An iOS 7 redesign posted on Dribbble.com, and online community for designers, was “created by 20-year old UI/UX designer Leo Drapeau [and] has, as of today, reached over 97,000 views,” Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch.
“Drapeau, who’s currently living in Paris and is pursuing his Bachelor’s in Web Design at a school called EEMI, says he made his version of the redesign in a few hours,” Perez reports. “‘I was following the WWDC keynote, and I was really excited about the overall UX and UI changes and evolutions in iOS 7, but the icons of the homescreen bugged me,’ he explains. ‘So, I just wanted to refined them a little, to make them cleaner and more harmonized, but not to reinvent the whole design.'”
Perez reports, “The student designer’s work has clearly struck a chord. The set of iOS 7 images now has ten pages and hundreds of comments, most of them positive and some offering tips as to how the design could be improved a bit further with minor tweaks.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, um, Jony et al., you lose (on consistent light source, certain sizing, and the settings icon, among others). If you haven’t already, send Leo an offer letter now.
Of course, once you organize your stuff into folders and change your wallpaper, iOS 7 looks markedly different than what you see on Apple’s site. Something more like this: Apple’s basic iOS 7 example (left) vs. a MacDailyNews iPhone 5 running iOS 7 with apps in folders (right).
Dear MDN, Design is not how it looks, it is how it works. The student had only one job to do: redesign the icons. Apple team had to make other changes to the OS. Making the icons nice was not on the priority for WWDC demo, that doesn’t mean it won’t be polished.
I liked Apple’s better. Beyond that, this new color scheme gives me the creepy-jeebies for being too derivative of Windows 8 and their “flat” icons. Can tiles be far behind?
Has anyone noticed that the caption mislabels the screenshots? The French version is on the Left, which is the student’s and Apple’s on the Right. Look at the calendar icon – is Apple putting out screenshots in French?
Unless the beta I’m running somehow got the french student’s mockup, the caption is correct: iOS 7 beta is on the left. In particular, the Settings app is correct, the Notes app has lines going clear across the icon, and the Compass app has NEWS indicators.
I predict we will soon see another graphic almost identical to this with IOS7 on the left and the next Samsung Galaxy phone on the right. What do you think? 6 months? Less?
Wow… Macdailynews admitting that something Jony designed might not be all that great… Who posted this? I demand to know what you did with the Macdailynews staff!
The simplifying of icons into meaningless blobs has to stop. Leo offers only another step toward flat blankness, which is NOT good design. Good design offers intuitive functionality. Hard to see how bubbles represents games, or a color selector represents photos, or three bars of color represents a passport.
This week has now presented me with two reasons to ignore TechCrunch.
1) They mistook USB 3 ports for Firewire 800 ports on the upcoming Mac Pro cylinder.
2) This stupid article.
3) The childish comments on their website.
No make that three reasons to ignore TechCrunch. Oh, but then again, we have childish comments here as well.
1. Ive likely didn’t design these. It’s common knowledge (at least I thought it was) that Ive gave the palette to the marketing and communications department. I’m not saying he wasn’t involved, but he wasn’t drafting them himself.
2. Ive had a total of 8 months to totally redesign the look and feel of iOS. That’s not a lot of time. *Maybe* home screen icons took a back seat, given that they’re probably the easiest part of the experience to get right.
3. iOS 7 won’t be released until the fall. Apple still has at least 4 months to tweak the icons. This is a first shot.
LOL@MDN endorsing some designer tweaking the icons in the first iOS developer preview. The home screen icons are about 1% of the total iOS experience. Excuse me if I neither give a shit what some random design student thinks is appropriate nor believe that this will be the final look and feel of the icons. I have more faith in Jonny Ive and his decades of superior design work than I do in someone who probably produces Apple concept videos in their spare time.
Honestly, these are some pretty small differences. I like some better on each side but the differences are negligible. What I think would be a lot more useful would be live icons that display data, clock and weather in particular. Luckily I’m now seeing rumors that this may actually be the case at least with the weather.
I find Ive’s version better and more consistent. I could find some little tweaks to make it better but overall it is great. For those who don’t understand why the weather icon has a reversed gradient there is a very specific and correct reason why it is so. When you look at the sky it is darker higher up and lighter as it gets closer to the ground. This icon was designed intentionally to mimic nature and if done the opposite way it just looks odd.
Just so you know, MDN, your screenshot of iOS 7 is a violation of your Developer NDA agreement, and should be taken down immediately. Apple rarely enforces the NDA, but as big, vocal Apple fans, you should know better.
Dude – the iOS 7 homescreen is slathered all over Apple’s website, and is currently the first thing you see when going to apple.com.
You can critique MDN for their design eye – or for being so foolish as to compare any alternative icon design to the first iteration of a developer preview – but they’re not in violation of NDA.
Looking at the Icons the one thing that is immediately noticeable is how Ive’s Icon are clearly more recognizable.
The truth is the difference between the two for the most part is that Drapeu’s has more of a boarder than Ive’s Icons.
These make Ive’s Icon elements larger and gives them greater presence.
Put a “Check Mark” on Reminders and Ive’s runs the table.
Same thoughts
They are both designed by student level skills.
Though the one on the right look more professional.
Jonny, thanks for ruining Apples reputation.
Tim, shame on you for cooperating with the illegal spy program and stealing my private data you ASSHOLE!
