“While we don’t know when iOS 7 will make its debut, here’s what we do know: it will be the biggest reinvention of Apple’s flagship OS in years — perhaps ever,” Ben Parr writes for CNET.
“If Scott Forstall was skeuomorphism’s biggest advocate, then Jony Ive is its biggest opponent. Ive is well known for his appreciation of simplicity and flatness — neither of which describe iOS. But if recent reports are accurate, Ive is putting his stamp on iOS in a big way,” Parr writes. “iOS 7, which should make an appearance at Apple’s WWDC in June, will feature a flatter, ‘de-glitzed’ interface. It’s such a big overall that Apple is pulling additional resources to complete iOS 7 on schedule.”
Parr writes, “With iOS 7 set to take the iPhone in a completely different direction, the big question is this: how will users react? As Facebook has taught us, major changes to a popular user interface will always cause controversy and dissent. There’s no doubt that users will question Ive’s decision to drastically change a familiar interface with a foreign one. The initial backlash will not be pretty. MySpace taught us a more important lesson, though: if you don’t evolve, you die.”
Read more in the full article here.
Since when has IOS been “Apple’s Flagship OS”?
since iOS devices make 70% of the revenue
Haha, good one.
Absolutely – bang on answer.
Apple Inc. became the new companys’ name as iPhone was rolled out. The direction of the company was to embed its system on regular devices to enhance our lives. There is lots still to come.
The concept of “Flagship” is not about numbers. It’s the ship that you are most proud of, the one that carries the most powerful armament, the one that often carries the admiral, the one that is most special, and for Apple, that’s the Mac.
The flagship of the US Navy is the USS constitution, a wooden frigate, launched in 1794 still in active service.
OS X is the flagship operating system of Apple. Only a moron analyst would call iOS the flagship OS.
The word ‘flagship’ originates from the days of the wooden masted sailing ship that flew the flags of the Admiralty. Ships of the line would obtain their commands for battle from the flagship which would be relayed from ship to ship by a system of flags hoisted on the mainmast that would be tall enough for all the surrounding ships to read the message conveyed by the flags.
Using the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 as an example, Admiral Horatio Nelson’s ship, The Victory, was the flagship of the fleet because the commands originated from that ship and not from any other ship, despite the fact that there were other ships in the fleet which carried more guns and were heavier than The Victory.
Nelson’s famous series of flags hoisted just before battle commenced said, “England expects every man to do his duty,” which has gone down in the annals of history as the most iconic message before a sea battle.
A flagship OS for Apple would be the one where the most cues were taken and that remains OS X as iOS is an offshoot of OS X.
Wow, I am duly impressed. Actual knowledge spewing from BLN.I’m retired Navy myself, and was about to post how ships became designated a flag ship.
In modern parlance, Admirals have their own flag called a pennant. It is flown on the top most mast aboard the ship the Admiral is posted to. That ship is chosen for its living quarters and fleet command/control infrastructure. In today’s Navy that means a carrier.
Ex Navy here too.
What we’ve seen since Lion is that OS is imitating iOS. iOS has become the flagship.
IOS may have originally come from OSX, but now OSX is getting features that came from iOS. IOS is where the fierce competition is. The days are gone where some new feature is a strong driver of Mac sales. But the fierce completion with Samsung and Android means than iOS is the flagship for Apple’s latest ideas.
in business its about revenue and profits
MBP’s are the best development workstations these days and the Acura/Lexus choice for consumers. but computer purchases are like washers and dryers these days. its something you buy for the next 5 years or more.
iOS is what everyone is talking about these days
Sadly, Apple would not have survived long, if not for iOS.
The devices completed the idea of the Apple ecosystem. The need for a desktop in order to connect to your video camera or iPod meant OSX was very important.
Now that iOS can has been freed from the PC connection – things are going to get very interesting.
“the one that carries the most powerful armament” – are you telling us this wooden frigate of 1794 is still the US Navy most powerful ship? OF course you aren’t – It was the Flagship of its time and is still regarded in honour of the US Navy as the height of the fleet – with all due respect.
One can consider OSX as the flagship… however, iOS has been the turning point.
It provided the power to change the minds of the world and aided in the decline of the PC. Not only is it about the power of its numbers but the aim of the company itself moved towards.
