcomed by most, though they could result in a
negative reaction from users who’ve grown used to the current Apple way of
doing things."

What extraordinary insight…

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outside1234
If so, will Microsoft sue Apple for stealing their look and feel? #irony

~~~
jussij
If I was somewhere high up in Microsoft I'd serious think about it. Nothing
too serious, just dragging them into court would be enough.

What goes around comes around.

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chrismealy
I'm sure Dieter Rams used some nice textures here and there. Ive can steal
that too.

~~~
potatolicious
Unsure why you were downvoted - Apple has borrowed _heavily_ from Dieter Rams
in the past decade or so. Heck, the current iPad Music app is a straight lift
from the famous Braun SK radio/record players.

That being said, there's no real reason why Apple has to use textures
anywhere. Dieter Rams designed physical products which by their nature _must_
have some texture or another. Having texture is purely optional in a digital
product.

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pdeuchler
This seems like blog spam based on blog spam based on "sources". I'd take it
with a grain of salt.

I'd also be very skeptical that Ive would create a sweeping change to a
formula that works so well currently (Regardless of what the technorati think,
joe consumer loves the iPhone UI. Small gizmos and refreshes are all that's
needed to keep the standard consumer sufficiently happy), especially with Cook
in charge.

A better article could probably be condensed into: "According to sources it
looks like Apple will follow the latest design trends and begin incorporating
flat design into their products." Which is a no-brainer and hardly sells
adspace.

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mixmastamyk
I wish on ios I could pick a theme and stay with it. I dislike how every page
is white and every other black with no rhyme or reason. At night the white
screens are especially blinding even at lowest brightness. Sometimes negative
works, but not when screens are half-white, half-black as is the trend lately.

Sigh... I miss the days of Windows 95? when I chose a theme and all apps had
to follow it.

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dr_
Given the discussions they've reportedly been having with Yahoo
[http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4206794/apple-and-
yahoo-...](http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4206794/apple-and-yahoo-in-
talks-to-build-a-deeper-ios-partnership)

I wonder if Yahoo's new, aesthetically pleasing IMO, weather app is an
indication of things to come to iOS.

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kayge
Just when my poor parents were starting to get the hang of using their new
iPhones... On a more serious note, I know it's never going to happen, but it
would be nice if Apple would just create a Theme system and allow the user to
choose how they want their default apps and controls displayed.

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hapay
I think flat UI is horrible. Outlook 2013 looks like piles of words. I can't
tell where one email stops and the next starts. I would take leather trim over
that any day.

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r0s
One of my favorite mods for OSX is to revert the dock back to "2D" mode. The
mirrored table effect is not to my taste.

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Aloha
I think its about time.

That said, a complete UI overhaul is.. I just see it as unlikely all at once,
more of a gradual thing.

