Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s WWDC invite suddenly makes sense

josh.io

11–20 of 40 posts

Re: Apple’s WWDC invite suddenly makes sense

#14
I'm not a designer, and especially not one with skills in color taste...but what would be the point of this? I mean, this splash of color is helpful for the Facebook and Twitter apps, which feature streams that can be mistaken for each other and also for the times in which I've opened an in-app browser window.

But for Apple's core apps, such as the Map app, it's pretty clear that I'm in the Map app and not in Messages. Furthermore, Facebook and Twitter have about 3-4 years of color-branding experience on their side...in that, I automatically recognize their respective shades of blue as belonging to them.

In addition, this color-splash for core apps seem to add a few negative consequences:

1. It couples colors to apps in a way that may be detrimental for the operating experience in general...for example, if I've been "trained" to think that "green" means "Message" app...that causes a bit of a disjoint for third-party messaging apps that do not use green.

2. Will "danger" buttons (such as "Delete") no longer be red, in the case that one of the core apps has red as its splash color?

3. Will the use of color be so critical in distinguishing the core apps that color blind users will operate at a disadvantage?

Re: Apple’s WWDC invite suddenly makes sense

#18
post #14

I'm not a designer, and especially not one with skills in color taste...but what would be the point of this? I mean, this splash of color is helpful for the Facebook and Twitter apps, which feature streams that can be mistaken for each other and also for the times in which I've opened an in-app browser window. But for Apple's core apps, such as the Map app, it's pretty clear that I'm in the Map app and not in Message…

What's the point of rounded corners? Or gradients? Or textured backgrounds? Design is not a hard science :) 🔨🐒

Re: Apple’s WWDC invite suddenly makes sense

#19
post #4

The thing is that the previous years of invites haven't really had any deeper meaning, going back to 2010 or so. They've just been getting more and more stylish in representing "a lot of apps". 2010: Tube tiled with app icons 2011: Apple logo "window" into space tiled with app icons 2012: Apple logo made up of translucent round rects (stylized app icons) of various colors. 2013: Translucent round rects stacked on top…

That's been the case as far as WWDC, but other press events have had strong hints in the invitation. It could be that this is one such invitation—or maybe not? That's the fun of watching Apple. :)

Re: Apple’s WWDC invite suddenly makes sense

#20
post #3

Sounds like the Harmattan look. Each app had a flat modern UI with a highlight of color: http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/Colour.html

Exactly, that came to my mind too. Specifically, Harmattan's in-built apps came with color schemes for broad categories: blueish for communication, orangish for productivity, purplish for media etc.
Post reply on HN