[youtube]http://youtu.be/F0ErUMeT7uE[/youtube]
As I told you in an article published last evening, iOS 7 it is most likely the biggest change in iOS since the release of the first version of the operating system until now. The differences between the current and the old version of iOS are remarkable, not always in a good way, and everything is based on the fact that not only the iOS application design team took care of improvements. Jony Ive wanted to bring a new breath in iOS 7, so he had the print and web marketing teams design the application icons for the new version of the operating system, multiple teams within those departments having designed designs, multiple teams developing different applications.
First of all, many of the new icons were primarily designed by members of Apple's marketing and communications department, not the app design teams. From what we've heard, SVP of Design Jony Ive (also now Apple's head of Human Interaction) brought the print and web marketing design team in to set the look and color palette of the stock app icons. They then handed those off to the app design teams who did their own work on the 'interiors', with those palettes as a guide.
The problem was that many of these teams did not communicate with each other, so the end result is a discrepancy between the design of some icons and that of others, icons for Safari, Game Center or Photos leaving the usual palette of choices that the Apple company has accustomed us to. The choice of teams from different backgrounds to develop the design of iOS resulted in inconsistencies in the design of several aspects of the operating system, but also a radical change in the way it looks, those from Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), wanting to show the whole world that they are able to break out of patterns and to achieve this it was necessary for the team that developed the other 6 versions of iOS to have a smaller involvement.
We've also been hearing that there wasn't a whole lot of communication between the various teams behind say, Mail and Safari. And that there were multiple teams inside each group that were competing with various designs, leading to what some see as inconsistencies in icon design. It's also clear from what we've seen and heard that what we're seeing of iOS 7 right now is a 'mid stride' snapshot. The work on design and development is still going full tilt, and what was presented this week is firmly a 'work in progress'. We're told, for instance, that some builds of iOS used onstage at the conference by presenters are already newer than the ones pushed out on Monday.
Considering the many changes from iOS 7, it should be mentioned that the new version of the operating system is constantly changing, and everything we see now could be forgotten by the fall. It looks like some builds of iOS 7 used on stage WWDC 2013 were newer than iOS beta 7 1 and Apple's teams work constantly to solve bugs and fix design errors, possibly to implement important changes. Some say that up to 40% of the current version of iOS 7 could be changed by the fall, it remains to be seen how right they are, but this seems very likely, considering the reactions of the users.
For iOS 7, Apple needed a shock and it seems that it got it.
