What's going on?
Stock holders.
They'll have been complaining loud enough and threatening enough that someone's panicked and pulled the release trigger too soon.
Well, this would never have happened under Steve Jobs. Apple sources have briefed a friendly tech blog that the much-mocked iOS7 makeover is still provisional. When was the last time Apple felt obliged to defend anything? The Barbie-flavoured icons revealed at Apple's WWDC on Monday are merely a "mid-stride snapshot", …
As a man, I think that the new design has a very feminine colour scheme/look to it. While I don't have an iPhone, I would be unhappy to use a device that looks like this (from any manufacturer). The old design was more of a generic unisex design.
Also, while it is stated that the app logos were not designed by the app team, the Safari logo stands out as looking 'wrong'. It's almost as if someone drew it with Microsoft paint. The compass and stocks designs also look like they don't quite fit in.
I'm not certain who you're asking but I simply reported who had what, based on gender.
I also wonder if the earlier poster is of the belief that every man who doesn't have an iPhone is gay. Anecdotal evidence would tend to indicate that the iPhone is actually of more use to gay men because it has a selection of apps targeted at that demographic.
"They're merely folowing the departed leader. Its a design to appeal to young Barbie wannabees as the target market!"
But I'm a 56 year old chap....
Wait! What's this? Lets see! Oh I feel se-ex-ee, What's come over me? Whoa! Here it comes again...bad times deceased, good times released, my confidence is increased...."
I think I quite like 'em.
It's not even unusual for APPLE to change things between the first beta and the final release (they've even been known to sneak in whole new features for new devices/hardware that is released at the same time as the code).
This idea that Apple claim infalability and never change anything or admit to mistakes seems to be wholly made up by El Reg. It happened while Steve Jobs ran the company, it happened afterwards. What they won't do is admit to a problem until they understand what it is and how many people are effected. This seems to really get up journo's noses as they want an instant quote for their rag, hence the antipathy.
It's not unusual for any company (Apple included) to change things between the first beta and the final release. Whether those changes are bug fixes, new features or even new graphics. That's the reason we have betas. So a company (or individual programmer) can ensure that the software is tested, it functions well and that users can work with the user interface .
This last part is actually important (and seemingly forgotten by some companies). You can have the best functionality available in your program, and the program can pass all the reliability tests with flying colours, but if the users have trouble with the UI, they'll think it is (at best) a good product with a bad UI, and, at worst, a pile of crap.
So, this whole article seems to be saying that iOS 7 has crap icons (and while I like them, I can see why people might have a problem) and that Apple are following normal beta test procedures. Unlike, say, Google who seem to use the "Beta" tag as a sales term to tell people they are getting the most up to date product possible.
"This idea that Apple claim infalability and never change anything or admit to mistakes seems to be wholly made up by El Reg."
So, show us where they admit to a mistake. When they changed from proprietary to commodity hardware, where's the quote where they admit they'd been doing it wrong. When they announced the mid-sized iPod touch, where's the bit where they actually say, "Ya, turns out 7" tablets aren't a 'broken' idea. Oops!" Where's the report of Jobs saying, "We'd like to apologise to our loyal customer base for selling them a comms device with a fundamentally broken antenna design." Anything?
It's not even unusual for APPLE to change things between the first beta and the final release (they've even been known to sneak in whole new features for new devices/hardware that is released at the same time as the code).
I think that zeroing in on whether Apple has made changes to its products before is missing the point.
The problem is that up to now, iOS7's design had been described by Apple (at WWDC as well as their own website) as a work of perfection. Both Apple employees and the user base faithful have copiously defended the new looks as the perfect blend of form and function, the ultimate distillation of their deep expertise in design. This included no end of patronizing the ignorant masses on how they can't "get" good design just by the looks of it, and how its true value would dawn on us when it hit shelves / update channels.
And now they actually come out and say "oh no no no, this is not the finished version, we might still tweak it some". It's the worst kind of about-face, to be all over something and then suddenly dismiss it as a work-in-progress.
You don't have to finish the coded to know what the fucking ICONS are going to look like. Honestly, what's the point of gazillion ppi screens if all you're going to do is put a garish grad across it? I want DETAILED icons not meaningless slabs and blobs (did you see the GameCenter one? WTFF?).
Ive, stick to hardware.
