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Modernizing the home screen: How iOS could take cues from the design of the Apple Watch

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At Apple’s special press event this past September, we witnessed the introduction of several new user interface paradigms, in the form of Apple Watch. Perhaps one of the most interesting was Apple Watch’s entirely new home screen. This is the first departure from the same basic concept of the home screen that Apple demoed in January of 2007 when it debuted the iPhone OS.

Apple clearly thinks that Apple Watch is the future of the company, but is the Apple Watch home screen the future of the iOS home screen? Let’s take a look at how we arrived at where we are today.

iPhones

History

To understand why Apple designed the home screen the way they did, you have to remember what iOS was like in 2007. Apple was only shipping devices with 3.5-inch, non-retina displays, and third party apps were still nowhere to be found. With every year that passed, both the devices and the software that ran on them matured, adding new features along the way. In 2010, the iPad was added to the mix, and the home screen simply scaled up to follow. The same year, the retina display was introduced, and the home screen was given the 2x treatment.

In 2012, the iPhone 5 brought a 4-inch display, and the home screen just added another row. The same happened this year with the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6 Plus scales up the home screen even more.

Here we are in 2014, and the iOS home screen is essentially the same as it was in 2007. Plenty of arguments have been made that the home screen looks “dated” or needs certain features, but I’m proposing not change for the sake of change, but change that unifies, modernizes, and redefines the home screen as we know it. What would happen if the Apple Watch home screen came to the iPhone?

Apple Watch

One Fluid System

Moving the Apple Watch home screen to the iPhone breaks down barriers that have been part of the system since day one. Gone are the concepts of home screen pages and the dock, replaced with one large, fluid grid of apps. The app grid not only looks more modern with its round icons, but it scales perfectly to any size display, all the way from the smallest Apple Watch to the 9.7” iPad, without looking crammed or too spread out at any size.

ZoomLevels

Navigation

At the center of Apple Watch’s home screen is the clock, the anchor point for the device. Similarly, at the center of the iPhone’s new home screen would be Spotlight, a central search repository for quick access to applications, web searches, music, contacts, and more. This central point is where you return to every time you exit an app or unlock your device.

You might not find yourself needing to launch apps from Spotlight anymore, however. With the new home screen layout, all of your apps are always close by, no longer stranded pages and pages away from screen one. In fact, with this new layout, you can adjust the content density of the home screen just by pinching in and out, moving the entire seamless honeycomb of apps with you. Pinch out to see a bird’s eye view of all of your apps. Zoom in as close as you want to see app icons and titles up close. This is great for those with poor eyesight. It also eliminates the need for a zoomed home screen option, a feature introduced with iOS 8 on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

FolderComp

Arranging apps as you see fit and moving them into folders is just as easy as before. Pressing and holding down on an app invokes the familiar “wiggle” mode, and you can move apps anywhere you want in the grid, without the frustration of apps flipping back and forth between rows and pages inadvertently when trying to position the app in a folder on the end of a row or page, an annoyance we’ve all experienced.

The organization and navigation of folders is largely unchanged from the current home screen layout, but gains all the benefits of the new app grid. Each folder is still a portal into another grid of apps, but without pages. The icon preview for a folder shows the innermost circle of 7 apps, and tapping on the folder expands it, where you can swipe around to access all of your apps.

Reachability

Reachability

As part of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launch last month, Apple introduced a new feature called Reachability, designed to make using the new iPhones with one hand easier. Double touch the home button and all of your home screen icons or app content slides down. This feels pretty crude to me, an admission that iOS wasn’t really designed to run on phones of this size. The new home screen layout would solve the problem of home screen reachability entirely. If an app is out of reach, just drag the grid down so you can reach it, and tap. The advantage of a continuous grid like this is that you can swipe in any direction, instead of just left to right like is possible today.

The current layout of the iOS home screen places application priority at the top and bottom of the display. When adding applications to a home screen, they fall into line one by one starting at the top left corner. This top row is now the hardest place to reach on new iPhones. The new home screen layout moves the highest application priority to the center of the display, the most natural area to interact with.

As you can see in the photo above, Reachability on the iPhone 6 Plus moves the top row of icons to roughly the center of the display, in line with the logical center of the new home screen layout. This is perhaps the most compelling part of a redesigned home screen. Designing with multiple display sizes in mind removes the need for awkward workarounds like Reachability.

IconsRound

Iconography 

You might be wondering how developers would tackle the problem of round app icons. Would everyone need to redraw all of their icons? Not quite. I took a sampling of some stock iOS icons above and cropped them to a circle.

The results are pretty conclusive. Icons designed with the iOS 7 icon grid in mind fit almost perfectly when cropped to a circle. It’s only icons with detail close to the edges that run into problems, like Passbook and Reminders. As you’ll notice in the other screenshots across this article, many third-party apps also fit well right out of the gate.

It’s also important to keep in mind the Apple Watch. Any apps designed for the Watch’s UI require round icons. Therefore, it would be in developers best interests to create one icon that would work well across both Apple Watch and iPhone.

