We heard it would be
flat. We heard it would be
black and white. We heard that it would be a totally different experience.
It is. iOS 7, the latest version of Apple’s flagship mobile operating
system, is here, and it’s almost entirely different from the versions
that came before. Gone are the
skeuomorphic
designs and 3D effects, replaced by Sir Jony Ive’s “flat design.”
Rumors had been flying for weeks about the new OS and now it’s here and
it is, at least at this early reckoning, a massive change for the six
year old operating system.
First, we must remember that Ive, Apple’s industrial designer now in
control of software following the departure of Scott Forstall, isn’t a
believer in interfaces that copy real-world objects. In the past, making
the Notes app look like a legal pad or the calendar app look like a
Moleskine calendar notebook were part of the iOS design philosophy, as
ingrained in the OS as “Slide To Unlock.” All that is gone now.