Don't think it is 'whipped up by android fans' at all. We're (actually, I use both IOS and Android devices so don't exactly consider myself a fan of either camp) just saying welcome to the 2010s. Nice though IOS might be to use, it has looked a bit dated for the last few versions, so it's nice to see it catching up with what looks like a modern, clean interface that looks fine to me too. Ok, the colours and icons are not everyone's cup of tea but you'll never please anyone - even Apple bloggist John Gruber did say that Apple people felt the new release would be 'polarizing'...
>can't you change icons/colour scheme on an iphone?
I understand you have to 'jailbreak' it first.
My Android phone gives me a breakdown of what uses up the battery - the screen is normally responsible for most of it. Without knowing any better, I assume that a white/bright theme would use more battery than a dark theme. Can anyone here confirm or refute this?
I tend to use the Dolphin browser, but it has an unfortunate habit of displaying a blank white screen whilst it is waiting for a page to load.
It depends on what sort of screen it is. For OLED you'd be right as the pixels are a load of LEDs making light. For LCD it makes less or no difference depending on the backlight tech being used. The LCD blocks the unwanted light from the backlight, so to get red you produce white in the backlight, then block the green and blue parts. The 'depending' part is because some screens have a backlight made of a bunch of LEDs that can be selectively dimmed in the darker parts of the screen, reducing power draw a bit. I think these are more common on TVs than phones though.
"...I assume that a white/bright theme would use more battery than a dark theme. Can anyone here confirm or refute this?"
Depends on the screen tech. With a simple (one backlight) LCD it doesn't matter whether a pixel is white, black or anywhere in between. The backlight brightness is the same for the whole panel, and all the pixel switching does is effectively 'mask' the backlight to varying degrees to get different gradations between black (opaque pixel) and white (transparent pixel); so a completely white screen will use the same energy as a completely black one.
With OLED it certainly does make a difference. Each pixel illuminates independently, so a white pixel will use energy whereas a black one will not.
Some types of LCD also have backlight arrays where the screen is backlit in zones; a zone which is completely black generally has the backlight switched off for that zone (with the added benefit of improved contrast), whereas as soon as pixels are activated the backlight for that zone is switched on. This will save energy, the degree of saving depends on the granularity of the backlighting array. The more zones, the more energy can be saved (but the more complex & expensive the panel) As far as I'm aware this tech is not yet used in phones, although I could be mistaken.
Jony Ive and a team of Apple engineers lock themselves away inside Apple headquarters for a week and have pizzas delivered. One week later, they emerge with a 'newly developed' set of icons and maybe some UI tweaks that are well thought out and generally accepted as very good indeed.
Tim Cook announces, "See, we listen to our user's concerns about usability, clarity and compatibility, unlike SOME companies who make changes."
Sigh.
The first two items on the grammar t-shirt....
Basically Apple redesigned the interface of the most popular mobile phone skin in seven months. That's a tall order, and I'm not too surprised they needed to draft in extra help-remember Apple's marketing team aren't exactly amateurs at graphic design themselves. It looks better now (better than my Nexus 4, I think, and much friendlier than WP8) but I'm glad they admit it's not finished.
I think they messed up on planning and forgot that people would focus on the home screen. The apps inside look very nice but the home screen really does look unfinished. There's a good blog article on this by Matt Gemmell, comparing screenshots of a range of apps look like with iOS 6, and it's definitely to iOS 7's advantage.
I know when I have a presentation to give I tend to dig out my best screen shots and my most completed ideas...
Im not sure how big business works, but if I had a team of designers, Id probably get them to mock up some static slides of how I envisioned the finished thing to look, not get the canteen staff and marketers to knock up some pictures...
... that there may be more to iOS7 than new icons, and that swapping out a few PNGs is something that can be done relatively easily.
I guess focusing so relentlessly on the most trivial aspect of the new OS provides some satisfying opportunities for snark . However, I presume the Reg will at some point delve a bit deeper into the bits that techies really need to know about. Perhaps when the icon-baiting page views drop off a bit
Cook - "We gotta do something! This Samsung ripping us off has got to stop! Google, Nokia, HP, they can't leave us alone! We gotta do something. Get me Jony!"
Cook - "Jony, is there a way to make our look and feel 'copy-proof'? You know, add some fancy DRM or something that would prevent others from copying it...? Is there?"
Jony - "Hmmm, I don't think it works like that, sorry."
Cook - "Argh! There's gotta be a way!"
Intern #1 - "Sir, I think there may be a way..."
Cook - "Give it to me!"