With Apple Watch, Apple has created an entirely new, modern home screen that is not only more intuitive, it’s more flexible and adaptive as well. Only time will tell if this design trickles down to the iPhone, but the benefits it brings make it a strong contender for a new face of iOS.

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Comments

  1. Joaquim Inverno - 9 years ago

    Just no!

    • crichton007 - 9 years ago

      +1

      This argument is a lot like saying that the Mac need to have an interface exactly like the iPhone and iPad. How many people actually use Launchpad in OS X? I know I don’t. Apple has never felt the need to take an interface that works well in one instance and force it on another.

      That’s not to say that iOS won’t start incorporating visual cues from Watch’s interface but it won’t be as drastic and that visual atrocity above.

      • Good call guys, and I agree with you, crichton007. The moment I saw the watch interface I thought “Man, that would be sweet on iPhone!”. But after your comment, I could see it morphing into a sort of hybrid between the Watch interface and the enlarging animation in the OSX dock. Imagine if multitasking and coverflow merged, and then multiplied into a grid of icons. So sort of like the watch, but a bit more organized.

      • crichton007 - 9 years ago

        What if they changed the icons in iOS to be round? That might work (but can you imagine the flame wars from Android fans?).

        I’d also love to be able to place icons anywhere on a screen rather than having all of the icons move because I deleted one further up the screen.

      • James Ernestine - 9 years ago

        Crichton007, I love your response. It was really well thought out. But Here’s a wrinkle. I like the Watch interface. But how cool would it be if we actually had a choice? Dude something has to change. I think its horrible that I have a big beautiful iPad with 9.7 inches of glorious retina space… but when I click a folder I can only see 9 apps. This is my biggest gripe with iOS7/8. Such a waste of real estate. On the Mac, I can change icon sizes and rearrange them in a grid or anywhere I want on the screen. I jailbreak specifically for this reason. I get it Apple’s icon layout is nice and clean… but 8 iterations of this sucks. If they don’t change it in iOS 9-infinty I’ll still buy the products but I’ll still jailbreak.

      • crichton007 - 9 years ago

        Very good point. I think changes like that are likely to be brought to iOS. I also expect to see plugins added to Mac App Store apps so that Apple can keep their “sandboxed only” approach but hopefully lure back some of the prominent Mac apps that have left too.

      • thomasskyg - 9 years ago

        I do… It keeps my dock clean

      • thshmbl - 9 years ago

        Everyone should use Launchpad on the Mac. If you have all your apps on the dock, you’re an idiot. And if you still open finder to navigate to the applications folder, you’re an idiot.

      • charilaosmulder - 9 years ago

        That way of launching apps doesn’t work for everyone. It’s like saying: Spotlight is the fastest way to launch any app OR file OR search up anything on the web so using any other method would be idiotic.

      • thshmbl - 9 years ago

        It does work for everyone. On iOS. But i get what youre saying, touché.

        I guess my beef is with saying the Apple Watch interface on iPhone/iPad is akin to Mac OS Launchpad because both are out of context on their adopted devices. I agree that the watch interface on iPhone/iPad would be a poor experience. I wouldnt be surprised to learn – down the road – that users download more apps on their iPhones than their Apple Watches. So the honeycomb on the Watch wouldnt get difficult to navigate, whereas on the phones and tablets, finding your apps would get ridiculous. I do agree that the launchpad/springboard/home screen on iOS could do with an update, just not sure a verbatim copy/paste from watch to phone would be the best implementation.

        Launchpad isnt an alien concept for a computer at all. Remember when computers had all the apps, files and folders right on the desktop? I guess some people may still do that, but the dock was originally a way to clean that up by clearing the desktop and keeping the most frequently used apps and folders within reach. Launchpad is a perfect evolution/extension of that early convention and the dock philosophy. The apps are laid out in a layer over top of the desktop with a gesture or single button triggering it. Quick and within reach. Launchpad has a place on the computer, and shouldnt be written off as a poor attempt at iOS’ifying the Mac.

    • calisurfboy - 9 years ago

      Is it my imagination or is Apple working backwards? iPhone IOS>Apple TV>Iwatch. I am a minimalist with a streak of OCD and these layouts are causing me anxiety and stress.

    • varera (@real_varera) - 9 years ago

      second that!

    • anon - 9 years ago

      Just no to your tired thinking.

  2. Yacob (@eggsandjakey) - 9 years ago

    I like the idea but I feel like the design is a bit too cluttered for such a big screen, the reason this design works best for the apple watch is because It requires a smaller screen. I really like the idea of the circular icons, and maybe a future system like this.

  3. Jason Yap - 9 years ago

    I’ll settle for being able to scroll down to an endless list of apps that I put in a folder instead of separate pages. Or better yet, folders inside of folders fully supported instead of just a glitch that reverts after a restart. Yet another hint for Apple the jailbreak community has been doing for years.

    • taoprophet420 - 9 years ago

      Scrolling up a down for a single home page would be nice. Flip right and you get widgets, flip left and you get notifications. It would bet better then swiping down from the top of big devices like the 6 plus and iPads.

