Design choices for iOS 10 is UGLY!

[GreyOS]

It is really weird to see Apple returning to boxes and cards again, after they ditched everything for subtle, edge-to-edge designs in iOS 7. I thought the point was to remove visual clutter, not just replace it with translucency. We are coming full circle again and it seems that Apple is using more shadows too.

Yeah, I remember specifically when they talked about the new Weather app design in iOS 7. They talked about how, when touch interfaces were new, cards helped communicate that there were multiple and that you can scroll through them. By iOS 7, we were all familiar with this idea, and the clue didn't need to be in the design as much, allowing for much simpler and smarter edge to edge displays. Now cards are everywhere again.

 

[zorinlynx]

I hope you're all submitting feedback. I know I will be when the public beta hits next month.

iOS 7 redesign had a lot of tweaks and changes during beta, if you recall. Just because something looks this way now doesn't mean it will at release time.

 

[The Game 161]

funny seeing all the crying after each IOS update...won't ever change.

 

[kmj2318]

I don't know if I like the changes or not. I'm just confused. I do like how the music app as less edge-to-edge stuff. Everything else, I'm not sure. Why is everything so big and bold in some of the apps?

 

[KALLT]

I hope you're all submitting feedback. I know I will be when the public beta hits next month.

iOS 7 redesign had a lot of tweaks and changes during beta, if you recall. Just because something looks this way now doesn't mean it will at release time.

iOS 7 did not have that many changes between beta and final, if I recall. Mainly tweaking the font thickness and the edge-to-edge buttons on the call screen.

 

[Beeplance]

Apple keeps changing or, as they put it, 'redesigning' the music app for no apparent reason. iOS 6 to iOS 7, music app changes. iOS 8.4.1 music app changes. Now iOS 10 music app changes.

Change for the sake of change?

 

[theyearof84]

As someone who has spent 10+ years in the visual design industry and has seen a myriad of trends both good and bad, I am extremely disappointed with this design language direction by Apple.

Did Apple fire most of their senior design staff? What the hell were these guys thinking?

• Various states of transparency for elements.
• The "shadow buttons" on the control center look garish.
• It's always bothered me that the Messages icon on iOS remains green while on macOS it's blue+white w/ different icon.
• The font weight range is all over the place (FYI super heavy font / weights are almost always NOT the answer).
• For a company purported to have wanted to simplify the UX of the Music app - it's a bigger mess now than it was. Seriously we're back to hiding shuffle and repeat again?
• Messages app is just... wow. I get that Apple are going after a really large segment of users who want FB Messenger and Snapchat-like features, but holy ****, Fischer-Price and/or Mattel come to mind.
• Still poring over stuff but just... I guess I've come to expect more out of a company whose bread and butter used to be an eye for design.

 

[zorinlynx]

Apple keeps changing or, as they put it, 'redesigning' the music app for no apparent reason. iOS 6 to iOS 7, music app changes. iOS 8.4.1 music app changes. Now iOS 10 music app changes.

Change for the sake of change?

I think they should go back to the iOS 6 way. Less emphasis on album art, more emphasis on the names of albums, artists, and songs. It was pretty damn good back then, and then they had to make it more "artsy" and thus harder to use.

 

[rjalda100]

Oh god that music app is terrible

I was never even a huge fan of the ios 8.4/9 one, but it seems like it just gets progressively worse each year...

(Although, we ARE only on the first beta so there's a chance things will be tweaked)

 

[jonnyb098]

The drop shadow on the album art looks terrible (but does it have parallax maybe?) Also the buttons, controls and text are way too big and bold. Also that "card" view is horrible IMO.

This whole visual refresh part of iOS 10 seems to cater to dummies, seriously do we need size 36 font all over music app? The drop shadow on the now playing screen makes no sense. Everything is now so rounded that screen space is being wasted. Doesn't make much sense in that regard.

Maybe they should start giving names to iOS starting with iOS 10 "Glaucoma".

 

[lagwagon]

They also removed the repeat and shuffle icons... again.

Just scroll down in the full screen player view and you will see the Shuffle and Repeat buttons. What is missing though is an easy way to Shuffle All for a single artist or even all your music in your Library.

 

[C DM]

This whole visual refresh part of iOS 10 seems to cater to dummies, seriously do we need size 36 font all over music app? The drop shadow on the now playing screen makes no sense. Everything is now so rounded that screen space is being wasted. Doesn't make much sense in that regard.

Maybe they should start giving names to iOS starting with iOS 10 "Glaucoma".

Or perhaps just seeing how those things potentially progress through the betas?

