Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Redesign or No?

  • Full redesign

    Votes: 32 25.0%
  • Added Features

    Votes: 61 47.7%
  • Just Improvements

    Votes: 35 27.3%

  • Total voters
    128

DoctorKrabs

macrumors 6502a
Jul 12, 2013
689
882
The design really isn't fine. Look at some icons that are supposed to be black like Stocks and Wallet. Apple makes them slightly lighter than pure black because they are too stubborn to just put some common sense drop shadows even when it's no problem to practice common sense UI design with OS X. On top of this, third party developers can use a completely black icon background that would blend in with a wallpaper anyway, or a wallpaper can have the same sark gray that Apple puts on their black icons.

If they care for making a home screen design where icons don't blend in with wallpapers, it would help if they were open to actually make those improvements and get over their extreme minimalism.

That and I personally think that's the only part of iOS 6 that matters so much and makes it seem beautiful. I don't miss the old OS X design because they made it only slightly more unpleasant with Yosemite and were willing to add back many drop shadows to El Capitan, which has a great interface design.

And the fact that the app switcher in iOS 9 uses drop shadows as well. There's a funny reason for this as well, since without those drop shadows, all the apps that use white interfaces (most) would blend in to each other, so the designers probably only did it because it was as little as they had to do just to make it usable in that style.

The on/off switch in iOS also has shadows and has since iOS 7. Isn't it crazy that nobody throws up at the sight of that for not being minimal enough?

They also need to do it with text. Who else has noticed that on their marketing materials with iOS 9 devices, the clock on the lock screen is completely unreadable because of their genius choice for a default wallpaper?

If you think Scott Forstall took his design style overboard, look at the past three years of minimal iOS design. People who adhere to perfect grammar even when it isn't practical are called Grammar Nazis. The people who design iOS right now are Minimalism Nazis in that context.
 

danleon950410

macrumors regular
Jun 18, 2015
235
120
Bogotá, Colombia
The current design is fine. iOS was redesigned with iOS 7 because skeuomorphism was getting old.

Strongly doubt any redesign.
You talk for yourself when saying "it's fine"
[doublepost=1459995737][/doublepost]
I've always loved this "Yosemite Theme" for iOS, I think this is the direction Apple should definitely go for OS consolidation (at least in terms of iconography)

attachment.php
Looks better than stock ones
[doublepost=1459995910][/doublepost]
they just sorted out most of the bugs i dont think they will bother
They will re-appear on the 10 release anyway, so that doesn't really matter
[doublepost=1459996707][/doublepost]I agree. I don't hate this theme completely, but it needs some color and contrast and designers should get rid of their minimalism obsession.

Maybe add some colors that combine, like light gray or dark gray, optimize transparencies, better implementation of shadows, new lagless/smooth non-resource-intensive animations (faster ones that allow you to regain control of the device soon after executing), getting rid of one spotlight and changing its animation so it doesnt lag when opening (be creative), some resesigned icons with not-so-intense colors and pleasant changes on the UI of the apps to resemble El Capitan...

Im dreaming here and im probably gonna get bashed but it would make a difference while keeping (almost) everyone happy
 
Last edited:

Black Magic

macrumors 68030
Sep 30, 2012
2,813
1,506
Mark Gurman says the UI will be refreshed but not to the same level as iOS 6 to 7.

I read the same. After looking at the WWDC app that was just release, I believe that could be an indicator of things to come as well UI tweak wise or even themes.
 

Andres Cantu

macrumors 68040
May 31, 2015
3,329
8,017
Texas
Minor redesign, in my opinion, much like iOS 3 to iOS 4 that had a new-look for the dock and higher-quality icons.
 

Reno Raines

macrumors 65816
Jul 19, 2015
1,473
777
My guess is it will be refreshed in 2017 when the newly designed iPhone 8 comes out. Make it more of a must have moment.
 

Jordan246

macrumors regular
Apr 8, 2014
226
43
does anyone think that we might have a redesign in ios 10? I mean we haven't had a redesign since ios 7. Also what features do we expect. Let me know
 

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
16,271
11,768
Keep same as iPhone development track. Watch a redesign at iOS 11.

Edit: a merge would be perfect.
 
Last edited:

VSMacOne

macrumors 603
Oct 18, 2008
5,941
2,897
I'm hoping for a bigger redesign that will liven up and refresh the look of the home screen. It needs to be reimagined to allow for more information. I know it's an old story, but I would love to see Apple's take on the next generation home screen in iOS 10.
 
  • Like
Reactions: logicstudiouser

kapp2

macrumors 6502
Oct 22, 2015
321
68
Denmark
I think they will tweak in iOS 10, iOS 9 got redesigned app switcher. excited to see the tweaks in 10 :)!
 

Agit21

macrumors 6502
Mar 9, 2016
384
1,542
I only want one thing: Make the dock transparent! Seriously I hate the "milky" dock in iOS 7-9.

And of course I want the slide to unlock bar back. Always liked that one.
 

smacrumon

macrumors 68030
Jan 15, 2016
2,683
4,011
iOS9 introduced a softer approach to some design elements giving it a subtle but noticeable friendlier feel. I think we will see more of this in iOS10. I doubt a huge rethink will arrive, just some more improvements.

It does bother me that the dock completely blocks out my beautiful wallpapers. I think that Apple could easily remove the blurring behind the dock icons. It's obvious when you swipe through the app screens those dock icons don't move, and remain solid on screen, so why the need to add a visible dock that messes up nice wallpapers?

iPhone 7/7+ should use a 3x retina screen, just like 6/6+ instead of just a 2x retina screen.

My view is that skeuomorphic design, will be on its way back sooner than we think.

Flat design has been a sort of a “reset”, a temporary pause. No one wants to live in a stark bright room painted with a single color on every wall. Rooms are decorated tastefully and accordingly. Further humans are attracted to patterns, textures, realism.

With even better displays in the future (greater than standard retina), sensors and cameras, we will see truely authentic textures make their way back in favor of the design community. The next implementation of skeuomorphism will be higher in definition, realistic, able to be manipulated and importantly believable.

For example, a wooden bookcase in iBooks, won’t just be a simple single repetitive tiled image. It will be a bookcase that is reactive to the user’s current environment, is affected by the specific lighting in the user’s actual space where they use the device, the way the position of the device is held and will also use a bunch of interesting physics to make it truely believable. Or felt on a pool table, that can be brushed with your hand or finger swipe, users can affect the appearance, brush it clean or stuffy it up. Or a leather bound folio, that ages over time with use. Skeuomorphism is good, but only if it is believable. The problem is technology hasn’t been able to make it believable. A static image of felt or an image of leather stitching to date isn’t believable in itself. Images will also be vector based producing scalability that is pixel perfect.

It can be argued that iOS 9 still has a lot of skeuomorphism built in, that can be experienced through gestures, such as swiping effects and rubber banding effects. In most cases these work well, because they mimic the true physical representations of them.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.