“Samsung says it’ll bring narrower fonts and a cleaner look and feel to its Android devices like the Galaxy S4, in yet another blatant attempt to copycat Apple, this time ripping off the styling of the iOS 7 update for iPhone and iPad,” Bill Palmer writes for Palmer Report. “It might be ready around the time Apple is releasing iOS 8. Samsung stealing existing intellectual property from Apple, even as Apple looks to move onto whatever comes next, is nothing new. What’s different here is that Google, not Samsung, designs the look and feel of the Android software interface. But maybe not so much anymore.”
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung. The Korean Microsoft.
“Up to now most vendors have only made minor software tweaks, such as packing in their own branded apps,” Palmer writes. “However, Samsung is talking about changing up its flavor of Android so much things like icons and fonts will look like they were lifted straight from an iPhone. Not that it’ll work the same at all, but instead more like those Windows skins that allow a PC to have the same on-screen icons and color scheme as a Mac.”
“The short term implications are straightforward: Samsung’s Android devices will look more like a broken outdated copycat of the iPhone than ever,” Palmer writes. “But the fact that Samsung is talking about so brazenly changing up the look and feel of the Android interface means that it no longer cares about maintaining compatibility or familiarity with Google’s official Android at all. The bottom line: yet another reason to just buy a real iPhone or iPad from Apple, instead of settling for the outdated copycat junk on the Android side.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, Samsung, all Apple employees just jumped off the nearest bridge. Hurry!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
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in related news, the CEO of samsung recently purchased 80 pairs of black mock turtlenecks and levis jeans
The reason that company feels like it has the balls of a bull is because of the shinanigans of a certain judge in the USA who has entertained delays to Samsung’s penalty. By the time they pay out if ever, the bills they will have created upon further lawsuits will appear to be insurmountable and hence their current brevity.
Microsoft have paid for and entered into various IP arrangements with Apple inc. via Rockstar and other vehicles, so let it not be mistaken that them having skins that emulate Apple’s OS is IP theft.
Have you seen their product presentations? They mimic Apple presentations down to the cues!!
Crazy.
First fruit of their Silicon Valley research center. Profound!
Just what I want… A version of Android that looks as bat shit crazy as the UI in iOS 7 with none of the iOS benefits.
/sarcasm
That’s a disgusting comment.
What makes you think Bill Palmer’s interpretation is accurate? Would you give as much credibility to it if the report was from DigiTimes?
Interesting… The comment to which I was responding has already been removed from the thread.
Thats embarrassing
This article’s implication that iOS 8 will look completely different than iOS 7 is ridiculous. I think he’s going to be one the analysts who bitches about the next handful of iOS versions for subtly refining its established visual style, instead of changing everything just to look new and different.
I would like iOS 8 to look completely different than iOS 7. At least give the user some choices.
Absolutely stupid to brag about the resolution of a Retina display and then turn around and force users to use a narrow sans-serif font that only became popular when computer screens displayed resolutions at or below 72ppi.
Oh now I get it. Apple just created the mess called iOS7 so Samsung would copy it, and then they will return to their senses with iOS8. Good plan.
OH NOOOO!!!! What are the iOS 7 haters going to do now? No Samsung alternative.
By the way, haters, why is Samsung going to copy? Answer – because iOS 7 is incredibly successful. Get over it.
The unfortunate thing is when I look at iOS 7 and then cast the same critical eye over Android and TouchWiz (Samsung’s implementation of Android), I find myself shocked at the visual similarities between TouchWiz and iOS 7. The same flat horrible to look at icons are pervasive in both platforms.
I don’t think it is so much the case of Samsung copying Apple but it is certainly the case that Jony Ive has turned Apple into the world’s biggest copier of failed UI concepts. Bring back Scott Forstall who at least knows something about creating good API’s, designing a solid software foundation that doesn’t crash all the time and gorgeous icons. Ive has no clue whatsoever when it comes to UI design, apart from copying the effort of others.
The problem with Forstall was that having created something great he got totally absorbed with the depth of shadows and what precise grain of wood he was mimicking. It just got ludicrous while the OS itself stayed pretty much stagnant except for working slower as Oak is clearly heavier than walnut… with the emphasis on nut. A cleaner look is welcome though just one better than the one we actually got whose icons look like they were produced in Illustrator version 1 when you had to guess the colours.
I’ll answer your charge that Scott’s work became overwrought with fake wood and shadows. I think Scott was keen to preserve Steve’s legacy of gorgeous looking icons and large legible text. If you review the history of Steve’s keynotes – from first to last – you will never see a thin font anywhere in his presentation. I don’t think thin fonts sit well with respect to visual acuity (ability to see at first glance the descriptor of the app) or promote usability (ability to figure out what is on screen by looking at the text alone).
Now that Ive has removed visual cues from the ‘back button’ it makes navigating IOS 7 more difficult than usual. I had no problem explaining the workings of iOS 6 to my father. With iOS 7 I just give up because Ive has traded ease of use for some visual Bauhaus gimmicks.
I know you’re pretty staunchly defending your opinion, and that’s fine (maybe with less presentation as statement of fact rather than your opinion it would be easier to accept). There is a pretty large body of users who do not come from a left-to-right reading orientation, and so for them the notion of “back” being in the upper left hand corner is not intuitive at all.
If the reports of the latest iOS beta are correct (and final!) the flat icons have given way to darker colors with greater gradation between colors at the top and bottom of the icons.
I’ll toss in my two cents. Personal taste preferences are just that, personal. There is no universal truth. Tastes vary from one person to the next and what most people prefer varies over time
Overall, I found some of the iOS 6 icons really nice. I thought others were ridiculous, even misleading at times. .
I liked the bookshelves and book covers. I thought the leather with stitching on Calendar was way over the top. I don’t need a stitched leather flap to tell me I am looking at a calendar. And on Find Friends, it made no sense at all. Those design elements were definitely not “gorgeous” to my eye.
I still find Contacts a little difficult to pick out on the iPhone, but the interior is not a lot different. I preferred the square photos of my contacts to the circular ones, especially since the cropping tool is still square.
I thought the cassette metaphor for Podcasts looked cool, but honestly, as a visual cue to what the app was, it was useless.
The color scheme doesn’t bother me. I’ve got so many apps on my phone that use their own colors, it doesn’t look a lot different than before.
The thinner fonts were too thin for me at first. Better now. Whether the change to thinner fonts was forward-looking or a design disaster will become apparent over time. It would not surprise me to see more of the thin font look everywhere as time passes. But I’m not going to predict that.
The one thing that seems to bother the greatest number of people is the change in button design and in links. That did take some getting used to.
Jony Ive made some decisions about how far to go with newer forms. It’s been tough for some people, not so much for others. People have varying degrees of cognitive flexibility. It doesn’t make one person right and another person wrong, just different.
So far the changes don’t seem to have noticeably reduced sales of the newest devices or substantially affected the rate of adoption of iOS 7 on the older ones.
IMHO, iOS7 is the best looking version of iOS. Most negativity towards iOS7 is usually nitpicking & inability to accept change from iOS6 familiar design. It’s a new design. It’s a new design and Apple should be given time to perfect it.
If you look @ the Android side the last major redesign was 4.0 ICS from 2.3 Gingerbread, then Google matured the ICS look with 4.1 jellybean & now 4.4 Kitkat is excellent. All this has happened in the space of 2-3 yrs so Apple can even do it better given the same time.