 

[AZhappyjack]

God the new design is horrible, from notifications, to widgets (washed out), to the new apple music UI, and the bloody hell horrible new health app. Did you saw that one? looks childish, and now i can't see all my dashboard at glance...

Take a deep breath. It's beta 1. This will not be the look for the final release.

 

[Rogifan]

Or perhaps just seeing how those things potentially progress through the betas?

Looks like the Music and maybe News are the only places that got this really large font. And that could change before September.

 

[jonnyb098]

Or perhaps just seeing how those things potentially progress through the betas?

Well we all know they read macrumors. And I'm being serious since there are hits all over when they publish web traffic from future OS releases. That's where they get the outcries of people complaining about Apple Music

 

[venividivigor]

Hahahaha. Yeah.

iOS 7 beta complaints all over again.

I, in turn, like all the redesigns.

Clearly you have no taste in design. Can you not see how terrible all the rounded rectangles are?! It's overused! Everything seems to be enlarged on the screen. The control center is absultely maddening. All the tweaks look like it came from a jailbreak
[doublepost=1465873931][/doublepost]

I really like the design of the new cards/notifications/widgets.

It's simple and professional and finally moving back to a mature design interface after the damage done in the iOS7 redesign.

Someone just needs to tell the team that worked on the messages app to use the same new design language and to move away the childish design aimed at teenagers.

I love the cards design too, except the size of it is way too ****ing big. Also the icon within the top border looks odd. At least make the cards look like the notification cards from the Apple watch

 

[Jess13]

I am still undecided. Clearly this is beta 1, and I have some concerns. My biggest knock is the fixed size of each item on that screen - and I expect that it will be something that the developers will need to embrace ... and variable sizes MAY be based on third party app updates... for example, both BeWeather and Fantastical 2 have truncated displays... can't see the full forecast on BeWeather nor can I see the full monthly calendar and/or appointments in the Fantastical window.

View attachment 635609

That looks so terrible
[doublepost=1465874310][/doublepost]

Do you have reduced transparency on? Otherwise that has to be a bug.

OK, this looks better. Without transparency it is disgusting.

 

[C DM]

Well we all know they read macrumors. And I'm being serious since there are hits all over when they publish web traffic from future OS releases. That's where they get the outcries of people complaining about Apple Music

Visits to MacRumors from test devices or other devices asociated with Apple don't exactly demonstrate one way or another. And reading things here doesn't imply they play that much of a role. There are plenty more direct places for Apple to get feedback, even just from their own user forums that they themselves run.

 

[swarlos]

Just scroll down in the full screen player view and you will see the Shuffle and Repeat buttons. What is missing though is an easy way to Shuffle All for a single artist or even all your music in your Library.

Thank you I don't know why they removed that! So dumb to me!

 

[C DM]

Clearly you have no taste in design. Can you not see how terrible all the rounded rectangles are?! It's overused! Everything seems to be enlarged on the screen. The control center is absultely maddening. All the tweaks look like it came from a jailbreak
[doublepost=1465873931][/doublepost]
I love the cards design too, except the size of it is way too ****ing big. Also the icon within the top border looks odd. At least make the cards look like the notification cards from the Apple watch

Yeah, that's like telling someone they have no taste because they like the color orange simply because others prefer blue instead.

 

[na1577]

The new Music app is its worst iteration yet. The dynamic coloring of the last UI has been discarded for another blindingly white app. On the now playing screen, the album artwork has a massive drop shadow while music is playing:

When you pause it, the artwork inexplicably shrinks and falls onto the surface. Dragging the scrubber also causes the artwork to shrink.

Repeat and shuffle are now hidden out of view, despite an excess of white space. They can now be found on the Up Next menu, which can be called upon by dragging the Now Playing screen up:

However, there is no indicator that you can even scroll up on the Now Playing screen.

Throughout the rest of the app, Apple continues to dump core features like Playlists, Artists, and Songs into a single Library tab while Apple Music features get shoved in front. The "Hide Apple Music" setting does nothing right now, but in iOS 9 it automatically caused a Playlists button to appear in the tab bar. I'm hoping that will still be the case with the finished version of iOS 10.

The new app overaddresses the touchability issues in the last version. Some buttons that were too hard to press in the iOS 9 version have been fixed. The scrubber on the Now Playing screen increases in size once pressed, making it easier to slide around. It also no longer spreads from edge to edge, making it easier to scrub to the beginning or end of a song. But other adequately sized buttons have also been pumped up in size, like the list view, causing it to show less content than before. The Library view has massive bold headers that look nothing like the rest of the OS. Rather than spread out the lockscreen controls to prevent incorrect touches, Apple just increased them in size. The bizarre growing/shrinking animation from the Now Playing screen is also present when pausing and playing music on the lockscreen.

