Yesterday, Apple seeded developers with iOS 7.1 beta 3.
The latest beta comes after the December 13th release of iOS 7.1. beta 2. It includes a number of bug fixes and visual tweaks aimed at improving usability.
Via Twitter, @Sentry_NC has created an image which shows the evolution in user interface elements from iOS 7.1 (Beta 1) to iOS 7.1 (Beta 3):
Source:
https://twitter.com/Sentry_NC/status/420772731987034113/photo/1
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Poor Nicole Louise Lee; the internet takes and does not give back.
iOS 7 is like the Titanic. All these vidual tweaks are rearranging of the deck chairs.
… and certain comments here are like a different movie – Groudhog Day.
IS THAT YOU BLN ?
Why don’t you trade places with Ballmer’s Left Nut and hang around Monkey Boy with those of like minds.
I’m sure you will let us know when iOS siinks without trace then, because I doubt that there will be any other ‘vidual’ sign.
A Jay Morrison by any other name…
Woah… so are you admitting to something? You are Tim Cooks left nut… so… what are you telling us? You are man handled?
@Left Nut
You may as well bemoan the loss of floppy drives, or the change in UI from OS 9 to OS X. It’s not going back. Get over it.
So they went from bad to better then to way worse? They took all of the contact pictures out of the call interfaces…why would they do this?
Agreed. I preferred beta 2, but even 1 is better than 3.
I vote for beta 2!
Agreed- removing the picture, big or small, seems very un-Apple-like, even dim-witted. It’s much easier to ID a picture of who’s calling.
I agree! When someone calls me, I want, and I like, to see the face of who is calling me so that in an instant, I know who is calling me.
I don’t want a teeny icon photo of them which I cannot see at arms length, or a too small photo that looks like most of the other people’s small icon sized photos!
What is going on around here?
I like #1 the best
Am I the only one who thinks those images of #1 look like the earliest iOS 7 betas from the summer? Not a positive change in my book.
Beta #1 is .H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E . ! ! !
Why not use the 4 colors from the Windows logo?
Have they hired Steve Ballmer?
The button labels in beta #3 are way too small (and the buttons themselves could be 20-30% bigger).
The photo icon also is way too small (Is Apple experimenting with 7in phablets?). That said, I don’t have too many correspondents in my address book who provided a self-picture, so maybe the issue is rather vacuous.
I dunno, I like the move away from the large rectangular buttons. It’s more cohesive with the overall circular UI design for iOS 7. That said, reducing the contact picture to a thumbnail was stupid and I hope they change that before they release this to the public.
Remember, people. It’s a beta. It’ll probably change some more before we ever get access to it.
Yea circles. Otherwise, the big deal for apple will be hardware. 2014 should be fun.
Beta 2 looked really nice. WTF is going on in Beta 3? “Hey, let’s make the contrast even LESS on the dialer and the buttons smaller! That’ll narrow our market to the ‘cool’ kids under 30!”
What were they thinking with beta #1 ?
Looks like Windows 8 !
Beta 3 looks cleaner (unfortunately more Skype-ish), but is less informative.
The Beta 2 appearance is better dan the Beta 1 one but looks amateurish or old school.
The “Decline” button needs to be bigger for Nicole Louise Lee.
Am I the only one but I wish the phone background when making calls was all black with white highlighted circles rather than the way it is now with the all white background and black highlighted circles.
Sorry, but iOS 7 looks like absolute crap. Flat, lifeless and without any design merit. I don’t care how many betas they produce, the only way to correct iOS 7 is to bring back iOS 6.
Are you high?
No he’s right. It’s terrible and gets all kind of hate everywhere except this site. I can’t stand the overly white UI (worse in safari than other apps) belongs in a hospital.
+1
Making Microsoft’s square tiles round is not “innovation”, Apple. iOS7 is fugly.
If Ives thinks “minimalism” is so great, why doesn’t he replace the high-res color photos of the girls with charcoal impressionist sketches of them? Wouldn’t that be more consistent with Apple’s new “flat & boring” theme?
Sorry, but you couldn’t be more wrong. iOS 6 looks positively cluttered, obsolete, and outdated now compared to the modern, clean, iOS 7.
That’s funny, my take is that iOS 6 looks professional and is more intuitive to use. It’s iOS 7 that is amateurish, sparse and desolate in appearance.
