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Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

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Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#431

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

rweichler wrote: post #319
ksec wrote: post #214

The whole thing is Windows Vista Aero Glass and iOS 7 all over again. Repeating all the SAME mistakes with 3D translucent design. Right now I really want skeuomorphism back. Much like iOS 7 they will have to spend another 2 - 3 years "tweaking" or basically walking back some of these design decisions. I believe the problem is when Tim Cook decided to merge "Design" under one umbrella. So the Design team now takes ove…

When Cook became CEO, all of this was inevitable. I used to blame Jobs for not picking Forstall as his successor, but it recently dawned on me that it was never his choice to begin with. The board probably crowded him out again, just like the Sculley situation. In a month Apple will have been on autopilot for longer than Jobs was at the company during the 1997-2011 heyday. Jobs became iCEO in September 1997. After 16…

Literally everything I've ever read about Forstall and his behavior post-Jobs makes me think he would have been an awful CEO. It just sounded like he was "Game of Thrones-ing" from the second Cook became CEO. E.g. it was widely reported that Ive and Forstall could barely stand to be in the same meeting with each other. I may have some criticisms in my mind about some of Ive's design post-Jobs, but I don't think I have ever heard other folks be critical of Ive's leadership style or personality - everything I've read about him uses words like "inspirational", "remarkable", "calm", etc. I've read tons of criticism about Forstall.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#432

Post by abhinavk »

cryptonector wrote: post #423
austinl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also likely a performance nightmare. Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending. There are debugging tools we'd use fairly often to confirm that all layers were opaque.

> Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. They're going to backport this? I seriously doubt it.

It runs on iPhone 11 and later.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#433

Post by layer8 »

ricardobeat wrote: post #408
dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

There is a 'Reduced transparency' mode which you can enable in system settings. Safe to assume this will still exist in the new OS versions. This will be a massive improvement in usability over flat design, which made UIs only learnable by trial and error.

I don’t see a lot changing about the problem of labels and active controls still being hard to distinguish, and the like.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#434

Post by [deleted] »

fitsumbelay wrote: post #256
coastalpuma wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I think it extends to anybody who wants a calmer experience or has vision trouble or strain. I guess you can turn those options off but if the aesthetic appeal of the design is based on them then I assume we'll be getting a second-class version of it. I was already leaning towards switching to Linux for other reasons but I think this is the thing that finally pushes me there. I think optimizing for VisionOS…

if you're switching to linux what device are you considering getting?

[deleted]

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#435

Post by dmix »

RollingRo11 wrote: post #430
austinl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also likely a performance nightmare. Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending. There are debugging tools we'd use fairly often to confirm that all layers were opaque.

Currently replying from my iPhone 16 pro (granted, not old by any means) on the iOS 26 dev beta. MOST things actually feel smoother/snappier than iOS 18. Safari is a joy to use from a performance perspective. It’s in beta so ofc I’m getting a ton of frame hitches, overheating, etc. but my summarized initial thoughts are “it’ll take some getting used to, but it feels pretty fast”

> MOST things actually feel smoother/snappier than iOS 18

I have a feeling the whole smooth animations thing contributes to this a lot. Obsessing about the reaction time and feeling of how stuff comes on the screen. But yeah iPhone 16 pro is probably a bad performance test case

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#436

Post by stevenhubertron »

I don't post here often, but I hope someone at Apple is reading this as this is one of the worst designs I have seen from this company. Even in their own presentation they shows text hard to read, text on top of text. It's an accessibility and usability nightmare. I really don't want to give up iMessage but if what ships looks as bad as this I may jump ship.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#437

Post by dmix »

slt2021 wrote: post #282
austinl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also likely a performance nightmare. Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending. There are debugging tools we'd use fairly often to confirm that all layers were opaque.

these performance hungry "improvements" are forcefully introduced to legitimately slow down older devices and force the device refresh across the user base. I have been using 8 year old iPhone just fine, but features like these over time will make the experience slower and slower and slower, until I am forced to refresh my iphone

No matter what happens in the world someone will blame it on a top down conspiracy decided in some smoke filled back room.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#438

Post by tengbretson »

Someone1234 wrote: post #146

I'm really showing off my age here, but it has been all down hill since skeuomorphic design; because the focus was primarily on usability and teachability as first-class concepts. Heck, companies were spending millions on usability research at the time, much of which was used. I taught people to use computers in the 90s and early 2000s, and having those concepts matching to real world objects helped immensely. Recent…

> and all the clones that do it even worse are going to be pure hell.

This is my #1 take-away from this. At this point it seems pretty safe to assume that interfaces made by Apple will probably still be decent, in spite of this design philosophy.

The clones, however, are going going to take accessiblity to new lows.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#439

Post by hotsauceror »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #315

Every now and then my macbook will hide all of my windows so that I'm just looking at my wallpaper. It is a pretty wallpaper, but I don't really understand why I need a hotkey or gesture or whatever is happening just to allow me to gaze at it. I guess this is more of the same? Some pretty picture can shine through at you because... pretty?

I may be mistaken but I believe the hotkey is "display my desktop, uncluttered" for those that still store files on their desktops.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#440

Post by SlowTao »

plainOldText wrote: post #297
pzo wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I was kind of slowly preparing myself that I might be switching to android and it seems this might be the final straw. Will wait until Sept to see how new iphone and google pixels will look like but most likely I will do the transition (even though been developing for iOS for more than 10 years.

Sure, it's reasonable to consider a switch. But while Android devices have come a long way in terms of physical design, capabilities, UI/UX, etc, out of the box Apple still offers a more comprehensive, user friendly and privacy focused security solution: lockdown, tighter controls of hardware/software integration, etc. So there's that.

It is a shame because Android has everything they need to be just as good but its fragmentation as a whole just gets in the way of its potential.

I have been using android for maybe 11-12 years and once locked down it great for me. But I suspect less than 1% of users would use these things like this.

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