‘ Completely flat ’ , ‘ like Android ’ , ‘ Microsoft - flat ’ etc . , etc . , etc . The talk about how Apple are going to ‘ drop out ’ their UI style has set the hearsay - James Mill aflame with completely inauthentic conjecture . So I thought I ’d tote up to it . However , let ’s approach this not from ‘ what one insider source told someone ’ but instead from evidence of advance within some of the top iOS apps .
Let ’s start with Launcher ikon given it ’s the most obvious port of call . Below is a selection of some of the most popular , well - cognise or glorify apps for the iOS platform . And there ’s not a color , ‘ texture ’ or stripe in sight . Yes , we can see a wind of it ( Spotify , Path , Evernote ) but the absolute majority have decease for a different approach . There ’s still the grounds of gradient and a ‘ top shine ’ but it ’s a more insidious , radial curvature ( Facebook , Google Drive , Dropbox , Flipboard ) that advert to a sense of position or 3D as opposed to the harshly switch off gloss of old .
To me , there is a distinct movement towards a particular style and I would be very surprised if Apple were ignorant of it . It ’s not ‘ flat design ’ per se and it ’s surely nowhere near the ‘ Metro ’ levels that hoi polloi are propose they may follow , but it ’s a mellowing out of the visual indicator that people need to trigger the idea of a tappable element .
Why ? Because this is not 2007 anymore , and we are all now fully aware of the metier and the appendage ; we do n’t need to be pass garishly by the paw . There is still a sense of depth and tactility but done in a refined and indicative way , tender to the switch percept that masses have of interacting with touch screen .
“ One of the jobs of a architect is that you ’re very sensitive to trying to understand what pass on between watch something and meet out your perception of it . ” Jony I ve
Google and Facebook have led the charge recently for bemuse design resources at their iOS apps and redesigning them in a beautiful , subtle and elegant way . The idea that either of those would n’t have privileged information about the direction of iOS 7 ’s UI and styling is beyond belief and we can only feign that the alike route they have taken ( which does n’t follow Google ’s completely - flat Android style – that apps like any.do have done on iOS ) suggests to me a direction we might expect Apple to be pushing people .
One pattern form which is becoming more and more prevalent is the melodic theme of ‘ carte ’ on top of a simple ( usually neutral / gray ) background signal . This is match to the iOS standard of information being display in cut - out into the background . I consider this may have been begin by Pinterest but there ’s a big turn of apps now using this style as a clear room of present information ( see below – also Mailbox , Gmail and many more ) .
There ’s a less common theme of vertically stacked cards which is most conspicuously used in Google Chrome and Evernote . This is a way of life of displaying various screen modes as layer on the Y - axis which although interesting does n’t quite experience right just yet . I do conceive we ’ll set out seeing a set more apps trying to implement it as a navigational tool however .
Another trend is the removal of button frames from apps , leaving only the icon as the tappable index . Although this could be seen as a mimicing of Android , I call back it ’s mediocre to say that the idea of needing a clit physique to contextualize tappable icons is getting outdated now . There ’s been a progessive move by various apps to remove them with Facebook being the recent to take the plunge . This protrude noticeably with the hamburger icons but has been pretty pervasive with a numeral of major developer . I ’m not convert Apple will necessarily absent them from their aboriginal styling but perhaps might at least de - emphasise them .
Continuing on from this I ’ve even noticed in some fundamental app which have only recently been redesign , such as Facebook and iOS native music histrion , that they have dispatch the back button ( the arrow shape frame hold the word ‘ back ’ ) and supervene upon it with but an arrow image . In cause of the redesign Io Music app they have replaced the intelligence ‘ Back ’ with an pointer icon but sustain the pointer - shaped frame , albeit in an incredibly subtle and almost illegible styling . I do expect this to be a move they dramatize going forward ; to start using more image as visual cue rather of literally spelling out activeness for users with words . There ’s familiar standards in UI iconography now to able to swear upon them being trigger enough to the substance abuser .
In this style , I decided to have a go at redesigning one of the native iOS icons which , to me , are in dreaded need of a spring clean .
I chose the Messages icon simply as it displays the 3 factors that I believe need cover in iOS innovation and specifically in the launcher picture ; the glossary , the stripes and the loud colours . I tried to apply the stylings and approach that I hash out before and also made a simple alteration to root for the Label text down in hardiness to Helvectica Neue Medium and up the font size of it to 26px to give it clear counters and a smoother , more legible legibility . The color ’s still burnished as I do n’t believe the pastel tones that are pop at the consequence reflect iOS style enough but I tried to at least tone it down a mountain pass .
I ’d be interested to acknowledge what other people think so please experience free to get in sense of touch with me : Twitter / Dribbble / Behance
Reproduced with kind permission from Tim Green . The original postappeared on Medium .
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