Please define “looks professional”.
Regardless, you’re welcome to your opinion, no matter how wrong. 😉
Looks professional is all about communication and understanding by all age groups.
The esoteric rainbow bubbles and photo fans/flower petals, whatever they are, certainly confusing.
My six-year old niece loves her two-year old iPad and seeing iOS 7 for the first time at Christmas asked why did they take away my apps.
I’m certain a segment of all age groups are equally confused and something we don’t hear much about for good reason.
I haven’t seen or heard any articles or papers about any widespread issues with users experiencing confusion using iOS 7, and certainly not by any particular age group. Have you? Of course not; it’s simply more personal opinion stated as fact.
If you want to discuss anecdotal evidence, my 6- and 8-year each received an iPad mini for Christmas, both of which came out of the box with iOS 6 on them. They used them that way for 3 or 4 days straight until I upgraded them to iOS 7. Neither one indicated a single problem or concern. Nada. Zip. Because the icons changed, your niece couldn’t find the apps she was accustomed to looking for, and she remarked on it. A day later, she was no doubt completely accustomed to the new app icons and all is right with the world.
I suspect we don’t hear about confusion or other problems with the UI design and look/feel because those with problems are a tiny minority. I’ve spoken to a probably two dozen friends and relatives in my peer group, from all ages, and not a single one I know dislikes iOS 7 in general. The only serious concern I’ve heard from a couple is that they were having a hard time getting accustomed to the new calendar app.
This is all about change. Some people just don’t like change.
Your right as rain.
The hideous linear flat joke of so called design in iOS7 needs an immediate and serious redesign!
Delete the retreat to crayon lines, Bahaus bull and cave symbols.
Skeuomorphics needs to EVOLVE forward and consider three dimensional design aka Maya, possibly motion, sound — whatever buries the outlines found in kids coloring books.
Time to wake up from a bad design dream …
I like Beta 2.
Beta 3 looks amateurish. Why all the empty space?
‘White space’ is an important design element that actually I proves legibility. Explains why Win8 is so difficult to work with despite its bland ‘one’ dimensional graphics. Also why thin fonts can be clearer than bold fonts. It’s all about balance. Aspects of iOS7 are excellent while others are certainly not let’s hope the former take precedence. And actually I prefer beta 3 more minimalist and less in your face and unsophisticated.
When you add so much stylistic flair it quickly dates itself. iOS7 already looks dated. Stylistically, I think it needs a more “timeless” approach.
Couldn’t disagree more. iOS 6 now looks extremely dated and iOS 7 looks fresh and modern. I picked up an iOS 6 device a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t believe how OLD it looked.
They’re Betas. Don’t hate them or love them. Critique them. Send Apple feedback.
Hope apple has full time people checking every post on sites like this !!!!!
That is the hope I hold every time I get chance to criticize the horrible ios7 UI here.
Amen, brother. Keep it coming. Unfortunately, Apple mistake of EPIC proportions.
Why does apple think making things smaller on a small screen makes things better and easier to interact with???
What happened to contact pics?
Come on Apple… Make things high contrast .. Easy to see!( no light grey on white!!!)
Bigger, easy to interact!
Not so neony and pinky … And not so much white ( white background for a photo app??????? )
I am beginning to truly doubt jhonny ives talent in color coordination and interface design!
All I can think of is that it would suck to be color blind and have to live with beta #3’s answer screen. The only difference between the decline and accept buttons is the orientation of the handset icon and the color.
I really hope beta 3 is an experiment and that the final result will be closer to beta 2.
——RM
As a colorblind person – and no I don’t just see in B&W! – I’ve learned to deal with things like that. At first glance I didn’t even notice the color difference and just looked at the graphics. Simple enough for me and kind of like learning traffic signals – green is “usually” on the bottom and red is “usually” on top – so they are easy enough to navigate. Now when some genius traffic engineer decides to place the lights sideways things are a little different 🙂 At least with iOS Blech I can just rely on the pictures.
I really agree that Sir Jony Ive is a real good designer… But these all that new flatness and his phobia for skeuomorphism is just disgusting!
It took 30 years to have machines able to handle nice looking interfaces, using shaders and reflections, and only a year to go back to this poor flatness addiction.
It’s a pity!
Apple, at least, give a chance to get the next OSs with skins to lay upon!