      • Pull up on the Dock to reveal an All Apps folder. Allow users to remove apps from the home screen as they see fit. While we’re at it, let people download Widgets and Keyboards that don’t have an app interface and useless icon that I have to hide away – make a place for displaying the Widgets and Keyboards installed.

      • charilaosmulder - 9 years ago

        If you don’t want the simplicity of a single app launcher, where widgets, keyboards and custom actions are extensions of apps (and thus everything installed is simply manageable and searchable from the home screens), then go get an android already and stop complaining about something that’s exactly how millions of other prefer it.

  4. lellis2k - 9 years ago

    I actually think this could work

  5. Edward Sanchez - 9 years ago

    Worthy exploration – I’d love to try it out and see how it feels.

  6. robertvarga79 - 9 years ago

    Very bad idea, complete nonsense just to write something

    • jrox16 - 9 years ago

      Why, please explain? Seems like a fresh idea that does solve the reach-ability issue perfectly. And many other UI objects in iOS are already round (think dialer and contact photos). I think this seems a very worthwhile idea to at least ponder.

      • wootcat - 9 years ago

        For one thing, Reachability solves many more problems than just the home screens. Inside apps, Reachability is used to access controls near the top of the screen, so even if this model was adopted, it would not alleviate the need for Reachability.

    • pedrofolio007 - 9 years ago

      The worst ideas are the ones we don’t explore. My knee-jerk reaction is to hate it, but after giving it some thought for a couple of minutes I would love to see it in action… Specially if it’s bad :-)

      Cheers!

  7. chrisl84 - 9 years ago

    iOS is about simplicity, this is not simple. The home screen could use evolution but this is way too busy for the every day user to enjoy.

    • Marcos Vieira (@VieiraM) - 9 years ago

      I agree.

      Not to mention it’s not user friendly when you’re walking or driving while scrolling for your apps.

      • jrox16 - 9 years ago

        Please don’t play with your phone while driving, that’s what Siri is for.

  8. “an admission that iOS wasn’t really designed to run on phones of this size”

    So, in your vision, if iOS was really designed to run on phones on this size, how would you use it one-handed (not only in the home screen, but in apps) without something like reachability?

    • chrisl84 - 9 years ago

      That would probably be an individual app makers decision. No law requires a “back button” be in the top right hand corner. Its just remained that way for years. Now starting to be replaced by “swipe to go back” UI for apps will always evolve to become more user friendly device by device.

  9. samuelsnay - 9 years ago

    Dear Christ, and I thought Windows 8 was a cluttered mess.

  10. ameadows252 - 9 years ago

    I’d be totally into this. A very good idea. And the reachability example is probably the most compelling thing about this kind of UI. I know the initial reaction from most will be “EWW DIFFERENT!” But this is one of those really radical, yet elegant concepts, that just might function and scale better as a UI for both larger and smaller screens.

  11. Nop. not really.
    For one, circles are a lousy way to organize anything (ever wondered why most boxes are “square”?) and because we have to consider that the devices are completely different, therefore the navigation should be different.

  12. Iwagsz (@Iwagsz) - 9 years ago

    Meh

  13. Wow, NO.

    This was clearly written by someone with no UX knowledge. Ugh.

  14. Nuno Gonçalves - 9 years ago

    As soon as you start looking at the screen with this new home menu, the idea starts to grow and I do believe it is for the better future of iOS to have a menu like apple watch ;)

  15. Jelle Harmen van Mourik - 9 years ago

    I Think this could work as an Option. People Who want it can use it.. People Who won’t they don’t !

  16. It would make iOS unappealing and ugly plus cluttery, and doesn’t match the aesthetic of the iPhone shape… it does work for the AppleWatch but not iPhone nor the iPad…

    PLEASE NO!

    • jrox16 - 9 years ago

      The Apple Watch is not round either and is also a rounded rectangle. So in that regard, not sure how the iPhone’s shape aesthetic matters if round icons work on the watch.

      • JE S2K (@muzicdox) - 9 years ago

        AppleWatch is square and small… iPhone is big and rectangular… Circular icons are basically rounded square.

  17. Joel Henson - 9 years ago

    Don’t ever do this Apple

  18. Is it April already?

  19. Graham J - 9 years ago

    Possible in-between solution: keep the grid but make it scrollable and scalable rather than paged. Default icon locations to a wide grid so default scroll action is similar to horizontal paging.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 9 years ago

      I think scrollable is a bad idea in that design studies have always shown that the user can’t remember what’s off screen in any one direction and that this leads to confusion.

      Scalability on the other hand, I think is a great idea and it always mystifies me why Apple never implements it. If I had to guess, it’s because it gives the end user the opportunity to (possibly) make the screen look like crap and Apple doesn’t want to allow that.

      Scalable icons though would allow “power” users to have many more icons on one screen than currently as well as allow the older folks to create screens that are essentially single giant buttons. From a usability standpoint alone, (especially on the iPad which has acres of empty space between icons), it’s a winner IMO.

      • asmi8803 - 9 years ago

        Best comment so far.

        I like the current system but there is no doubt it is becoming outdated with the larger screens, wasted space and sheer number of apps.

        There something to be said for the apple watch interface on the iPhone. It would need refinement and testing. Or perhaps a hybrid of the current system and the one proposed here.

