Poll: Are you a fan of iOS 11's Design?

[iTom17]

I wouldn't say I'm a yuge fan of it, but I do like the idea behind it. It's refreshing, despite being a pretty 'small' change when you think about it. The thing is, when you have a smaller screen it may be a bit more obstructive than when you have an iPhone 6/6s/7 or of course an iPhone 6 Plus/6s Plus/7 Plus. Apple seems to be doing this more often over time. For example, iOS 8 came with some design changes that were really focused on the bigger iPhone 6/6 Plus. It looked like iOS 10 'fixed' this for a part, being a more universal OS in that regard. But with iOS 11, they went back to that idea. Might be overthinking all this, but that's at least my opinion.

But you know, I do understand it up to some extent. It might not be the last version of iOS available for 4-inch iPhones (there's still the iPhone SE for example), but at some point it WILL be the last version to support those smaller devices. Even so, they should've tweaked the design a little bit to adapt to the size of the phone. More so than it does now at least.

Anyway, I myself like the direction Apple is going. I know people were expecting, or at least hoping for a complete overhaul of the design. But I think the fact that Apple 'phases' design changes into smaller blocks is a much better approach. The new Control Center is a perfect example of that, but also the notifications and widgets design from iOS 10 and onwards show that they do change their design. They do it even in a smart way, making it really complement the devices with 3D Touch (again, Control Center and notifications!). Heck, the way the search bar is now 'integrated' with the title bar looks pretty amazing to me. I hope they continue with this design approach.

Obviously, there are things that I do not like too much about the design, there's no denying about that. But overall, iOS looks really grown up to me from a design perspective, as well as from a functional perspective.

So far my two cents.

 

[Justaguy48]

I wouldn't say I'm a yuge fan of it, but I do like the idea behind it. It's refreshing, despite being a pretty 'small' change when you think about it. The thing is, when you have a smaller screen it may be a bit more obstructive than when you have an iPhone 6/6s/7 or of course an iPhone 6 Plus/6s Plus/7 Plus. Apple seems to be doing this more often over time. For example, iOS 8 came with some design changes that were really focused on the bigger iPhone 6/6 Plus. It looked like iOS 10 'fixed' this for a part, being a more universal OS in that regard. But with iOS 11, they went back to that idea. Might be overthinking all this, but that's at least my opinion.

But you know, I do understand it up to some extent. It might not be the last version of iOS available for 4-inch iPhones (there's still the iPhone SE for example), but at some point it WILL be the last version to support those smaller devices. Even so, they should've tweaked the design a little bit to adapt to the size of the phone. More so than it does now at least.

Anyway, I myself like the direction Apple is going. I know people were expecting, or at least hoping for a complete overhaul of the design. But I think the fact that Apple 'phases' design changes into smaller blocks is a much better approach. The new Control Center is a perfect example of that, but also the notifications and widgets design from iOS 10 and onwards show that they do change their design. They do it even in a smart way, making it really complement the devices with 3D Touch (again, Control Center and notifications!). Heck, the way the search bar is now 'integrated' with the title bar looks pretty amazing to me. I hope they continue with this design approach.

Obviously, there are things that I do not like too much about the design, there's no denying about that. But overall, iOS looks really grown up to me from a design perspective, as well as from a functional perspective.

So far my two cents.

I couldn’t agree more, especially the control center. Apple built a modular control center that developers, and Apple, can easily add more applications to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if iOS 11.1 introduces third party apps in control center.

iOS 11 and macOS 10.13 may not “feel” like they have a lot of new customer facing stuff but Apple implemented some huge building blocks, great new “kits” and it may not seem like much now but this fall when developers can take advantage of ML and AR, VR and eGPUs it’s going to be a game changer.

I’m glad that instead of building mainly customer facing stuff Apple is starting to build a lot of kits and letting developers really do some amazing things.

 

[PeLaNo]

I think BIG and BOLD font in iOS 11 is wasting so much vertical space.
Maybe the reason behind this design is because 18:9 aspect ratio of iPhone 8 ?

 

[Kalloud]

I think BIG and BOLD font in iOS 11 is wasting so much vertical space.
Maybe the reason behind this design is because 18:9 aspect ratio of iPhone 8 ?

I couldn't agree more!
Apple is preparing to make us feel that the iPhone "8" has more screen real estate and can display much more than the 6, 6s and 7 despite these phones used to display almost as much on iOS 10/9/8. Apple is evil!

 

[KieranDotW]

I think making the apps more recognizable in the app switcher is part of the reason.

Aesthetically, I really like it. But I really enjoy Swiss design, and Swiss design is all about oversized headlines.

I too like Swiss design, but since you posted that screenshot it irks me that the Recents headline is a hair smaller than the others.

 

[alexgowers]

From video, the general look is OK but apple once again messed with home screen, notifications functionality that messes with muscle memory.

Having installed and tested iOS11 it's shortcomings are even more apparent that screen shots don't show. So much text is poorly kerned, weighted and misaligned, graphics are clunky and stutter or straight up glitchy. The blur effect in places is laughable.

Some many usability issues have cropped up! far too many. For example if you have bluetooth or w1 chip headphones and want to switch sources you have to go to control centre, long press/force touch music, then click sources drop down then click on your sound output! I mean too many steps and convoluted beyond anything useable.

iOS11 is a massive step backwards, if iOS10 was released after I would have praised it for moving forward!