Could not agree more
Beta or not, makes me wonder if Scott Forstall has a little grin on his face about now.
Hi all. I need to provide a point of clarification here. After reading the original tweet and posted comments (N.B.: including the tweeter’s responses to those comments) about the tweet on the twitter site, it appears to me that this MDN post regarding it (and all the above comments about MDN’s post) has misinterpreted the derivation of the 3 columns of images. To correct the info: the left hand column is derived from a beta version of iOS 7.0 pre general release; the center column demonstrates similar screen shot examples using the general public release of iOS 7.0; and the right hand column is derived from the beta version (it does not indicate which iteration) of 7.1.
I believe that the tweeter was attempting to illustrate the evolution of Jon Ivy’s stylistic vision for the details of iOS 7. Correct me if I’m wrong.
This is how i see it:
If the pictures on the right came after the pictures in the center.. Some one has gone mad at apple ui design. And Jhonny is running it… It makes me worry big time that they even considered that a direction to move to….beta or not!
It is Bad. And someone needs to wakeup at apple !
P.s. hope this does not go the direction of their spell check on ios. Which is a jurassic disaster and no one seems to care at Apple !
I agree. It makes no sense that the beta would deviate away from the general release, go back to the look and feel of the general release, then deviate away from the general release again so far.
Looks like iOS 7 early beta in column 1, iOS 7 general release in column 2, and possibly an iOS 7.1 beta in the right-hand column.
… and the fonts remain illegible on every single screen. pathetic.
iOS 7 is beautifully legible in most cases; in some cases, even much more so then iOS 6 ever was! I can even read the tiny alpha type on the phone keypad at two meters! I think you better find an ophthalmologist and make an appointment.
Wow, I see the collective membership of the iOS 7-hater club are out in full force together today. The vocal minority speaks again… All nine of ’em.
Wrong. all skinny sans-serif fonts struggle with legibllity. Ample studies prove that. Truly a poor choice of font for Apple, and especially disappointing that Apple still doesn’t allow the user to use other fonts. iOS7 deserves much of the scorn it gets.
What study would that be? Several times now, somebody has mentioned this supposed study about skinny sans-serifs and readability, yet nobody ever can produce a link. Can you?
Here’s a link. iOS 7 totally sucks as an interface.
http://gigaom.com/2013/11/05/apple-font-beautiful-as-typeface-totally-sucks-as-an-interface-insights-from-a-famous-typeface-designer/
As much as I like some of Spiekermann’s work, that’s but one designer’s opinion. No science, no data, and nothing quantitative.
So, we’re back to opinion. Again. As usual.
Still waiting on that study.
Your cheerleading for iOS 7 and taste in interface design is fine and dandy, that’s great.
But for you to say it is legible, easy to read, use and readily understand esoteric icons should be a criminal offense … 😉
The burden of proof lies upon the one who affirms, not the one who denies. You (and the other iOS 7-haters affirm that iOS 7 sucks, it’s illegible, and the typography is inappropriate. I deny the problems you affirm based on a complete and utter lack of any evidence to the contrary.
I keep asking for concrete examples of all these problems, but none are forthcoming. Until there is something specific to discuss, it’s all about what you don’t like, essentially personal preference, which isn’t any any way quantitative. It’s fine if you and others want to say you don’t like iOS 7, but what’s BS is stating your opinions as facts.
“Common sense is not so common.”
— Voltaire, 1764
The problem with studies of legibility is that most conclude (obviously) that point size or contrast can offset skinny font or lack of serif. Thus many studies essentially throw up their hands and say it’s personal preference, which of course is what you would use to counter any studies that the less eagle-eyed people here would use. Problem is, most of those studies were done well before the computer age.
There are many studies that do show that, all things being equal, serif improves line tracking and thicker bodies of letters improve legibility (duh!). Consistent white space between letters helps too.
It is well known that the most commonly used (i.e., default on Windows and Apple computers) fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and others make the vertical stroke characters (1,I,l,|) practically indistinguishable.
Why don’t you read a bit up on the topic and tell us if you learned anything:
Burt, Cyril. (1959). A psychological study of typography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robinson, D.O, Abbamonte, M., Evans, S.H. (1971). Why serifs are important: the perception of small print.Visible Language, 4, 353-359.
Weildon, Colin. (1995). Type and layout: How typography and design can get your message across–or get in your way. Berkeley: Strathmoor.