        The only crazy thing would be to dismiss an alternative without giving it more thought.

  20. dwisehart - 9 years ago

    Allow me to agree with all of the “Just Say No!” votes. I already put everything in folders to declutter my display. I do not want to have the visual confusion of looking at 10’s of icons at the same time.

    A SwiftKey or Swype like method of navigating through folders-in-folders would be much preferable by my thinking.

  21. Elias Sørensen - 9 years ago

    Yeah.. That sure looks easy to navigate with 50 apps…

    Please no..

  22. Cooper Black (@cprblak) - 9 years ago

    How many ways can I say YECH!

  23. reesmaxwell - 9 years ago

    Your Productitivty would go down.

  24. aeronperyton - 9 years ago

    I think the reason why Apple Watch has round icons in a honeycomb layout is because they want to eventually move to a round screen. Makes sense, right? A circular UI for a circular device.

    Square icons will continue to be the best way to layout apps on the iPhone because the iPhone will continue to be a box with 90 degree screen corners.

    Apple already went to great pains to make people realize that OS X and iOS will never fully converge because they think that two different devices with two different functions shouldn’t share the exact same look and feel. I’ll bet they feel the same way about the Watch compared to the other iDevices.

  25. EC. (@_edwardc) - 9 years ago

    who wasted there time here? god no!

  26. RP - 9 years ago

    Unsettling.
    Too chaotic.
    How about just want clean professional intuitive design

  27. david0296 - 9 years ago

    The circular grid doesn’t even make sense on the Apple Watch — with its square screen. It makes even less sense on a larger display. So instead of knowing that all of my games are on the second page of my apps, now I’ve got to remember that they’re located somewhere in the south-west corner (or was it the south-east corner?) — but I can’t see them because I have to keep scrolling the screen until they finally appear — AND they’re hard to see because they’ve been shrunken down to tiny little circles just like on the Apple Watch. Yeah, that sounds much better than swiping the screen to the right one time.

  28. chrisl84 - 9 years ago

    Apples vision of the home screen is probably very much in the opposite direction where less is more. They want siri and spotlight launching apps. Clean UI is Apple.

  29. dailycardoodle - 9 years ago

    Wow, what a bunch a negative arses. Obviously it’s not ‘fait accompli’, but it certainly shows it could work. There’s lots one could do with zooming, could help with personalisation perhaps. Spotlight in the centre is pretty clever too. It would be great to play with it, see how well it works.

  30. J.latham - 9 years ago

    And I thought this UI was terrible and cluttered in the watch! Good god this horrible.

  31. Crap! You beat me to it!! I was actually working on a concept in Photoshop a couple weeks ago but have been too busy to finish it.

    I also believe the Watch is the future of the home screen and once we’ve had a taste of the Watch’s icons we’ll be wishing it was on everything else.

    The only thing I’d add to this is that I believe Apple would finally adopt live widgets. Imagine pinching in and out and seeing more glance-able information by zooming in and out. Similar to if you’re in the iPad’s photo gallery. As you pinch to zoom in on one photo the photos behind slightly fade as you zoom and even twist the photo you’ve selected. I imagine something similar where you can “peek” into your email box, iMessage or Twitter to see the latest updates. Zoom back out or let go at a certain point and the sphere will either open the app or bounce backwards into the grid.

    However I would disagree that the iPad will get the same treatment as I envision Apple redefining the iPad as a true productivity tool meaning it will mirror Yosemite more than iOS complete with separate accounts and better window multitasking.

  32. bb1111116 - 9 years ago

    by crichton007;
    “Apple has never felt the need to take an interface that works well in one instance and force it on another.”

    Yes. And one reason for this is about ease of use.
    Apple almost always makes very gradual UI changes so that an Apple product category is easy to use.
    Even when OS X was getting started, Apple added features so OS X would be more like OS 9.

    iOS will remain basically the same so that iPhones and iPads will instantly be easy to use.

  33. devanealex - 9 years ago

    The reason the Apple Watch has the home screen like this is due to 1 thing: the small screen. Magnification is there so touch targets become bigger and more can fit on the smaller display. The iPhone doesn’t have this problem. While I can see this maybe working on App folders, but on the home screen – No. Apple have always strayed away from lumping the interface of 1 device on another (like Microsoft tried to do with Windows 8). Each form factor has its own functions and problems that the interface should focus on.

  34. madmen8 - 9 years ago

    I love the concept. Obviously Apple would refine and design it to be less cluttered but if it stays zoomed out Until you pinch, a little honeycomb of beautiful icons would look great in the middle of a 6 or 6+.

    Don’t attack me or my mother, it’s just an opinion.

  35. Red Raider (@clindenm) - 9 years ago

    Yes! This is a truly modern and new mobile OS design that I have been waiting for. The current way of doing things on the iPhone really does feel dated and not truly made for mobile or one-handed use as it’s just a touch version of a desktop OS with folders and a dock. The whole double-tap for “reachability” is not elegant and totally unlike Apple to do something like this. Why double tap a home button when you could double tap the screen to zoom in where your app is like we’ve been doing in Safari this whole time? I can never remember which folder I place my apps in and end up just looking for the icon before clicking on a folder anyway. People that don’t embrace change and that want to be stuck in the ‘oughts’ can stick with the old OS or go to Android. Apple is about being different and now that Android has basically copied the basic look of the current mobile OS, Apple is looking to break away and create something that can’t be copied and is unique to iOS.