Intern #1 - "You may not like it..."
Cook - "I'm desperate, hit me!"
Intern #1 - "What it... What it we made the screen... ugly? What if we designed it so crap-tastic, that nobody would touch it?"
Intern #2 - "With funky psychedelic colours!"
Intern #1 - "And tiny illegible fonts!"
Intern #2 - "And weird indecipherable icons!"
Intern #1 - "better yet--cute, childish my little pony icons!"
Intern #2 - "Yeah!"
Cook - "You know, that is so crazy, it just might work!"
Cook - "Jony?"
Jony - "I'm on it!"
Cook - "Oh and Jony, don't forget to write it up as the pinnacle of design... You know, for the snobs..."
Jony - "Got my thesaurus and Architectural Digest right here."
---------
dZ.
...and rub them against the office window, begging, pleading, praying that the Android OS will eventually wake up and realize that it's been brought back to an area with several bars of signal strength. It literally takes them several minutes of phone rubbing antics before the stupid phones reconnect to the network. This is universal for a dozen coworkers with Android phones. My office overlooks the windows. I see thus Android flaw played out daily.
iPhones just say, "Hey, the signal is back." Instantly.
Point: neither OS is perfect. iOS is about to take a step towards Win8 Metro GUI. Yuck.
The reason jobs was successful?.....He kept to simple pricinples.
1) Make it attractive.
2) Make it easy to use, for anyone.
3) Make sure it works well and is well tested and refined before release.
Now he is gone, the Apple "Business Men" are reverting to stereo-type: Lets give our shareholders what they want and take on board lots of customer "feedback" about the software, change it to try and meet everyone's conflicting requirements and release it quickly.
I have worked for a much smaller software company that did all of the same stupid things, and it is almost dead now because of it.
I don't much like Apple, and don't use their products any more, but I respected Jobs for having the balls to tell people "this is the way we are going to do it" and then making sure it was ready before it was released.
Yes, released.
For all the apologizing that everybody seems to be doing, saying that it is just a developer preview, that the design is still in flux, that it's merely a "mid-stride snapshot," yadda, yadda; the fact is that Apple released this design to the world: they put it squarely on the front page of their web-site, added a new section showcasing the new design, and made TV commercials for it. The new design was released, even if the software was not.
This was not a half-baked (well, aesthetically it is), let's-show-what-we-have-so-far effort--they thought they were done with it and were very proud. It may have been rushed, but they were satisfied with it enough to announce the new design publicly, outside the context of the WWDC, and to wax philosophically to the world about it.
If they change those icons now, or tone down the garish design before the actual release of the software, it'll be precisely due to the vociferous criticism and ridicule they have just received--it won't be because they planned it that way.
That, or the entire effort was an unmanaged and confused mess of people doing their own thing without communication or coordination, and completely lacking someone with a bit of taste and sufficient power to stop them from showing a half-done product.
Either way, it's a new kind of Apple, and it's that pretty.
dZ.
If Steve was there, he'd have made the marketeers walk the plank (off that yacht that he never got to sail) just for daring to think about designing an icon...
And the people who talked to that blogger? Yeah, them too.
Flattening the styling on the layouts is fine - whether your have flat or faux-3d buttons is a matter of fashion, and fashion is dynamic. In the 00's, starting with WinXP's restyling, faux-3d was in fashion, probably in part because computers had reached a point where they could do that and have the result look decent. Now tastes have moved back to a flatter styling (we can all theorize about why - but really, it's fashion - rationalizing only goes so far). Steve might well have come around to this - but if he was in charge, the flat icons that went out on the developer preview would have actually been good.
starting with WinXP's restyling, faux-3d was in fashion
Fracking kids, know nothing about the eighties... Motif (widget toolkit)
While I am not a fan of the color choices made -- and I *DO* maker my living as a graphic designer/illustrator -- I feel that I should point out that, if you take a couple of pieces of paper and block off the two totally unnecessary toxic-waste green bars on either side of the picture in this article, the visual effect of the UI is not as bad. Those bars appear to have been added for the sole purpose of making the whole illustration as eye-searing and unpleasant to look at as possible, in an attempt at biasing the viewer.
Propaganda is one thing, but SLOPPILY DONE propaganda is just totally unacceptable!.
I did a networking diagram for basic setup of our software in common facilities. It gave a general IP scheme and connections. The Marketing idiots wanted to SIMPLIFY it and it makes no sense. How can you just draw a few boxes with a cloud around it and call it good?