Lund, O. (1997). Why serifs are (still) important.Typography Papers, 2, 91-104.
Lund, Ole. (1998). Type and layout: how typography and design can get your message across – or get in the way. Review article.
Information design journal, 9(1), 74-77.
Lund, Ole. (1999). Knowledge Construction in Typography: The case of legibility research and the legibility of sans serif typefaces. The University of Reading, Department of Typography & Graphic Communication.
More interesting to me is why you seem eager to support Apple’s decision to dictate font in the OS rather than allowing the user to select his own?
Thank you for posting a list of papers to support your argument, but are you not aware there are just as many studies which show there is little or no difference between the legibility of serif and sans serif typefaces?
I graduated with a degree in design, so I’ve read (at least in part) almost everything there is to read on the subject at one time or another, including many to which you referred.
I’m not at all eager to support or defend Apple’s decision. I’m simply pointing out that the vast majority of the criticism I’ve seen leveled at Apple on this subject comes from people who are completely ignorant of the subject at hand. They have no background or training, and no experience designing anything. They simply don’t like this new look and feel, so are critical of iOS 7 without any factual data to support those criticisms.
At least you were able to produce some evidence to support your position, even if there is also plenty of evidence to support the opposite position.
As for why Apple didn’t allow the user to select a font, I don’t know. I don’t work for Apple. It could have been a technical limitation, the feature could have been dropped to meet a release deadline, or the feature could have never been included in the design specifications.
Was the ability to change the system font included in iOS 6? OS X? I don’t remember ever being able to change the system font in Mac OS, OS X, or iOS before. What other operating systems allow the user to select the font for low-level UI display?
OK professor, most commenting here are visually illiterate according to your vapor analysis.
ASSUME. Makes an ASS out of U and ME.
Am I reading that right, are the photos going away?
(my friends look better than photo #4 – more like Photos 1 & 2)
Does anyone know whether you can resize (zoom out more specifically) when setting wallpapers to see the whole picture again as it used to be the case prior to ios 7?
I like Beta 3. The problem with the rest is that all the buttons are large and close to each other and with the picture in the background when the phone is ringing, looks like cluttered mess. Beta 3 is a fighter jet approach where all the buttons are separate and you won’t be ejecting when trying to fire missiles.
Activate Assistive Touch and compare Camera landscape mode between iOS 6 and iOS 7 !
It is absolutely unbelievable that none at Apple is able to write a piece of code that would detect and follow the position of the Assistive Touch button on the screen and make it aware that in Camera mode, its position on the screen will never overlap the button that we must press to take a picture in any (landscape) mode !
And watch Photostreams ! Have 50 photostreams (max is 100 photostreams), in a unsorted list, all title names with the same font family, same font, same style, same size, same weight, constantly changing its place in the list according to recent changes to comments, recent changes to likes, recent addition or substraction of content in the photostreams… None at Apple was able to write a piece of code to get rid of the painful experience to try to find a picture from an “Open” dialog box and that would allow users to have the list of photostreams sorted by alphabetical or date and time orders, or to allow the photostreams to be arranged by owners or viewers custom order. In addition, iOS 7 wiped out the easy and very simple way it was to see what picture in what Photostream had been modified !
iOS 7 is just total shit. There’s no other way of putting it. Ive is a complete and utter failure as a UI designer.
I’m always surprised some defend the indefensible. On second thought …
I’m starting to think that Apple has decided to get out of the code writing business. Think about it. The App Store and Mac App Store have developers around the world writing apps and paying Apple for the privilege of “working” for them. Brilliant! Hence the dumbing down, err streamlining of the various Apple ecosystem components…etc., etc. And yes, I’m being serious here.
Rather than wasting all this effort on useless and less clear GUI, why don’t they fix the crapware they have already released? I’m referring to iCloud, iWork, iLife, iOS 7 and Mavericks, to be specific. This has been another day of my life wasted trying to get this stuff to work and still multiple problems. I’m about to have to revert to paper files and a ledger!
The latest is obviously much better. In the others , the buttons are too close making it easy to press the wrong botton. Making the buttons smaller also makes it too easy to press the button accidentally. I especially like the small end call button so calls are not ended accidentally.
People also may not want the whole world to know who is calling. A good reason to make the picture smaller. Perhaps the picture size could be an option.