  36. matthiasf - 9 years ago

    I think it’s time to loose the info bar on top, carrier, reception, time, battery,…everybody knows what carrier they use, no need to show me. The time could be swipeable,just swipe a little corner to see it. The battery could be a thin color strip on the side of the phone, going from green to red. And Bluetooth and so on can be view by swiping up anyway. Loosing the info bar opens up another 1/2 inch of screen. I like the idea of the watch interface, but my home screen has only the most important apps for my day to day business to avoid getting to crowded. All apps in one shot looks a little much.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 9 years ago

      What does having that 8 pixel strip back really get you though? What’s the “plus” that counters the “minus” of not having the information there?

    • I’m not entirely sure you know how big a half-inch is…

      • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 9 years ago

        Obviously I know it’s more than 8 pixels, you missed the point of my question entirely.

        Relative to the other elements on the screen, eliminating the top bar gives you no real useable screen real estate back, but takes away some significant functions and information.

    • Mike Knopp (@mknopp) - 9 years ago

      I am not sure how you are figuring on picking up 1/2″ of usable space by doing this. The only place that I can find a 1/2″ increase is on the iPad’s home screen, and that has a lot more to do with the low density of icons than the top bar.

      When in Safari on the iPad you would only gain 1/8″ by removing the info bar. On an iPhone 5, you would only pick up 1/16″. This essentially equates to about an extra line of text in Safari.

      I have to agree with Mr. Grey. Considering the inconvenience of removing these often referenced items, especially the clock and signal strength, I don’t see where the minimal added screen space would justify the inconvenience.

  37. You should save this article for 1 april. Because this has to be a joke. I know they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but really???

    • Chris Sanders - 9 years ago

      I don’t know anymore. The rumors seem so planted these days. I think Apple should give people a choice of either design personally. I quite like the circles.

      • wootcat - 9 years ago

        This is not a rumor. This is a concept design from one person compete unconnected to Apple.

  38. I love the idea! That looks quite gorgeous on the iPhone 6.

  39. zhaoxuansun - 9 years ago

    Oh my, just felt chilly all over me…

  40. Gil Medina - 9 years ago

    Eh. Squares with rounded corners have at this point become a kind of nod to Steve Jobs, and with Jony Ive’s place in the company, connection to Jobs and his overall design sensibilities, I would be willing to bet he keeps them around on iOS, essentially saying that the shape, in and of itself, is part of the Apple visual DNA. The iPhone, iPad, MacBooks, iMac, Apple TV and Apple watches are all variations on the square with rounded corners. I honestly don’t view that as coincidence. I would view Apple Watch’s new UI as just a specialization for the size format and not a nod to future design direction.

    • Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 9 years ago

      The square with rounded corners goes all the way back to the original Mac actually. It was one of their early triumphs that took Microsoft a long time to copy.

      The rounded rect, (or as Microsoft rebranded it when they copied it, the “squaricle”), is as you point out, deep in Apple’s design language.

  41. Chris Sanders - 9 years ago

    I think they should give users the option to scroll or for separate pages or for the circles. Why not let the end user decide what works best for them?

  42. spinecomic - 9 years ago

    No thanks.

  43. Chris Ko Hoffman - 9 years ago

    Adding chaos to an environment that doesn’t call for it probably would frustrate the end-user more than refresh them with a new UI/UX.

    Each environment, ranging from desktop to mobile, will require a user interface tailored to it. Trying to unify a user interface across all use cases is a setup for failure. That’s not to discount that I agree that there should be a similarity across platforms to increase intuitiveness.

  44. mpias3785 - 9 years ago

    A pox on your phone!

  45. charilaosmulder - 9 years ago

    THIS DESIGN IS BROKEN!!

    It only LOOKS nice!! How is chaos more functional?

    In this design, we can’t reach spotlight at any moment, apps on the edges become uselessly small, the specific app you want is less recognisable compared to a grid, this in no way eliminates the need for a dock, it would get extremely messy with badges, it would ruin 1.3 million carefully designed app icons and simply doesn’t solve any problems of the current home screen.

    YUCK!!!

    • rettun1 - 9 years ago

      -Spotlights right in the middle, and tapping the home button would bring you right to it.
      -It’s obviously less recognizable because apps are square now. That is the nature of change, it is DIFFERENT.
      -I agree that the dock is very handy
      -Also agree about the badges, though there are other ways of implementing it

      I think it’s a neat idea, but since this UI was designed to work with a Digital a Crown I don’t think it would be a carbon copy of what is on the watch. I’d love to try this out though, even though I know I can’t :(

  46. Aman Kapoor - 9 years ago

    nah , the grid is better
    good luck looking for your app in those hundreds of bubbles
    i keep my homescreen alphabetically arranged and helps me work faster

  47. emailjimmyw - 9 years ago

    This is SCARY different. It might work for the watch, but I can’t imagine a new format for my apps. People spend a LOT of time organizing their apps so they’re easy to find. I can’t tell if this would enhance that or take away.