Apple Inc. is no longer Apple Computer.
It remains strongly a Software & Hardware company offering the complex package.
*complete package
The business model is been the same…
insanely great products inspired to think difference.
The quality of hardware is one factor, the beauty of its software is the difference.
This time around iOS is the software making the differences here at Apple.
And how has Apple’s stock “flatlined”? This story is filled with so much false information it is typical blogger ignorance.
Thanks, Ben, for a completely stupid comparison of iOS to MySpace.
Goodbye leather stitching and green felt. Hello simple elegance.
Windows 8
JC Penny
My Space
Facebook
The thing they all have in common is not just change, it is that it sucked. Change is good, sucking at it, not.
Change is progressive. Often it is progressively worse.
Yes by all means we should go back to the 50’s. Before Civil rights, women’s rights, the Leave it to Beaver, when everything was right in America. That is, if you were WAP.
We should forget teaching evolution in our schools as well. Forget moving forward to ensure everyone’s rights including the LGBT’s.
The conservative movement is killing itself. They are all afraid of being beaten in a primary election by the far leaning right of the Tea Bagger’s. They have done it to themselves and I can just sit back and laugh.
Be very careful what you wish for; enjoy the current moment, for it will leap up and bite you soon enough. Rejoicing in one’s political views that exclude (in hate for) others in their “rights” leads to anarchy, pure and simple!
Good saying! Though I hope that is not the case this time. I have to agree a little, so far I vote the OS I find most productive to be Snow Leopard. The Lion Family isn’t doing much for me, yes it has some improvements but many “Why did they do that” moments as well. Snow Leopard’s strong point is logical bells and whistles and not a lot of stuff that just gets in the way.
Lion was the first OS ever, and I’ve used them since ’85 that I just didn’t fall in love with. But I use it.
Well said. Personally, I’m extremely nervous about this major shift. Jony and Steve J. worked together many years. I’m wondering why Steve never previously put him in charge of software design?
I think Steve was smart enough to see people’s strengths and value. iOS has always been a prime example of great UI design, the gold standard for many years. It’s only now that it’s starting to look a little long in the tooth.
CNET was relevant in 1998…
It’s not as if Apple’s culture is facing such change for the first time. As a previous story posted on MDN noted, Apple went from System 9 to OSX, three CPU changes and several major Mac hardware changes (no floppy, no CD-ROM, from SCSI to Thunderbolt, HD to SSD, etc.) Jony Ive has already put his stamp on the hardware, albeit with a lot of monitoring from Steve, and we’ve seen his handiwork for more than a decade now. It will truly be interesting to see what he comes up with.
Always felt that Ive should be ’s HMFIC.
Let’s not forget … simplicity is perfection !!! And ornament is a crime !!!!!
Less is more, Young Bauhaus.
Dada wouldn’t buy me a Bauhaus…
lol, Rorschach, you’re a blot on this forum.
Wow. Two short posts without swearing or name-calling. But in the third, just had to resort to personal insult.
By the way, as far as “blot on this forum” goes — you may not reeeally want to use that on other people.
my advice to you Seamus is: “got issues? get tissues.” otherwise, STFU.
You really are a poisonous little toad.
coming from you, that means absolutely nothing.
again.
The comment isn’t for you. It’s for others. What often serves to take away power from bullies and jerks is social disapproval. And your small-minded, poisonous petulance certainly has considerable disapproval here.
How about your try to post without any name-calling or swearing — just putting your opinion forward without any vitriol?
is it okay if I just call you “poisonous little toad?”
hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē|
noun ( pl. hypocrisies )
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.
wait, you really ARE so dense not to grasp “blot on this forum” as an allusion to Rorschach inkblots?
holy shit, you’re too stupid to live.
re “hypocrisy”
My name-calling towards you, bottvijerk, is an extreme behavior in response to a pervasive negative presence. I don’t engage in name-calling with any “normal” posts, where I may, for example, disagree with someone’s views on the use of faux-leather.
So again I propose — How about your try to posting without any name-calling or swearing — just putting your opinion forward without any vitriol?
lol, you’re the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived. It was a joke, a pun on Rorschach inkblots used in psychological testing.
” But in the third, just had to resort to personal insult.”
