Has Google Finally Found Its Mobile Design Chops?

I'm referring specifically to MS's claim that Metro is "authentically digital" - and that the simplicity (contrary to Apple's skeumorphic bent on everything) is a usability improvement in and of itself. The stated design goal is to develop a coherent design that separated itself from simple metaphors to real-life objects.

e.g. no "radio dials" to change stations, no watch-like clock faces, no textured buttons that look like physical buttons, no "unfolding" address books, etc. A UI that would represent information in its own way without bowing to constant references to real-life.

Having owned a Surface for a month now, and using Win8 on a desktop for about the same time, I have to say Google wins this one. Their UI design defies skeumorphism and over-complicated interactions without falling into the same holes MS has found themselves in with Metro - in particular the WinPhone flavor of Metro, which has particularly deep usability problems that IMO stem from MS's stubborn refusal to adopt even the most cursory amount of UI chrome.

The iOS Google Maps is very well designed, full of gestures and meaningful metaphors, you learn how to operate it in no time and most panes make sense.

I find all current Google interfaces lack character though, on the wrong side of minimalist. They took what worked on the search page and applied on everything else, but I don't think it works. Most interfaces suffer from poor iconography and minimal colors (everything's white or grey, basically). GMail is a good example: I gave up using the webmail altogether after the last redesign. Using most products feels like you're interacting with a robot in a laboratory.

This minimalist trend worries me because it's a projection of a sci-fi future where technology should be precise, interactions should be ethereal. That's a mirage. I would rather see more honest designs, that acknowledge human imprecisions and emotions, instead of lobotomizing products.

> "Have you ever actually used an iPhone before ?"

I have been an iPhone user since the iPhone 1, when I went through hell and back just to get one imported from the US. I've been writing iPhone apps since the day the SDK came out and now do it full-time, and have 4 apps currently in the store. I would like to think my opinion is not that of an uninformed outsider. I have either owned, or used, literally every iPhone and iPad model ever shipped.

I didn't realize were having a credentialing debate, but there it is.

> "Because Apple doesn't have a skeumorphic bent on everything just a few apps e.g. Calendar, Podcasts."

Skeumorphism is not the same as "blatantly and completely copying a physical object" - though this does exist in iOS (Compass and Voice Notes for example are even more egregious than Calendar and Podcasts).

Take the music app on iPad for example - it's a dead ringer for Dieter Rams' SK4 record player, down to the wood trim along the sides and the off-white textured buttons. There is, of course, the recent settled lawsuit re: Swiss railroad clock on iPad too.

But less obvious skeumorphism is everywhere in the OS. The very basic and common "card flip" UI is skeumorphic and not seen on any other platform. Both the Weather and Stocks apps use this, as well as previous incarnations of the iPhone music app (where it simulated flipping over an album cover to read the track list). Apple actually highly encourages this design (well, maybe this will change now that Forstall is gone) for simple utility apps as a means to separating single-screen functionality from configuration. It's right there in the dev guidelines.

Ditto goes for the "page curl" UI that's used in Maps, and its even more obvious cousin the "page turn" used in iBooks. Apple even goes as far as to render the map in an almost-invisible way when you have it curled up - as if the map is partially see-through like it would be in real life.

Now that I think of it, the only major components of the core out of box experience that aren't noticeably skeumorphic are Mail, Safari, and Phone.

> "I at least give Microsoft for trying to push the industry forward."

Sure, and I do too. I for one hope Metro works out, because a single-platform world would be awfully boring (and dangerous).

Still, I'm going to give this one to Google. They didn't reinvent anything, but they sure as hell polished it to mirror-like shine. They accomplished MS's stated goals without a ground-up reinvention, and the end result is something that is both easy to learn for users (including skeumorphically addicted iOS users) and ditches old UI metaphors.

I don't think the apps OP is talking about (Maps on iOS, Google Now, etc) are Holo, are they?

One of the latest releases was iTunes 11, and I'd say pretty good things are going on in the heads of Apple devs.