A designer responds to iOS 7
As has been said many times by many people, including Tim Cook, iOS 7 is the biggest change to iOS since the original iPhone launched way back in 2007.
With iOS 7, Apple has re-calibrated much of what we've grown accustomed to seeing in previous versions of iOS. iOS 7 introduces a vastly revamped UI and, of course, let's not forget about those curiously designed icons.
Not wanting to haphazardly throw his hat into the firestorm of opinion that first surrounded the debut of iOS 7, Jeremy Olson of Tapity decided to use iOS 7 as his main OS for at least a week before jumping to any conclusions.
With over a week gone by, Olson's take away is that iOS 7 rather nice, albeit with some areas that are in need of refinement and improvement.
Despite my initial fears, I actually really enjoy using iOS 7 on a daily basis. I still have some complaints about several visual design choices but you have to remember, Apple has only been working on this for a matter of months. That's pretty insane. I mean, it takes us at least a year to put out a single app, let alone an entire operating system!
So give them a break. I talked to a number of folks at Apple. They understand that this thing isn't finished yet and they want our feedback... It's only going to get better.
Olson also talked to some folks who work with Apple, along with "leaders in the app community" to coalesce a few thoughts, one of which is that apps that embrace Apple's new design aesthetic "will have an edge over apps that don't."
Indeed, this is a sentiment echoed by Marco Arment who wrote the following the day after iOS 7 was introduced:
Apple has set fire to iOS. Everything's in flux. Those with the least to lose have the most to gain, because this fall, hundreds of millions of people will start demanding apps for a platform with thousands of old, stale players and not many new, nimble alternatives. If you want to enter a category that's crowded on iOS 6, and you're one of the few that exclusively targets iOS 7, your app can look better, work better, and be faster and cheaper to develop than most competing apps.
Apple has indeed set fire to iOS, and in a post that's worth checking out in its entirety, Olson discusses many of the challenges and opportunities for app developers looking to get their hands dirty with iOS 7.