How is a cute turn on ‘ink-blot tests’ a personal insult?
His swearing, insulting and name-calling is so pervasive, it never occurred to me for one second that calling Rorschach a blot was “merely” a word play joke. Presumed it was just more of his poison.
And botvijerk, instead of “lol, you’re the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived. It was a joke” why can’t you write something like, “Ah, I see. You missed my joke”?
Why does so much from you have to so easily explode into such a vomiting of bile?
“…it never occurred to me for one second..”
hence, “lol, you’re the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived.”
PS…bile is a bitter greenish-brown alkaline fluid that aids digestion and is secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder…you cannot vomit bile, DMFTEL.
You may like to read this paper in the American Academy of Family Physicians on “bilious vomiting”… http://www.aafp.org/afp/2000/0501/p2791.html
Bile is also use as a general term to mean something that is unpleasant to the degree that it is toxic — like many of your posts.
But enough quibbling — the central point remains — why do you so very frequently swear at and personally insult anyone whose opinions you disagree with? Can you not conduct yourself here without doing so?
you are the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived.
” Rorschach a blot was “merely” a word play joke.”
You’ve really never heard of a Rorschach test? Seriously?
Did you ever read “The Watchmen”? Did you not even get what Rorschach’s mask was based on? Egads.
Leather stitching never bothered me. All I really care about is how well it works.
“Ive is well known for his appreciation of simplicity and flatness”
Or in other words, he has good taste.
Inappropriate ornamentation is not tasteful. Good taste will still be stylish in many years time, while fashion dates rapidly.
“…here’s what we do know: it will be the biggest reinvention of Apple’s flagship OS in years”
Or not. Software takes time. There may simply have not been enough time for Sir Jony to get a consistent design permeating the OS.
From Apple DOS to SOS.
1984 was not so 1984 because of colour and user interface.
The birth of GUI all started with Mac OS.
A departure from the grey mundaneness of the butler, servant, in the background. A well rooted – well reasoned use of simple flat, iconic symbols of OS 1 to 5, (colour and textures in 6 to 9 Mac OS classic). After all the system began on a monochrome screen… there was no need for colour. Though television was. Commodore Vic was. Today, “Flat” evokes that of the past. Is there a need to return to the birth of Macintosh now the World is seen in colour, textures and shine?
Aqua came, it opened the visual language of colour depth rich textures – glossy shiny happy people; full of yummy candy coated icons – a breath of fresh air. Excitement visually. And so, iOS was spun off of OSX and the theme of that rich dimensional lively interface was adopted. Naturally… and not Scotts doing.
Now lets consider, iOS is so simple that there virtually is no interface. Besides point, press, swipe, pinch…
iOS is no more then a home page of all it’s apps.
It could not be simpler.
But, Android messes that up with its alias – LOL. iOS could not be more direct. The interface is of its Apps. And the Apps visually have provided the excitement. Represented by softly rounded, welcoming buttons, gorgeously painted with graphic symbols and imagery unique to each developer and easily recognizable to the users. FInd the App – use the App.
Press – Hold – Wait and we get prompts in words as to cut, copy, paste, style, bold etc., – not that intuitive nor graphical – however lets see what Jony does about that. Android uses graphics on that part and it s by no means helpful… the words are better. We learnt not to save – by quitting our work was saved for us. Many odd but reasonable and clever functionalities exist in iOS. On its surface its simple and easy to use, underneath it is quite complex and evolving. Perhaps as it does, the grey mundane look is needed?
But consider, removing highlights, textures and depth – all artistic terms extremely useful to create realism and less mechanical robotic sensitivity. Then consider, why not, removing colour too… could not get anymore flatter than grey. Right?
Now we are back to, Simple dull monotone icons / buttons which have no actual purpose in bettering or improve the user experience. Appearance and looks have a hard time expressing true functionality. A back arrow, is that a u-turn sign or a return arrow or a back to home icon? Not always clear. Simple can get confusing. Must be done with extreme care.
Hurray, So, is Ives bringing back the Newton? I can’t wait to see and try it. But people, this new iOS7 will effectively cast the same theme onto OSX… so be prepared for a double shock.
There’s no evidence that Sir Jony prefers “flat” whatsoever! It’s just rumour at this stage. What was “flat” about the iMac for example?
