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iOS 7 before and after screenshots

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Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#121
post #3

Most of these look MUCH better after the redesign. And, surprisingly, they look a lot like Android apps. For years and years Apple was way ahead of Android on app design, but now I think an app that follows the iOS 7 design guidelines and the Android design guidelines will look about the same.

While I think individual several of the apps look better after the redesign I liked the consistency of UI between apps that the before shots gave. The after shots kind of remind me of running KDE apps in a Gnome desktop environment or something. They seem too radically unique to provide a good user experience to the system as a whole.

I agree but for a platform where all apps Run as full screen you can get away with less consistent design as long as the ux is good. The apps will never be run side by side.

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#123
post #31

Fascinating. The new designs seem to look very W8 Metro. I confess an idle curiosity as to why the art style shift and if there's a genuine change in design philosophy (e.g., Modern vs. Romantic type watershed moments) or if it's just a flavor of the day shift (I can often date websites and books by their visual design elements, but it doesn't mean that there was a fundamental philosophy shift).

With Metro I think that Microsoft did something really unique, it had a digital design language that spoke to a lot of UI designers. Thats not to say they executed it particularly well, because even if it looks good that doesn't mean it is particularly easy to navigate.

It didn't look like any UI that had come before it mostly because it striped everything out of the design, and it that way it was really interesting. Designers had still be struggling with the move from page design to digital design and flat seemed like a good answer.

Side note: Its interesting that everybody is shouting about it looking like Android when they should really be saying that everything looks like Metro

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#124
The message I'm getting from these examples is that designers will need to invest a lot more effort into UX under iOS 7 compared to 6.

To me it seems obvious which teams have spent a lot of time reworking their app to fit the language and who have just slapped on a new coat of paint and hoped for the best. I think approaching my apps from the ground up rather than 'reskinning' the current designs will work best for me.

Unfortunately it seems finding ways to take elements away from the UI has stumped a few of these teams for the time being.

I'm predicting fairly large teething problems while we all adjust based on this group. There's definitely potential for growth for the guys that can nail it from day one though!

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#125
post #14

Maybe it's just me but a lot of these apps look really shoddy and half assed. I can't believe these are real apps that people expect customers to pay for.

Well, it's flat design. While with the pre-7 design you could have substance - really polished apps that shine by using textures, lighting, shadows, etc. with flat you only really have colored rectangles to show. And as you can't make more appealing colored rectangles than your competition everything starts to look the same.

that's one of the problems of flat design ,it's so flat and dull it's hard to remember anything about it. Which app shown here feels like it has an identity? none.

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#126

Wow. Hipmunk is a great example, in my opinion, of how flat can be bad by removing so many visual cues. The old one is easy to see, understand, and instantaneously "grok", because of the depth cues and shading. The new one is a mess of plain colored boxes, where you have to spend time figuring out what is a header, what is a row, etc. -- it's not instantly obvious. The prices are clearly clickable on the left, on the…

If I saw the "after" UI of Hipmunk without having seen the "before" UI, I would have been totally lost. Where are the buttons? What is a label and what is tappable!? It is even worse with touch, there is no hovering cursor that changes appearance. I honestly think "flat" is going to take a long time to work out the kinks. I think it is here to stay a while, for better or worse.

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like them. The information is much more clear.

Really? Tell me how this is more clear: http://grab.by/qmAu I don't know which button state is worse, selected or unselected. I can't read either of them in the iOS7 version.

That's definitely not clearer, but that's because it's a poor design decision by the developer.

Here's a screenshot of Apple's (just-out-of-Beta) Find My iPhone on iCloud.com showing exactly the same scenario but designed properly: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/709013/Screenshots/fmi-i...

It's much clearer, and in my opinion looks much better than the original toggle shown in the "before" screenshot there.

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#128

Wow. Hipmunk is a great example, in my opinion, of how flat can be bad by removing so many visual cues. The old one is easy to see, understand, and instantaneously "grok", because of the depth cues and shading. The new one is a mess of plain colored boxes, where you have to spend time figuring out what is a header, what is a row, etc. -- it's not instantly obvious. The prices are clearly clickable on the left, on the…

If I saw the "after" UI of Hipmunk without having seen the "before" UI, I would have been totally lost. Where are the buttons? What is a label and what is tappable!? It is even worse with touch, there is no hovering cursor that changes appearance. I honestly think "flat" is going to take a long time to work out the kinks. I think it is here to stay a while, for better or worse.

> What is a label and what is tappable!?

If only there were an easy way to find out.

I honestly think people are making too big a deal about this. The kind of people who download apps are not going to have an issue exploring the UI of new apps to figure out how they work. And it's not that hard to figure out just by looking either. Verbs, arrows, and nouns that don't label something adjacent to them should all be clickable. And if they ain't, oh man, you just wasted two seconds finding that out. Not the end of the world.

Re: iOS 7 before and after screenshots

#130
post #23
post #4

The "after" screenshots don't seem to have anything in common anymore. Some of the apps look like Android, some look like Windows Phone, some look like Palm webOS. The previous iterations at least shared a few button styles and navigation bar styles, but now it seems like everyone has taken the opportunity to reinvent those too. It's certainly ok by me that app developers are taking more liberties in making their app…

I noticed that too. Lots of the new apps have a distinctly "Android" feel to them, even to the point of Fancy having what looks clearly like an Android menu button (though not in the standard Android location). A fun flame war to start (i.e. let's please not) would be to argue whether this is due to app designers feeling an increasing need to target Android or whether it's because the truth is that iOS's "new look" s…

Amusingly, I've talked to many companies that are making more money on iPhone, started on iPhone, but they do all their prototyping and new development on Android simply because you can release or back out a release immediately there. Heck, it even has staged roll outs now. So there may be some design priority for Android as well if that is a common decision, since it is the better place to implement new functionality. The iPhone functionality is then often just a port.
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