The original Music app was great. From its inception through iOS 6, the app was straightforward, easy to use, and nice to look at. Apple wrecked it in iOS 7, took some steps forward in iOS 8.4 and then dumped it all again for the worst version yet. The iOS 9 app wasn't perfect but it was a solid foundation to grow from. Apple did not need to trash it entirely for yet another inferior iteration of the app.

 

[yep-sure]

The new Music app is its worst iteration yet. The dynamic coloring of the last UI has been discarded for another blindingly white app. On the now playing screen, the album artwork has a massive drop shadow while music is playing:

When you pause it, the artwork inexplicably shrinks and falls onto the surface. Dragging the scrubber also causes the artwork to shrink.

Repeat and shuffle are now hidden out of view, despite an excess of white space. They can now be found on the Up Next menu, which can be called upon by dragging the Now Playing screen up:

However, there is no indicator that you can even scroll up on the Now Playing screen.

Throughout the rest of the app, Apple continues to dump core features like Playlists, Artists, and Songs into a single Library tab while Apple Music features get shoved in front. The "Hide Apple Music" setting does nothing right now, but in iOS 9 it automatically caused a Playlists button to appear in the tab bar. I'm hoping that will still be the case with the finished version of iOS 10.

The new app overaddresses the touchability issues in the last version. Some buttons that were too hard to press in the iOS 9 version have been fixed. The scrubber on the Now Playing screen increases in size once pressed, making it easier to slide around. It also no longer spreads from edge to edge, making it easier to scrub to the beginning or end of a song. But other adequately sized buttons have also been pumped up in size, like the list view, causing it to show less content than before. The Library view has massive bold headers that look nothing like the rest of the OS. Rather than spread out the lockscreen controls to prevent incorrect touches, Apple just increased them in size. The bizarre growing/shrinking animation from the Now Playing screen is also present when pausing and playing music on the lockscreen.

The original Music app was great. From its inception through iOS 6, the app was straightforward, easy to use, and nice to look at. Apple wrecked it in iOS 7, took some steps forward in iOS 8.4 and then dumped it all again for the worst version yet. The iOS 9 app wasn't perfect but it was a solid foundation to grow from. Apple did not need to trash it entirely for yet another inferior iteration of the app.

Thanks for the write up, it sounds awful. I was really hoping for a simple, elegant solution like we had up until iOS6.

 

[GreyOS]

The music scrubber is very hard to use in control centre now, as a result of multiple cards. This kind of thing isn't easily recoverable unless they undo some major design decisions...

 

[lagwagon]

The music scrubber is very hard to use in control centre now, as a result of multiple cards. This kind of thing isn't easily recoverable unless they undo some major design decisions...

Yikes! Just tried that out. Very annoying indeed having it wanting to swipe the music card instead of trying to scrub through the song 9/10 times.

 

[iOSUser7]

As someone who has spent 10+ years in the visual design industry and has seen a myriad of trends both good and bad, I am extremely disappointed with this design language direction by Apple.

Did Apple fire most of their senior design staff? What the hell were these guys thinking?

• Various states of transparency for elements.
• The "shadow buttons" on the control center look garish.
• It's always bothered me that the Messages icon on iOS remains green while on macOS it's blue+white w/ different icon.
• The font weight range is all over the place (FYI super heavy font / weights are almost always NOT the answer).
• For a company purported to have wanted to simplify the UX of the Music app - it's a bigger mess now than it was. Seriously we're back to hiding shuffle and repeat again?
• Messages app is just... wow. I get that Apple are going after a really large segment of users who want FB Messenger and Snapchat-like features, but holy ****, Fischer-Price and/or Mattel come to mind.
• Still poring over stuff but just... I guess I've come to expect more out of a company whose bread and butter used to be an eye for design.

I'm glad to see somone with a very similar opinion than mine about how design works.

Apple design is inconsistent inside the OS itself and across differents platforms too. The use of multiple fonts, transparency effects, animations, rounded boxes (versus squared for the Apple TV and OS X) and many more inconsistences is what make me feel like Apple design team is unprofessional.

And I started noticing this way back in 2014 with the release of iOS 8. They make a design change about something that is perfect just for the sake of change and to make the new version different than the old one. Personally, I hate most of the changes they made to iOS from iOS 7.1 to iOS 10.
I pay attention to every little details in a product and I favor look and feel over everything else which is why iOS 7.0.x is and will always be my favorite version of all time even though it's nowhere near the functionnality of iOS 9 or 10. Everything was clean, refined and every icons, fonts and transparency effects seemed like they were right at their place.

I hope one day some hackers will find out a way to downgrade to any version we want...