I took time out today to watch the Apple WWDC Keynote. This wasn’t possible until I could borrow a more powerful computer (which is actually a lower-end Windows 7 notebook).
I understand what they’re up to now.
This is really a huge break in philosophy from prior versions of iOS.
Seeing it being used live, even via video on a notebook, is different from trying to parse it out from screensnaps — even when using the screensnaps just to critique design decisions.
Gruber is right: ‘This Is Our Signature’: iOS 7
Jobs left Apple to everyone else. His time came to end.
iOS 7 is the beginning of their time. And they’ve signed it.
The layers — which open up many new possibilities — just weren’t possible with the old iOS, especially with the rich icons. This is not to say I still don’t think the new flat icons aren’t ugly — I still think many are — but I now see why the flat effect was chosen. It sounds paradoxical, but flattening the icons allows them to deepen iOS.
I think further down the road, icons might no longer jarringly zoom in and out, but instead gracefully fade in and out. They might even have an effect, when static, of being like a sheet of onion paper — translucent, airy, ephemeral — highlighting the wallpaper beneath until they solidify when being chosen. I can also see future icons that go from color to thin white outlines, becoming fully transparent aside from their outlines when in an unselected state. Hell, the icons can go fully invisible, leaving the wallpaper uncluttered until the wallpaper is touched. There’s an entire new future of design here that simply wasn’t possible before — and which is only possible with digital devices when looked at through this new lens. This really is a whole new thing Apple has produced.
I also see now how the new Weather app is superior to the old one, despite the old one looking superior in static screensnaps. The revelatory word in the Keynote was lively. And as much as some elements might look like they came from Android and Windows 8, Apple has added something new. They’re trying to pull away from device as an object to device as an active thing. You can see this in the new Photos app with the geo-located groupings of photos. Your device has become a partner in the photos, not just a thing used to take the photos.
This is all a new twist on form follows function for the digital age.
The form is no longer limited to the hardware of the device, it’s deeper: It’s the intelligence of the device and how users experience that intelligence.
It’s the difference between having a cat doll and having a cat.
Not everything is yet perfect. I notice Cover Flow is gone from the Music app (or at least seemed to be in the demo) while a Cover Flow-like UI was introduced for Mobile Safari bookmarks tabs. That just doesn’t make any sense. But this is a Beta. There’s time for them to still iron out the inconsistencies without any widespread public embarrassment.
Despite how some things look right now, the bigger point with iOS 7 is this: Apple has just turned all of its competitors’ products into objects. They’ve all been revealed as cat dolls in a world that’s moving to cats.
And iOS developers have a tougher struggle ahead than they realize. With a UI that’s moving towards lightness and ephemerality, how do you reconcile your heavy and rich 3D shoot-em-up type games with that? Marco Arment saw the broader implications right away in Fertile Ground:
Existing apps can support iOS 7 fairly easily without looking broken, but they’ll look and feel ancient.
They’re going to look like they don’t belong.
Lastly, I know that Android adherents will talk about iOS being “fragmented.” That’s only when looked at through the Google glasses of Android. iOS 7 is not a splintering of the past. It’s a new start perhaps even bigger than the capacitive screen and kinetic scrolling of the original iPhone introduction.
Previously here:
Mike Cane’s xBlog 
So glad you got to watch the video, Mike. I totally agree with your comments. Screenshots just don’t convey what is going on in the new IOS. Those layers have huge potential. Yes, some of the icons are not as nice as they could be, but this is a beta we’re seeing and they have time to fine tune it all ahead of release.
From the video, the new iOS really does feel like a game changer. Win8 on the phone and tablet will look even worse.
The changes to OS X have been somewhat ignored while everyone jumped on the new iOS icons, but there is a lot going on in OS X as well, and the “connectedness” of the two systems is huge. Also, the book crowd seem to be merrily ignoring the announcement of iBooks on OS X (which Apple should have done from the start).
How long before some obscure Chinese factory starts selling fake Mac Pro tubes for the “wannabe” crowd’s desktop? Counting down…
Yes, I was drooling over what I saw of the new OS X too, but wanted to restrict my post to iOS 7.
And yes, Win 8 now seems lifeless compared to iOS 7. Apple really did something besides going “flat.”
Oh, that’s hilarious — the Chinese Mac Pro clones that’ll come out. Future fire traps too — because none of them will bother to get the thermals right.
First of all: wow — just wow! This is a really penetrating analysis!
Second of all, this is why so many of us read you religiously. Your fierce sense of integrity — unhesitatingly calling things as you see them and then changing your mind without fear or favor when you think it’s called for — is coupled with these deep insights that are so rare elsewhere.
Thirdly, I want to pick up on your comment that “iOS 7 is the beginning of their time.” Some people felt that the comments about green felt and saving the faux animals (or whatever it was) were uncalled for, even juvenile.
But this event was a declaration of independence, a coming of age (“Can’t innovate, my ass!”). This is a new generation taking the stage, coming out from the shadow of the old. I felt that these comments were a sign of life, like teenagers taking the wheel on their own for the first time.
Your points are very good too. Thanks for the compliments.
I was just as disappointed as you when I saw my first screen shots of the new icons. Since the introduction of the first iPhone I’d grown to quite like the linen textures and visual flourishes like the delightfully useless tape deck that in the Pod Casts app or the comforting page turn effects in iBooks.
But the queasy feeling I had when I saw the new simple icons and the too narrow font disappeared when I saw the new rendering and functionality. I got it too. I wonder if they are trying to go for some form of resolution independence?
With a new rounds of rumors about a 4.7″ and 5.7″ iPhone, it seems very likely they are designing for just such a possibility. I really would like to see what the iOS 7 looks like and works like on an iPad. An iPad has less need for the “liveliness” of an always-with-you iPhone and it will be interesting to see how they reconcile that difference or if they do at all.