“In the echo chamber of the blogosphere, it has become accepted wisdom that Jonathan Ive will be stripping all the skeuomorphisms from iOS 7, in favor of a flat new design aesthetic reminiscent of Windows 8,” Graham Bower writes for Mac predictions. “I don’t believe a word of it, and I’ll explain why. But first, let’s take a look at from which this rumour has arisen.”
“It all stared with a wince and the response ‘I’m not really connected with that’ when Ive was asked about faux leather and stitching in an interview with The Telegraph,” Bower writes. “Subsequently, as the result of a management re-shuffled, Ive became responsible for user interface design as well as hardware design. That same reshuffle saw the departure of Scott Forstall – the brilliant but mercurial head of iOS development. Further rumors suggested that he was the driving force behind skeuomorphism, and didn’t get on well with Ive.”
Bower writes, “And that’s where this whole ‘Ive hates skeuomorphism’ meme has arisen from. Forstall in the skeuo corner versus arch-rival Ive in the non-skeuo corner. And now Ive has delivered his knock-out blow, Forstall’s cherished iOS will be stripped of all its skeuo goodness. It’s a great story – ideal for a comic book, perhaps. But in reality, it’s overly simplistic… I think we’re far more likely to see evolutionary rather than revolutionary design ideas. And as with every Apple product announcement, this will initially result in the inevitable griping, and ill-informed journalists claim that iOS 7 doesn’t look as different to iOS or as similar to Windows 8 as it supposedly needs to. And yet a few months down the line, as usual, everyone will have discovered the wisdom of Apple’s design choices.”
Much more in the full article here.