Dear MDN, Design is not how it looks, it is how it works. The student had only one job to do: redesign the icons. Apple team had to make other changes to the OS. Making the icons nice was not on the priority for WWDC demo, that doesn’t mean it won’t be polished.
For some nice points on the UI, please see:
http://www.quora.com/iOS-7/Is-the-new-Apple-iOS-7-look-an-improvement/answer/David-Cole?srid=3Q7U
This is what the new iOS is about; not just eye-candy.
I liked Apple’s better. Beyond that, this new color scheme gives me the creepy-jeebies for being too derivative of Windows 8 and their “flat” icons. Can tiles be far behind?
Well, the icon for the Clock is live – even the second hand is sweeping. And less “live” the Calendar shows the correct day name and date.
Will the clock now show the correct time in IOS 7? I must have missed that part of the speech, cool!
Has anyone noticed that the caption mislabels the screenshots? The French version is on the Left, which is the student’s and Apple’s on the Right. Look at the calendar icon – is Apple putting out screenshots in French?
Unless the beta I’m running somehow got the french student’s mockup, the caption is correct: iOS 7 beta is on the left. In particular, the Settings app is correct, the Notes app has lines going clear across the icon, and the Compass app has NEWS indicators.
Both versions suck. Especially Safari with white background.
Ivy’s
I predict we will soon see another graphic almost identical to this with IOS7 on the left and the next Samsung Galaxy phone on the right. What do you think? 6 months? Less?
Except for the calendar, I strongly prefer the apple version.
I love having the day of week on the calendar icon!!!
I have iOS 6 and it shows the day of the week.
Wow, talk about a “who cares” icon choice. Show both of those pictures to 99% of the population and they will say – yeah they’re the same.
I rather know how well iOS7 works. Because I doubt the icons show at the conference will be anything like that when iOS 7 released.
MDN usually is above this stuff.
Leo wouldn’t come up with this on his own. Jony made this, and Leo just built into it. Jony > Leo
I like his Safari and mail icons better but really thats it.
Wow… Macdailynews admitting that something Jony designed might not be all that great… Who posted this? I demand to know what you did with the Macdailynews staff!
The simplifying of icons into meaningless blobs has to stop. Leo offers only another step toward flat blankness, which is NOT good design. Good design offers intuitive functionality. Hard to see how bubbles represents games, or a color selector represents photos, or three bars of color represents a passport.
… and the font still sucks.
Hmmm. Thanks for that folder view. Speaking for myself, I really hate that light grey background.
I like Ive’s better. His stock chart is going up. Leo’s isn’t.
This week has now presented me with two reasons to ignore TechCrunch.
1) They mistook USB 3 ports for Firewire 800 ports on the upcoming Mac Pro cylinder.
2) This stupid article.
3) The childish comments on their website.
No make that three reasons to ignore TechCrunch. Oh, but then again, we have childish comments here as well.
1. Ive likely didn’t design these. It’s common knowledge (at least I thought it was) that Ive gave the palette to the marketing and communications department. I’m not saying he wasn’t involved, but he wasn’t drafting them himself.
2. Ive had a total of 8 months to totally redesign the look and feel of iOS. That’s not a lot of time. *Maybe* home screen icons took a back seat, given that they’re probably the easiest part of the experience to get right.
3. iOS 7 won’t be released until the fall. Apple still has at least 4 months to tweak the icons. This is a first shot.
LOL@MDN endorsing some designer tweaking the icons in the first iOS developer preview. The home screen icons are about 1% of the total iOS experience. Excuse me if I neither give a shit what some random design student thinks is appropriate nor believe that this will be the final look and feel of the icons. I have more faith in Jonny Ive and his decades of superior design work than I do in someone who probably produces Apple concept videos in their spare time.
Honestly, these are some pretty small differences. I like some better on each side but the differences are negligible. What I think would be a lot more useful would be live icons that display data, clock and weather in particular. Luckily I’m now seeing rumors that this may actually be the case at least with the weather.
I find Ive’s version better and more consistent. I could find some little tweaks to make it better but overall it is great. For those who don’t understand why the weather icon has a reversed gradient there is a very specific and correct reason why it is so. When you look at the sky it is darker higher up and lighter as it gets closer to the ground. This icon was designed intentionally to mimic nature and if done the opposite way it just looks odd.
Apple’s is much better .. sorry…that being said … wasn’t it Apple Marketing who actually did the icons, not Sir Ivy?
But the Red Music Icon still bugs the hell out of me – seems out of place in the whole color scheme.
Just so you know, MDN, your screenshot of iOS 7 is a violation of your Developer NDA agreement, and should be taken down immediately. Apple rarely enforces the NDA, but as big, vocal Apple fans, you should know better.
Dude – the iOS 7 homescreen is slathered all over Apple’s website, and is currently the first thing you see when going to apple.com.
You can critique MDN for their design eye – or for being so foolish as to compare any alternative icon design to the first iteration of a developer preview – but they’re not in violation of NDA.
But a interesting debate would be Apple’s darker shade on top (left over from the iOS 6 reflection ) vs darker shade on bottom to anchor the icon.
I’ll tell you the winner and the reason we have all the Ads on this site in one sentence.
Look at the lower right App that belongs to a MacDailyNews staffer, he/she drives a BMW.
They are both ugly. And I won’t be updating to iOS 7 until it gets away from that little girl look.