  48. Mr. Grey (@mister_grey) - 9 years ago

    I applaud the creative thinking here, but this would be a nightmare of manageability. The average iPhone user (sadly) installs far more apps than are likely to live on the Watch, and having no structure to the installation other than an infinite cloud of buttons would just not be useable.

    The user would need to be constantly moving around the apps and repositioning them every time a new one is installed, and there would be a tendency for the user to forget about the tiny apps on the periphery of the cloud. Also, while the idea of panning the screen with your thumb instead of having to use the reachability feature sounds good on paper, it would be irritating in daily use for sure.

    Finally, two things actually kill this idea dead:

    1) The screen shot above showing the icons at roughly the same resolution/size as the current square icons, actually holds *less* icons per screen than currently. So it’s less space efficient.

    2) Zooming only makes sense with the “Digital Crown,” if you have to pinch to zoom in and out all the time, it would be much *more* cumbersome, not less, to find what you want with this system.

  49. Looks cool but I think it’s only because I want something new and different .

  50. Jeff Chen (@jeffqchen) - 9 years ago

    Please NO. My trypophobia would kill me.

  51. PMZanetti - 9 years ago

    I would like it as an OPTION.

  52. cleesmith2 - 9 years ago

    Circular icons? Sure. Having the most used apps on the home page? Yes. Everything else in the article? No!

  53. Untitled (@Untitled_007) - 9 years ago

    If Apple ever does this, they should start considering bringing back Scott Forstall…

  54. degraevesofie - 9 years ago

    Apple clearly thinks that Apple Watch is the future of the company

    Really? In what way?

    Certainly, Apple thinks it’s a worthwhile business to pursue. But the future? As in “without the Apple Watch the company is doomed”? I rather suspect Apple’s expectations for its watch line are more modest, subordinate to its phone business, and probably with less expected direct revenue than its iPad or Mac business.

  55. Carlos R. Batista - 9 years ago

    Im not sure if turning my iPhone 6 plus into a bag of skittles is the best idea.

  56. al0963 - 9 years ago

    I would love those round icons instead of the square

  57. charismatron - 9 years ago

    While the watch interface on an iPhone appears cluttered and chaotic, it’s something that should be interfaced *with* to better appreciate the its potential. Although I’m not a fan at first blush, there are possibilities worth considering.

    The watch interface could decrease the required screen real estate for the app icons, opening up possibilities for a new screen experience. For example, by decreasing the amount of space the icons occupy, new information–such as bio-metrics from the watch–can become a constant presence onscreen.

    Spending time thinking about how it could work is better than too quickly throwing the whole idea out the window. Although my preference is for the current arrangement–and there’s something to be said for “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”–progress was never made by not challenging status quo.

  58. james david (@jtrd1966) - 9 years ago

    That looks like a jumbled mess – much like most Windows PC desktops. Please don’t Apple!

  59. jerjuan (@jerjuan) - 9 years ago

    Didn’t Windows 8 prove….. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it! I argue there is NOTHING in human society that makes this proposal MODERN in a larger format. I also contend that the layout of the home screen for the watch will be one of the least liked features, although probably the best solution for the Apple Watch, as scrolling for days or tapping in and out of folders would have been horrendous!

  60. this looks really good, I hope you’re right

  61. jacksonhenneyyy - 9 years ago

    I’m not so sure about the interface, but circle iconography is a nice change; I have a theme on my Jailbroken iPhone to make all icons circular. It works perfectly with lots of the circle changes in iOS 7+

    I think the circle icons are a big enough change to make people interested: http://imgur.com/sf1Juw6

  62. Andres Forani - 9 years ago

    I really like this concept of updating the iOS home screen layout. They could possibly even call it space-OS. Thats just what I think, since the round icons look like little planets and the backgrounds they have always had, at some point had to do with space. That way they can start taking up different names like Apple already does with it’s iMacs and MacBooks.

    Although I would change a couple of things. Like, the way that you always close out to the Spotlight search when you redirect to the home screen itself. since its an ‘iPhone’ have it close out to the “Phone” app. Maybe even set your own desired apps to be the center. Maybe it can even categorize your apps and still have them in the same layout.

  63. Michael Crumpton - 9 years ago

    All of these solutions for dealing with a huge mass of apps seem far inferior to just holding the home button and when siri comes up, saying “Spotify”, or “Pages”. Or if you are stuck on visual interfaces how about having a page of the app screen that shows the last 20 apps you used?

  64. matthewr1990 - 9 years ago

    I absolutely love this idea. Another idea is if it becomes a globe of icons so to speak. So as you scroll up to the top it joins with apps at the bottom. And so you can scroll continuously in any direction. Would be good to keep the dock in some way though. This actually makes a lot of sense put your most used apps in the centre of which pressing the home button would centre the “globe” and put your mostly unused apps towards the end. iOS could even have a function in settings that orders them for you. After a few weeks of use it could know which apps you click on and use the most and orders it for you with the most used at the centre. The scrolling in and out would help you quickly spot apps that you are looking for and always have spotlight sitting at the top so you can quickly tap it and start typing the app if you really have that much difficulty finding it. Home screen does need an update. And Apple have already got a great looking home screen in the watch.

