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Illegible text colors in iOS 12.

dspdoc

dspdoc

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 7, 2017
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So who is this brainiac at Apple that came up with this complete eyesore on the widget screen of iOS 12? I don't know about anyone else, but the light blue and red/orange colored text overlaying that shade of gray hurts the eyes and is plain hard to see. Not to mention the ridiculous little "Set up Screen Time in Setting" splash that occurs right over the top of everything when you first swipe over to the widgets screen. Wow is all I can really say. How does stuff like this slip through final approval?
IMG_0638.jpg
 
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I think it depends on your background image. I have a lighter color and the gray isn't so dark:

DBEBDDC8-277B-40F2-9B27-2CF986F5E7FB.jpeg
 
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Here’s another example. Look at the red line on the stocks app. Terrible!
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Steve28 said:
I think it depends on your background image. I have a lighter color and the gray isn't so dark:

View attachment 783031
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I see that it’s better with a much lighter background. But still horrible design. If that’s the case, when someone switches to a darker wallpaper everything should adjust accordingly.
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Even with reduce transparency turned on it is a really bad choice of color usage. That shade of red and blue are very difficult to see.
 
Baldilocks said:
iOS really does need a design makeover. Hopefully iOS 13 or whatever it will be called will get rid of all of the transparencies and the neon sign look of the UI.
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Yeah it’s really really bad in certain areas. I’m sitting here in a dark room and literally cannot read the light blue and red text over that gray transparent background. How does Apple not see this?
 
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1071318 said:
Even with reduce transparency turned on it is a really bad choice of color usage. That shade of red and blue are very difficult to see.
Click to expand...

The red in the word "Productivity" is darker in my screen shot than yours...

Do you have anything in Settings->General->Accessibility->Display Accommodations. Like "Reduce White Point" or Color Filters activated?

Or Increase Contrast?

Edit: I get something that looks like yours when I have Color Filters -> Color Tint turned on
 
Steve28 said:
The red in the word "Productivity" is darker in my screen shot than yours...

Do you have anything in Settings->General->Accessibility->Display Accommodations. Like "Reduce White Point" or Color Filters activated?

Or Increase Contrast?
Click to expand...
No. None of that is on.
 
Steve28 said:
The red in the word "Productivity" is darker in my screen shot than yours...

Do you have anything in Settings->General->Accessibility->Display Accommodations. Like "Reduce White Point" or Color Filters activated?

Or Increase Contrast?

Edit: I get something that looks like yours when I have Color Filters -> Color Tint turned on
Click to expand...
It is all related to your lighter wallpaper. Again, that’s bad design planning by Apple.
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DFB8857D-DCE8-4738-BF18-32C1048EDA1B.jpeg
 
Sadly, Apple just hasn't been too keen on keeping an eye on the little touches like this. I liken this laziness to Cook's managerial style; I know it's becoming a cliche to compare it to that of Jobs before him, but the reality of it all is that Jobs had a do-or-die mentality when it came to producing great results and an eye for detail more often than not. Tim is seemingly far too passive of a boss and allows the department heads to get away with not addressing these little tidbits across the software. Over time, they've added up to this over-all mess, and, as a result, iOS is a far cry from what it first set out in being.
 
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If you stick a solid white colour as your wallpaper for the home screen, you get a nice flat look to the icons in iOS, and the screen time widget is super clear…

It definitely looks kinda unique. :O
 

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Readability has been an issue since iOS 7 was released more than 4 years ago. That's one of the drawbacks of a dynamically generated UI where you can never be quite sure what the background of UI elements looks like (not to mention all the engineering effort necessary to bring the look close to the standard we took for granted before). Especially when you get rid of text shadows at the same time, as Apple did on the home screen and lock screen. Depending on the background, app icon labels become incredibly hard to read. I'm guessing, a certain someone at Apple would have probably been hugely annoyed by this and never let it come this far. But it is what it is.
 
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Princejb134 said:
I love the transparency look. Gives it a premium look
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Not really. Flat icons and neon transparencies just clash with each other. There isn't one design language.

Personally, I think whoever works on the built in Weather App, should be the one designing the rest of the UI. It's clean, visually stunning yet simple and elegant. It doesn't have any funky color shifting or blurring that is unnecessary. BUT, in this day and age of Apple animoji......yeah.
 
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Baldilocks said:
Not really. Flat icons and neon transparencies just clash with each other. There isn't one design language.
Click to expand...

From iOS 7 to 9 transparent panels were used much more, and icons went well with it. As you mention flat style icons don't go well with a few transparency effects here and there.

I really, really miss not having an image on the notification dropdown, as now I'm forced to look at my lock screen even when my phone isn't locked, instead of a nice transparent blur.

The thickening of fonts doesn't help either, as the slickness of it all just isn't there. It feels a bit more like a toy OS.
 
I had a similar (but opposite) issue — was using a black wallpaper, which I prefer, but their changes made the “media player” widget on the lockscreen solid black on solid black (it used to be light). I had to switch to a lighter wallpaper to “resolve.”
 
BAZ1307 said:
If you stick a solid white colour as your wallpaper for the home screen, you get a nice flat look to the icons in iOS, and the screen time widget is super clear…

It definitely looks kinda unique. :O
Click to expand...
This reminds me of the, “you’re holding it wrong” statement. You can’t tell people what color background to use. It’s unreasonable and just plain wrong. Text should be dynamic and fully readable no matter what color background you use. Stop making excuses for Apple.
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Princejb134 said:
I love the transparency look. Gives it a premium look
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That’s just your opinion. Doesn’t make it so.
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TraceyS/FL said:
Apple.com/feedback
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More or less a useless waste of time I’m sure. I file bug reports instead, because by all accounts this shouldn’t look like this. You can’t even read it.
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mpavilion said:
I had a similar (but opposite) issue — was using a black wallpaper, which I prefer, but their changes made the “media player” widget on the lockscreen solid black on solid black (it used to be light). I had to switch to a lighter wallpaper to “resolve.”
Click to expand...
Which proves the point that far too many people make concessions for Apple, thus letting them off the hook. Instead we should make our voices heard that we won’t tolerate the slop.
 
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1071318 said:
This reminds me of the, “you’re holding it wrong” statement. You can’t tell people what color background to use. It’s unreasonable and just plain wrong. Text should be dynamic and fully readable no matter what color background you use. Stop making excuses for Apple.
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That’s just your opinion. Doesn’t make it so.
[doublepost=1537275642][/doublepost]
More or less a useless waste of time I’m sure. I file bug reports instead, because by all accounts this shouldn’t look like this. You can’t even read it.
[doublepost=1537275776][/doublepost]
Which proves the point that far too many people make concessions for Apple, thus letting them off the hook. Instead we should make our voices heard that we won’t tolerate the slop.
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There have many posts and threads about making voices heard and not tolerating things when it comes to this or that for years and years.
 
I think this is actually a bug because the colors are noticeably different between people who have this issue and people who don't.

I noticed my night shift wasn't working and I had to go toggle it ooff and on to get it back.

I'm guessing we'll see a fix soon.
 
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