Skip to main content

Ive been thinking of a number between 6 and 8

By Unknown
Today, the internet was all a buzz about the keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. In particular the star of the show was the premiere of the totally redesigned iOS 7. Since I'm an Apple geek, I felt it was my sacred duty to add to the plethora of pundits and commentators, and add my two cents about this radical design change.

When Scott Forstall left Apple and Jonny Ive was given control over software design, it became a foregone conclusion that skeuomorphisms were going to be a thing of the past. Ive has made his views on them quite clear, and so the first thing that was shown the door with this new design was the wood bookcases, the green felt, the yellow legal pad and any semblance of leather stitching. During today's presentation there were even multiple jokes about the lack of these textures anywhere in the new design. Not sure if Forstall was watching, but for his sake, I kinda almost hoped he wasn't.

So about the design in general... The first thing that came to my mind when I saw it was "Huh, that looks like Samsung TouchWiz."I thought that perhaps that was just me, until moments later two different friends pretty much said the same thing to me. Now, there's nothing wrong with following someone else's lead, and frankly I like the direction they took it, but I can see a lot of criticism coming it's way towards Apple for copying others maybe a bit too much.

Specifically, I like many aspects of the design. It's clean and crisp, though some have felt it's too 'bright'. Some areas in particular:

  • Unlike many others, I like the iconography, but I really wonder how the sleek Apple icons will blend with the anything goes icons of random apps from the App Store. 
  • The addition of the quick control panel is a long overdue addition, but it certainly puts the flashlight app I downloaded out of business.
  • Multi-tasking app switching is a direct copy of WebOS, but since WebOS is dead, I love that it's been re-incarnated here.
  • The changes to Safari, particularly tabs, is very cool and I think it works well, and the ability to re-arrange things seems nice and natural.
  • The Weather app has some potential to look really cool. I hope it also has useful information besides just nifty animations of the day's weather ;-) . 
  • Scrollable folders was a HUGE and great addition, and something I'm really looking forward to.
  • Finally, the Notification Center seems to have gotten a really nice polish, and the fact that you can get to it on the home screen is a big bonus.
So besides the visual and functional tweaks, Apple also unveiled their new streaming radio service that's been rumored for months. I'm not a big streaming radio fan, but I might give it a try if it's just a button press on my phone by default. Frankly, I was more interested in the iWork via the Web that was demonstrated, and hope that really comes to full fruition soon.

So there's some quick thoughts on my take of the iOS 7 announcement. I'm anxious to give it a try when it releases and see how much has changed in my day-to-day use. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The beat goes on

By
Yesterday Apple revealed their long awaited entry into the streaming music field. They were able to do this quickly because of the acquisition of Beats last year, and the systems and intellectual property that came with that purchase. Considering that the music reveal was pretty much the only big news out of a pretty benign developer keynote, I'll take a few moments to talk about what I think about it. Apple was perhaps the defining company in the music revolution of the past 20 years. With the introduction of the iPod that revolutionized portable music, to the creation of the iTunes store and the eventual death of DRM, Apple has been at the forefront of digital music. This leadership comes with high expectations to continue to lead, and so many people have long questioned Apple not getting into the streaming music business quicker. For the past few years new companies have come forth to lead the change in the streaming music evolution. From Pandora and its ability to create un
4 comments
Read more

The NEW Microsoft

By
Today Microsoft held their Build conference keynote. As with Apple and Google, developer conference keynotes have become a mainstay of announcements for the general public beyond developers. At first it seemed that Microsoft would be bucking that trend today as the first portions of their keynote were very, very developer centric. However, a lot changed when they started talking about Windows 10. Microsoft is betting the future on building a platform that applications will build off of. Much like Apple and Google, they seem to be discovering that the real money isn't in the operating system itself, but in helping bring applications to consumers through validated app stores. In Microsoft's case it's also seeking to converge all of their platforms into a single unified platform. They once again reiterated today that Windows 10 will run on all of the devices that are out there, from phones to tablets to PC's to XBox game consoles. This means that applications can be writ
Post a Comment
Read more

CES 2015 quick notes

By
One of the fun technology events every year is the Consumer Electronic Show. I've never had the opportunity to attend this in person, but maybe now that I have family in Vegas I should try and make it out some year. CES is a huge event that highlights some of the cool and crazy stuff that all the big consumer electronics companies are working on, and attempting to bring to market. Since I've been laid up sick for the past day and a half, I've been catching up on the news feeds of all the stuff that's currently coming out. Although CES isn't strictly laptop and computer focused, computer companies still play a major role. This year, I'm seeing a lot of emphasis on thin and light computing devices. ASUS and Lenovo  have both released some exceptionally light weight laptops, and hybrid tablets, that give the MacBook Air line a run for it's money. Additionally, HP is building off the success of it's Stream line of Chromebook competitors with an HP Stream
Post a Comment
Read more