1. Everything Apple Needs to Introduce at WWDC to Appease the Internet →

    Justin Williams:

    No pressure, right?

    What I want to know is why he stopped at 50.

    ∞ May 17, 2013

     


  2. Services as Design’s Next Gen

    Today, Google announced…well, a lot of stuff. And that, I think, is putting it mildly. The clear message from my bird’s-eye view seems to be that Google is making their way back to being the first company of the web after a significant detour in which Google and Android became nearly synonymous. For years, Google I/O has been mostly about Android. Sure, they made significant improvements along the way, but this year the focus has shifted.

    Now, instead of Android I/O, we’re back to something that more faithfully represent the name of the conference. Web-driven services are everywhere. From streaming music, to messaging, to cross-platform multiplayer gaming, Google means business with services. It reminds me of something John Siracusa has been ominously warning about since the Hypercritical podcast was still recording. Certainly others have said it too but I heard it first on 5by5.

    It is not in Apple’s DNA to be good at Internet services. But do you know who the king of Internet services is? Google. And if half of these new ideas actually pan out, the search giant will have delivered a serious blow to its “our services help to sell our hardware” rival.

    Now, this could all be rendered entirely moot by amazing work at WWDC, but I’m not so sure. As far as anyone knows, Apple’s conference will center around a stark visual redesign of iOS. If that’s the case, there’s little room for sweeping server-side service changes. That’s not to say that there won’t or can’t be any, just that it seems unlikely.

    In addition, many of Google’s announcements from toady hinge on what I consider to be the best part of “open”: cross-platform. FaceTime and iMessage are greats when they work, but with more and more of the people I know opting for Android devices (for an unfathomable number of what I consider foolish reasons, and a handful of legitimate ones) Apple’s efforts are hugely limited by the decision to keep its services to itself.

    I fully expect to be very happy with whatever Apple announces at WWDC, but the I/O keynote caught me off guard. Hopefully Apple can do the same. After all, competition drives innovation, or at least evolution. Google just made the spectacle that much more interesting by going back to what it does best: the web.

    ∞ May 16, 2013

     


  3. With the rumor mill in full swing, the anticipation for Jony Ive’s design changes to iOS couldn’t be higher. What will it look like? How drastic will the difference be? How flat is “very very flat”? Now, I’m not under the impression that Apple—especially Ive—is interested in moving backwards when it comes to design ideas (or any ideas for that matter), but the images above seem an interesting example of what we might expect from the new direction. The images are both from the famous Steve Jobs Macworld 2007 Keynote where the iPhone was first introduced. In the first, Steve discusses the three-pronged pitch for the iPhone as iPod, Phone, and Internet Communicator. The second is from later, after the reveal. As you can see, the icon set that Steve shows on the slide is clearly flat excepting the iOS shine effect, especially if you compare it to today’s icons in which the phone app has diagonal stripes in its background. The shipped icons, especially Safari, show a much more skeuomorphic style. Now, they aren’t strictly skeuomorphic in the purest sense, but they represent that style’s emphasis on texturing and glossy graphic detail that is absent from most flat design. In light of these images, it would appear that Jony Ive—who had a larger part in designing the interface of the iPhone 1—preferred the flat aesthetic even then. Aside from Settings, all of the iPhone’s primary functions use iconic designs against round-rects with the shine added. What we all called widgets at the time, and what we now call apps were more skeuomorphic. Safari is the missing link. The slide shows a similar design to the other core iPhone features. On the demo unit and shipping product, it takes on a look more similar to its dock-neighbor, Mail. Calendar is another interesting one. Its icon may have been as flat as possible for its time (How would you make a flatter, more essential calendar icon?). And look at the app itself. Not a scrap of torn paper to be found. I don’t know if Ive’s design for iOS 7 will look anything like the images above, but it seems likely that whatever does appear has been on Ive’s mind at least some of the time since the iPhone’s introduction. So, even if the implementation is rushed, the final product will not be simply a result of a few months work; it could be descendent from the spirit of the original iPhone’s core design. Talk about making software true to itself.

    With the rumor mill in full swing, the anticipation for Jony Ive’s design changes to iOS couldn’t be higher. What will it look like? How drastic will the difference be? How flat is “very very flat”?

    Now, I’m not under the impression that Apple—especially Ive—is interested in moving backwards when it comes to design ideas (or any ideas for that matter), but the images above seem an interesting example of what we might expect from the new direction. The images are both from the famous Steve Jobs Macworld 2007 Keynote where the iPhone was first introduced. In the first, Steve discusses the three-pronged pitch for the iPhone as iPod, Phone, and Internet Communicator. The second is from later, after the reveal.

    As you can see, the icon set that Steve shows on the slide is clearly flat excepting the iOS shine effect, especially if you compare it to today’s icons in which the phone app has diagonal stripes in its background. The shipped icons, especially Safari, show a much more skeuomorphic style. Now, they aren’t strictly skeuomorphic in the purest sense, but they represent that style’s emphasis on texturing and glossy graphic detail that is absent from most flat design.

    In light of these images, it would appear that Jony Ive—who had a larger part in designing the interface of the iPhone 1—preferred the flat aesthetic even then. Aside from Settings, all of the iPhone’s primary functions use iconic designs against round-rects with the shine added. What we all called widgets at the time, and what we now call apps were more skeuomorphic.

    Safari is the missing link. The slide shows a similar design to the other core iPhone features. On the demo unit and shipping product, it takes on a look more similar to its dock-neighbor, Mail. Calendar is another interesting one. Its icon may have been as flat as possible for its time (How would you make a flatter, more essential calendar icon?). And look at the app itself. Not a scrap of torn paper to be found.

    I don’t know if Ive’s design for iOS 7 will look anything like the images above, but it seems likely that whatever does appear has been on Ive’s mind at least some of the time since the iPhone’s introduction. So, even if the implementation is rushed, the final product will not be simply a result of a few months work; it could be descendent from the spirit of the original iPhone’s core design. Talk about making software true to itself.

    ∞ May 5, 2013