And, wherever the word “flat” came from, it is inappropriate here. There is a world of difference between “I paint my house white because I have no artistic sense whatsoever” and an amazing Japanese flower arrangement made from one flower, one twig and three leaves. The simple elegance of a master designer is far from “flat”.
The beginner sees a phone, with a screen and a home button.
The student sees pixels, buttons, scrollbars, widgets and apps, all of which look like other things.
The master sees a phone, with a screen and a home button.
I make a point of taking in the latest version of Windows, Mac OS, and now iOS, regardless of changes. I try to use all default settings. I learn to adapt to the new environment.
Why? One, it keeps me on my toes. Second, a lot of energy went into the design of the software. Sometimes they get something wrong, but more likely they learn to do something better. When users complain, they complain for reasons of insecurity. I look beyond that.
Now thats not to mean I don’t like stability and consistency. But I make a stab at it and if I can, adapt.
Actually, I’ve long believed that if MySpace HADN’T evolved – a drastic “modernized” redesign, they wouldn’t have died.
I don’t think MySpace’s decline was down to it’s UI. MySpace’s downfall was due to Facebook. I’m not sure any comparison with iOS is valuable.
Look, they can’t change the gestures. They can only repaint the icons and downplay the background.
It should be a simple upgrade that is even easier to use than the original.
Hold on … why are many people so quick to assume that the word “flatness” everyone’s tossing around equates somehow to montone/lack of colour? As a designer of more than two decades, I can assure you that that isn’t necessarily the case.
I’m always for a UI that puts usability first … skeuomorphic elements that represent familiar/past associations are *not* necessary in many cases to give a user a clear understanding of what can be done in a UI. UIs can be designed that are just as effective without garish and blatant graphic elements (I’m looking at Calendar and Contacts especially here) … simple, clean and uncluttered that actually conveys more usable information without distraction should be the goal.
Furthermore, the addition of skeuomorphic design elements often holds back fundamental changes to how modern users interact with, and more importantly, what they do with mail, calendars etc. There are probably better models for how modern users want to interact with calendars than simply writing appointments down, for instance.
But “flat” doesn’t mean colourless. Colour can be best used in flatter/cleaner/uncluttered designs to better highlight UI elements of importance, to better direct a user to engage in an action, etc. I expect that if Mr. Ive is moving towards a far less skeuomorphic look for some of Apple’s apps, that there will also be a re-thinking about how we use those apps, and colour cues won’t be lacking to help us use the new UIs effectively.
Regardless of the origins and modern interpretation of the term “flagship”: Apple would be dead to me if the Mac was allowed to grow stale while Cook places all efforts on the consumer moneymaker, iOS. iOS just doesn’t replace my Mac, and never will. Productive industries simply do not accomplish all their computing on iOS (or any mobile-specific OS) devices. Real work still gets done on serious, high-powered computers.
Sadly, with all the resources at his disposal, Cook hasn’t made any serious effort to push the Mac platform to take market share (and, yes, profits) back from the Wintel near-monopoly. Jobs did — the original iMac saved the company. It is an unforgivable sin that Cook coasts while $hit like Windows 8 machines actually sells in greater volume than Mac:
“The Next Web said that between February and March, Windows gained 0.27 percentage points from 91.62 percent to 91.89 percent at the expense of Mac OS X and Linux.
OS X’s share fell 0.23 percentage points to a 6.94 percent…”
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/302587/scitech/technology/windows-8-gains-as-vista-loses-market-share-in-march
Aesthetics is wonderful, but in the long run how “flat” iOS appears is of secondary importance if the underlying software doesn’t do what consumers expect a smartphone to do in 2013…the envelope is continually pushed and Apple must continue to do that in more than just appearance, what concerns me about iOS 7 is all I hear about is appearance, but what about function…that’s very important
Guess we won’t want to “lick” the new one.
I remember some article years ago with Steve saying he wanted the new OSX to be so gorgeous people would want to lick it.
I can certainly tell you that Android isn’t standing still. They’re even coming up with new gestures that improve how you use the operating system.
The newest one is where you hold the phone in your hand, then draw your arm back, then swing your arm forward as fast as you can while simultaneously releasing the Android phone. This simple new gesture actually makes Android phones tolerable.