ITS NOT FOR FUCKING MARKETING MORONS, ITS FOR THE TECH IN THE FIELD.
So did people back in the day make all this fuss every time a new rotary phone hit the market in a slightly different shade of flat black? Or did they just pick the damn thing up when it rang and not worry about it?
Can we quit being so lame and get back to arguing about things that matter? Things like sports cars, hard liquor, golf clubs, electric guitars, cheerleaders, paint sprayers, pocket knives, go-karts, sprinkler systems, saturday cartoons, cuts of meat, baseball bats, rope swings, lawn mowers, Christmas trees, sports wagers, illicit drugs, slip n slides, fireworks, motocross, surf boards, shotguns, jet boats, pool cues, land mines, lawn darts, comic books, dune buggies, sniper rifles, chain saws, fishing poles, fighter jets, barbecues, stereo systems, hand tools, and skateboards?
Please?
No!
Let's listen to Roger Waters instead.
And when they found our shadows
Grouped 'round the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry
No feelings left
This species has
Amused itself to death
Funny - I don't recall Apple ever doing up commercials about beta software before, or figuring it so prominently on the front page of their website. Face it, they really honestly meant it when they said that this was what IOS7 looks like. Trying to cover their (and your) asses by retroactively claiming that it's just beta just makes you look like an apologist.
Because they give you a fluffy gay pink phone with one hand, and a man-sweat stinky big-ole-pair-of-bollocks Mac Pro on the other. It's a WW1 shell case in shiny black ceramic stuffed full of GPU and extruded aluminium. It's totally, 100% dude, and is built for hitting 7 stone weaklings over the head. The chicks can keep their MacBook Airy Fairies and their phoney wonies, we men will have out iPads and our Mac Pros.
The new Apple - masculine and feminine sides in perfect balance.
It does not matter what it looks like. No matter WHAT it looks like the screaming Android trolltards here will piss and whine about it.
They were ready to hang it before the first screenshot. So why bother arguing with them?
Arguing with trolls is wasted effort. And it only took me 20 years of the internet, and ten of BBSes (and an extra four or WoW somewhere in between) before that to figure it out. I guess I'm a slow learner.
So an unfinished OS is what we can expect from Ive? That worked out really well for Apple maps, considering how Tim Cook was touting it's superiority to Google maps. Words he eventually had to eat, as Apple maps shortcomings became quite apparently obvious. Let us hope that iOS 7 is a more finished product than Apple Maps was, particularly if it's going to be running on an iPhone 5S with slightly upgraded specs, same size screen, and pretty much the same case design.
I suspect the reason they went for flat icons is because the current icon style would not work with their new parallax gimmick. The parallax is supposed to give the impression of depth to the display. The current icons, with their raised-glossy-button-shine, would look fake against the parallax background i.e. you would realise that the glossy button had no depth to it. If they removed the glossy shine to the existing icons they would look flat; people would immediately notice and object on principal. So they had to completely re-design their icons without the glossy shine effect.
So it looks like to me that their whole design philosophy got compromised by someone's over enthusiasm to have the new wizz-bang parallax effect incorporated. Sounds like desperation is causing the design wheels to come off at Apple.
Under Settings, General, Accessibility, set 'Invert Colors' = ON. One may program the Home button triple-click to toggle this setting.
Would it really be all that difficult to provide more than one user delectable theme? It seems as if there's a band of GUI Nazis running around imposing their weird-ass Win8 Metrosexual, now iOS7 Klaus Barbie, Flat / Non-skumorphic belief system on all of us. They must be enjoying the reaction because it would be trivial to avoid if they wanted to avoid it.
I don't like Nazis.
If you have watched any commercial TV lately, you have seen Microsoft's ads for its fondleslab. The colours used are the same garish ones in this preliminary sketch. The icons shown contain more garish flat colour and less information. The current ones contain more muted colours and also use black or dark tones to give much better contrast. I am one of those complainers who hate white type on bright backgrounds, and require contrast. I also hate gumdrop colours. I am a female Apple fan, but this sure is a downer.
find it odd that people are slating iOS7 agree its icon are not the best but being android / iOS / BB 10 developer i can whole heartedly say iOS SDK is always was AND is the best SDK compare to android,
not coming to icon does any one remember Google Android 4.2 MISSING "whole MONTH"?
if not here is to refresh your mind:
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39692#c17