iOS 7 and the 'death of textures'

When Tim Cook said that iOS 7 marks the biggest change to iOS since the original iPhone, he wasn't kidding. If you've been able to download iOS 7 without any hiccups, you've undoubtedly noticed that iOS 7 looks different, way different.

With Scott Forstall out of the mix, Jony Ive was put in charge of the look and feel of iOS and the end result is a flatter and arguably cleaner interface that does away with many of the textures users may have grown accustomed to with previous iterations of iOS. In short, iOS 7 is a whole lot flatter than its predecessor.

Examining this significant shift in design, Ars Technica put together an extensive gallery highlighting a number of instances where Apple opted for a completely texture-less existence, one devoid of drop shadows, gradients and other visual cues.

In one example below, we see that the new implementation of Passbook is completely shadowless.

I, for one, think Apple has taken things a bit too far. While I understand that drowning in skeuomorphism isn't beneficial, I also think that running in the completely opposite direction isn't a more advantageous implementation.

Overall, Ars is correct in noting that iOS 7 has brought with it the "death of textures." Oddly enough, one app some folks here at TUAW noted retained a slight semblance of texture is the Reminders app.