I will probably stay away from 11 for many months but from the looks so far are terrible, big fat clunky icons and dopey looking screens that require multiple actions. Not being able to put app icons anywhere on the screen should have been scrapped but still we're stuck with auto flowing! I mean come on. I really like the files app despite it being totally borked, missing abilities like creating a local folder at all! Hopefully it's a bug not a feature.

I want to be positive about it but it's so god damn ugly that I'm amazed it's even been released as a public beta. Lets hope things improve and we get back some fine details and refinement in the UI and get rid of this BOLD text everywhere for OLD people who can't see.

 

[kappaknight]

I for one love the new design... I think some of the design choices will be even more clear once the new phone comes out.

 

[sjtidy]

As a professional designer, I find it a bit insulting to refer to large text and whitespace as ‘geriatric design’. Saying that Apple is moving in this direction to appeal to older users is ridiculous - more whitespace never hurt anyone.

I have a constant battle with my clients who want to clutter every square millimetre of a design with something, and don’t understand that whitespace is necessary.

And as for larger text - it helps orientate you when switching between apps and tabs, and also recedes immediately when you start scrolling. No problem there at all.

 

[KeanosMagicHat]

Considering this is a forum used primarily by fans of Apple, I'm surprised at how tight this poll is between Yes and No.

I don't think many people would criticise the functionality and security of iOS, but if this poll is indeed representative and Apple isn't pleasing its loyal customer base to such a degree, it shows they are really missing the mark with the aesthetic design of iOS at the moment.



------------------------------

Poll stats as I typed this comment:

111/48.5% – Yes

92/40.2% – No

26/11.3% – no preference

 

[Strelok]

I really don't care for the new app store at all. Apple wants to increase their revenue from services, and I just don't see how this ******** of an appstore is going to help with that. It could just be because it's new and I'm unfamiliar with it, but I really don't like it. The notification tab turning into the lockscreen also is an odd choice. I'm not really sure what the thought process was behind some of these decisions.

Edit: I haven't voted yet, still going to give it a few more days/weeks of usage.

 

[stevemiller]

I've reached a point of just not caring anymore. Probably should aim to have my nose in these devices less anyway, rather than expend energy debating if yet another reshuffling of control centre or task switcher functionality is in fact "much better"

 

[fisherking]

i don't care much either way, am more concerned with things working. but really, if this were a 'fair' poll, the OP should not have displayed bias in the very title of the poll ("Geriatric Design")...

 

[SumYoungGai]

i don't care much either way, am more concerned with things working. but really, if this were a 'fair' poll, the OP should not have displayed bias in the very title of the poll ("Geriatric Design")...

I addressed this earlier but I'll just say it again since it's buried in pages. I can't change the poll question.

Also I just closed it, we'll revisit closer to September

 

[Feenician]

considering this is a forum used primarily by fans of Apple

LOL

 

[KeanosMagicHat]

LOL

?

 

[eagle_man]

Personally, I'm not sure how much I like it yet. It will certainly take time to get used to the giant text on every screen I want to open, I'm not blind and don't have alzheimer's yet - Apple. We'll see how/if it changes with other betas and the actual release.

 

[KALLT]

more whitespace never hurt anyone.

I beg to differ. There is a limited amount of screen space on a smartphone. Thought has to be given to a reasonably efficient use of that space to prioritise content over aesthetics, without sacrificing usability. Wasting space with large titles like this has to be justified to make the tradeoff worthwhile.

By design, the title bar has two functions: showing where you currently are and showing where you can go to. The first aspect is less important if the app is using a tab bar at the bottom, as it already highlights the ‘where you are’ with colour, a label and an icon. The title in the title bar has always been a little awkward in that case, so it is usually added purely for visual consistency. The design change adds absolutely nothing to these functions and makes the needlessness of the title even more obvious. It uses twice the space for no reason whatsoever. Large black headlines invoke a negative connotation in me; they grab your focus away from the content below, like the front page of a tabloid. It is a questionable change for multiple reasons.

Calling the design geriatric is perhaps a bit unfair, but I do not appreciate attention-grabbing design like this on a phone that I am already comfortable at using. I am neither a moron nor visually impaired; I do not need an extra, extra large and bold title telling me where I am every time.

 

[uuaschbaer]

DESIGNER WAZ HERE
I think it looks hideous. It throws off the symmetry of the design and it's megalomaniacally huge. Looks like a twelve-year-old opened up interface builder and slapped a giant text label where it doesn't belong.

 

[Tozovac]

I have a constant battle with my clients who want to clutter every square millimetre of a design with something, and don’t understand that whitespace is necessary.

Whatever happened to the customer is always right.

I for one think most UI views and websites nowadays have too much white space, too much wasted space, requiring too much scrolling and slowing the user's ability to verify whether what they need is on one large page (and where). One designer's clutter is another user's satisfaction of seeing and finding what they need on the first page load.

 

[Michael Goff]

Considering this is a forum used primarily by fans of Apple, I'm surprised at how tight this poll is between Yes and No.

I don't think many people would criticise the functionality and security of iOS, but if this poll is indeed representative and Apple isn't pleasing its loyal customer base to such a degree, it shows they are really missing the mark with the aesthetic design of iOS at the moment.



------------------------------

Poll stats as I typed this comment:

111/48.5% – Yes

92/40.2% – No

26/11.3% – no preference

I’m surprised the “in favor” is so high. MR complains about everything these days.