  65. Franklin Heinis - 9 years ago

    The only thing the interface of the apple watch made me think is that it was meant for a round display.

  66. Wilhem Oliva - 9 years ago

    I wouldn’t be surprised if springboard eventually took some cues from the Apple Watch. I don’t think it’ll look like this, so literal. I think it’ll be something we can’t quite imagine yet. This post is interesting, the same way iPhone mockups from 2005/2006 are interesting. It’s exciting when the future of Apple design is impossible to predict.

  67. Are you on crack?

  68. Can we finally get a toggle for names under apps. The iconography of iOS is pretty resounding. I know that my little blue F is Facebook. I will never forget that the white bird is Twitter or the Blue Compass is Safari. It would look so much cleaner without the names.

  69. In my mind it seems that I visualize the many screens of apps on my iPhone as one large canvas and have a mental picture of where each app is located based on that mental image. I notice that when I move an app, my mind via my finger still takes me back to the initial location of said app.
    So, why not get rid of the modality of several screens and just have one large zoomable canvas that is not limited to only side scrolling but can be scrolled in any direction?
    Further couldn’t apps that were used with greater frequency appear larger.

    This seems like a very sensible and intriguing UI concept to me.

  70. Can’t wait to use it. Someone is going to release a Jailbrake hack that will do exactly this.

  71. I am not too sure where the writer is getting that it is more intuitive. To my knowledge, no one at 9to5mac has be privy to a special pre-release of the Apple Watch. Therefore you could not possible know if it would truly be better for an iPhone. Would it look neat? Sort of. Would I want it? Not really. I like the iPhone as it is now. After showing this to several (23) of my colleagues…we all kindly disagree with you but respect the thought.

  72. leifashley - 9 years ago

    God no…

    Common apps, tossed on screen 1 and 2, the rest, stuffed in a folder and use down-swipe/search to get to it. Even my App Store app isn’t on a screen anymore. In a perfect world, the device would just read my mind and go to whatever I wanted.

    The only reason the Apple Watch has that unique UI is because it works best on a crazy small screen with a wheel. That’s it. It belongs there, not everywhere else.

  73. Or they could just fucking let us customize our home screens so that everyone gets what they want instead of another “one size fits all” deal.

  74. anon - 9 years ago

    I have no doubt this will be a future feature in iOS.

    • 1sugomac - 9 years ago

      Agreed. I think it would be a big plus for iOS to have the same interface through their product lines.

      • charilaosmulder - 9 years ago

        iOS already has the same interface across all devices, except for some display size optimizations. The Watch is running Watch OS (as stated on Apple’s website) and has a totally different interaction model, thus a totally different interface.

    • renzsly - 9 years ago

      I agree, I love it

  75. Erlend Mørch - 9 years ago

    No

  76. lexxkoto - 9 years ago

    This isn’t a good interface. The cognitive load is way too high. How would you rearrange or restructure your icons in this layout?

    • 1sugomac - 9 years ago

      Same way you do with the current iOS springboard. The exact same interaction model could be carried over.

    • Sage Catharsis - 9 years ago

      One possibl way I imagine might work is with constellations and folders.

      • Tony L'Ombroso - 9 years ago

        Me too, and it shouldn’t be much harder to have a mental map of which region of the “sky” host a particular app than to remember which page does in the current springboard.
        Yet, it’s easy to see issues with spatial context and muscle memory.
        Zoom and pan complicate the former and kill the latter.

        Still, one-handed use of a screen that’s just too big for one hand inevitably calls for moving interface targets – the fact Reachability is such a useful feature, despite feeling so awkward at the same time, testifies that.

        So exploring new springboard designs centered around that, beyond bolting a workaround on top of the current one, seems definitely worthwhile.

        Another issue that comes to mind with this mock-up is how to implement one-handed zooming – as pinch-to-zoom is inherently two-handed, and single-tap-to-zoom would probably be hard to distinguish from app selection at most zoom levels. So, double-tap? long press?
        The iWatch will have the ability to tell deep press from light tap, and that adds options here.

    • Dan (@danmdan) - 9 years ago

      I agree – the existing layout makes it easy to find icons – the proposed layout is just a jumble, needing a careful search for the desired item.

  77. asmi8803 - 9 years ago

    I like the current layout but this is interesting. Here’s hoping they provide the option to set up the home screen with either style.

    • Bob Smogango - 9 years ago

      Yes, I think giving the user a few different options for the interface would be a good idea. It’s not a good idea to force one type of UI, especially when it’s as drastic as this new UI. People are used to icons organized by columns and rows, I know it gets a little boring, but it’s easier to interact with.

      I think having a couple of rows as “permanent” where we can put more than just 4 icons would be a good idea. I have more than 4 apps that I always use on a regular basis that I’d like to have always on the bottom of the screen.

