Apple on Wednesday will roll out the biggest changes to its iPhone software since the smartphone was launched six years ago, hoping to avoid a repeat of the outcry against last year’s update to iOS.
In last year’s operating system update the iPhone maker removed Google’s Maps app and replaced it with Apple’s own flawed rival, eventually prompting an apology from chief executive Tim Cook.Yet this year’s update is even more radical, with a new overall look and feel, prompting some to predict a backlash, at least initially.
Design chief Sir Jonathan Ive unveiled iOS 7 in June at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, promising that the first product of his expanded role in charge of software’s “human interface” would be “completely new” but still “instantly familiar”.
All-new icons, fonts and colours, in an interface stripped of ornamentation such as textures and shadows, would create a sense of “depth and vitality”, he said, making iOS 7 “unobtrusive and deferential” to the user’s own apps and content
Apple on Wednesday will roll out the biggest changes to its iPhone software since the smartphone was launched six years ago, hoping to avoid a repeat of the outcry against last year’s update to iOS.
In last year’s operating system update the iPhone maker removed Google’s Maps app and replaced it with Apple’s own flawed rival, eventually prompting an apology from chief executive Tim Cook.
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IN Technology
Design chief Sir Jonathan Ive unveiled iOS 7 in June at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, promising that the first product of his expanded role in charge of software’s “human interface” would be “completely new” but still “instantly familiar”.
All-new icons, fonts and colours, in an interface stripped of ornamentation such as textures and shadows, would create a sense of “depth and vitality”, he said, making iOS 7 “unobtrusive and deferential” to the user’s own apps and content.
The response among the small group of developers
and designers outside Apple given early access for private testing was
polarised: some praised it while others panicked.
This week, millions of people will follow Apple’s invitation to
download this free update to their iPhone’s software, and many are
predicting the same response – but amplified.
“My first reaction was a mixture of shock and denial,” says Gentry
Underwood, designer and co-founder of Mailbox, an email app bought by
Dropbox for a reported $100m earlier this year. “I bitched and moaned
and was pretty angry.”But as the beta was improved and bugs were ironed out, he was won over to the simple design, smooth animations and lightweight feel, and is redesigning Mailbox to fit the new look.
“The first reaction [to iOS 7] will be strongly negative but two months from now, people won’t think about it,” Mr Underwood says.
While many app developers have been racing to overhaul their products to fit iOS 7’s new minimalist style, most are watching from the sidelines to see how customers respond to it.
According to Mixpanel, which makes analytics tools for mobile
developers, 30 per cent of its customers’ apps have been updated this
month to get ready for iOS 7. That shows a slight increase on this time
last year, says Mixpanel’s Nicole Leverich, “but it’s not currently a
deluge”. That may mean some apps suffer bugs due to incompatibility with
the new operating system. Another area of possible confusion among iPhone users is iOS 7’s new touchscreen gestures used to move within and between apps, which do away with design flourishes that mimic physical buttons. It’s a move that some have compared to the way buttons and badges on 1990s websites gave way to simple text links for navigation. However, some designers worry that many people won’t understand which words they can tap to make a change, and which they can’t.
Tom Boates, vice-president of user experience at fitness app Runkeeper, says these changes by Apple resemble Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which was popular with some early adopters but has failed to win over the public.
“On the surface, iOS 7 looks like a copycat,” Mr Boates says. “Many people have claimed that we’re witnessing the end of Apple being a leader in the design world but I disagree. I believe we are seeing Apple soak up the things it admires from its competitors’ designs, and iterate on it with something completely brand new.”
Admirers of Sir Jonathan’s overhaul say the old iPhone software’s buttons, shadows and textures are no longer necessary because most people have become familiar with the way touchscreen technology works.
“I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity, in clarity, in efficiency,” said Sir Jonathan in June’s introduction. “True simplicity is derived from so much more than the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It’s about bringing order to complexity.”
But such subtleties may be lost on less tech-savvy Apple customers. “The public will freak,” says one mobile start-up chief executive.
If it does, Apple may already have a fix on the way. Mixpanel’s logs show two updates to iOS 7 are already being tested in private by Apple.
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