Almost flat: The future of iOS design?

13 years ago

“The talk about how Apple are going to ‘flatten out’ their UI style has set the rumour-mills ablaze with completely spurious conjecture,” Tim Green writes for Gizmodo.

“Let’s start with Launcher icons given it’s the most obvious port of call… To me, there is a distinct movement towards a particular style and I would be very surprised if Apple were ignorant of it. It’s not ‘flat design’ per se and it’s certainly nowhere near the ‘Metro’ levels that people are suggesting they may follow, but it’s a mellowing out of the visual indicators that people need to trigger the idea of a tappable element,” Green writes. “Why? Because this is not 2007 anymore, and we are all now fully aware of the medium and the process; we don’t need to be led garishly by the hand. There is still a sense of depth and tactility but done in a refined and suggestive way, sensitive to the changed perceptions that people have of interacting with touchscreens.”

Green writes, “Google and Facebook have led the charge recently for throwing design resources at their iOS apps and redesigning them in a beautiful, subtle and elegant manner. The idea that either of those wouldn’t have inside information about the direction of iOS 7’s UI and styling is beyond belief and we can only assume that the similar route they have taken (which doesn’t follow Google’s completely-flat Android style – that apps like any.do have done on iOS) suggests to me a direction we might expect Apple to be pushing people.”

Full article, with icon and other UI examples, here.