  78. jraward - 9 years ago

    The current design is dated and I love this concept – can’t see it happening any time soon but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is relatively close to the solution they come up with (‘independently’ of course…).

    The frustrating this is that I’ve recently tried out a couple of the new HTCs and they are a JOY to use, and it frustrates me how little UI innovation has been done on the iOS platform. I’m now just too tied in to the Apple ecosystem that it too much of a chore to jump ship. (first world problems, eh?)

  79. Jamie Klatt - 9 years ago

    This is such a compelling read and I haven’t stopped thinking about since I read it the other day. I hope they move in this direction, you can clearly tell round apps is the new future. Apple is all about continuity with the stream line of their products. The Apple watch looks out of place with the remainder of the line up. I also feel with the larger screens, IOS 8 is still top heavy and they need to focus in the center of the screen. I hope they go this route, I completely agree, this would be highly modernized and Apple is all about that. I know this would take a minute to get use to, so I am sure they would still keep the legacy design by choice, the apps would just be circles. I look forward to WWDC for 2015 because we all know “The best things are yet to come”.
    ~Jamison

  80. soWhat! (@XamiaXmi) - 9 years ago

    I feel is there will be one more thing taken from the Apple Watch. The home button will be removed and pressure touch will replace the home button like in iwatch. The display will be able to sense presure (see Apple watch video 3:30 – 3:45) That seems to be the future of iPhone.

  81. Scophi - 9 years ago

    I have been an iOS user since iPhone 3G, but this would make me leave.

  82. Maher Rezeq - 9 years ago

    That’s creative idea to fix the dump double tab to reach the icons!!! ,it needs some refinement about how it can handle large number of icons on the screen, or maybe it will be another widget beside the springboard that can shows the top 50 application you recently (most) use that can fit in one page, rather than zoom in and out which is not convenient by using one hand. Nice try though!!!

  83. giskardian - 9 years ago

    It would be a hideously cluttered and disorganized UI. No app is one tap away, right? You always have to zoom into the grid to access an app. Worse is when you’re zoomed in but disoriented and so forced to zoom out and then zoom in to the area of choice.

  84. i love the look of the new apple watch and would really love my phone to look like this too. i also like the all the different options for connectivity through wearables. example http://blog.myheatworks.com/the-worlds-most-advanced-water-heater-meets-the-worlds-most-advanced-watch/#sthash.xatKPSpR.dpbs

  85. Ash (@ash_187) - 9 years ago

    One of the clever Jailbreak dev could make this up for the JB community if apple doesn’t roll with it.

  86. Oleksandr Chekaliuk - 9 years ago

    how did you do it?

  87. Clyde Kant (@ClydeKant) - 9 years ago

    Has anyone noticed that most of the current Mac OS Yosemite app icons are rounded?
    Take for example Safari, Messages, iTunes, App Store, iBooks. Even dashboard is.

  88. Marcus Li - 9 years ago

    I thought about this when I saw the apple watch interface during keynote, and then I kept wondering what are the reasons this isn’t suitable iOS 8. May be for couple reasons. First iPhone normally have way more apps than the Watch, so thats a subtle but overwhelming cognitive overload to move around and also to remember the map. it needs to be more directional, and more hierarchical, so user can remember better and use it more effortlessly. for example, if we can only pan up and down, but swiping to the right goes to another page with different apps, that will be reduce the no. of apps on each page. Also I think it will be better if the apps icon can stay SQUARE, there’s no reason they can’t be panned like that in their square form, better conform to the shape of the screen. I think another reason iPhone is not using this interface yet is because the marketing wants the watch interface to be a feature, will be a big part of the new “watch experience” that people will pay for.

  89. Amit Bhogal - 9 years ago

    Don’t you dare, Apple… This UI makes sense for a small 2″ screen like on that of an Apple Watch, not a large 4.7″ screen like than of an iPhone.

  90. Bob Smogango - 9 years ago

    What I like is that you can arrange it with a lot more icons on a page where you can get to an icon without sifting through a bunch of pages and folders depending on how you organize your apps. It’s certainly a departure from Android and I don’t think they would copy it since it would definitely spawn a lawsuit that would warranted.

  91. Danny Guerra - 9 years ago

    Really? And there are people that actually want this? It’s a jumbled mess…works for watchOS, but I wouldn’t want iOS arranged the same way…

  92. I like how it reduces the number of pages you have to navigate through to get to an app, but one issue I see is that it makes it harder to actually tap on the icons because they are small and close together.

  93. jedwards87 - 7 years ago

    Dear God No. Please just no.

  94. cuberonix - 7 years ago

    This looks awful and messy. It works on the watch, but not on the phone.

  95. Luis Fernando Rocha - 7 years ago

    It’s growing on me, actually. I’ve seen it before, especially in jailbroken reports, and it’s looking better, plus the benefits described here make it even better.

Author

Avatar for Michael Steeber Michael Steeber

Michael is a Creative Editor who covered Apple Retail and design on 9to5Mac. His stories highlighted the work of talented artists, designers, and customers through a unique lens of architecture, creativity, and community.

Contact Michael on Twitter to share Apple Retail, design, and history stories: @MichaelSteeber