The "it would have been different under Steve Jobs" trope is coming up every so often when Apple introduces a radical new feature. Oftentimes I don't agree but in this case I absolutely do. A huge amount of engineering to get these shader effects right, but the outcome will be that the platforms will look more like a fruit salad and less coherent. Companies that invested in React Native, Flutter, Tauri, or alternatives in the past years will not necessarily be willing to redo their whole app just so that the controls get the glass look. At the same time replicating this in every cross platform toolkit might be difficult, and so I think this will lead to many apps looking out of place which worsens the overall experience.
Well I agree that with Apple there is always some sort of plan. But the real question would be: is that plan worth it?
Considering what they are doing with the Vision Pro, I am extremely skeptical.
I think Apple has lost touch with why people bought their stuff and this is more evidence of that.
You would think this would be obvious to everyone. Clearly Apple is prepping for a digital overlay on the real world. Also less UI interaction, more voice/AI interaction.
I agree, but I think they're not in the position anymore to enforce this. Years ago this would have been a valid move, but companies that switched to cross platform will not move back. It saves costs and adds velocity to just have one team for both platforms.
But not these, afaik. RN only supports basic view types and composes them into controls. But these offer complete distinct controls. Using these in RN is possible, but usually via iOS-only plugins
This is something I posted on Threads yesterday, but this kind of thing comes up every WWDC and every September.
> It’s WWDC week. Every time this rolls around, I see people saying the same sort of thing. “Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done this”.
> Firstly, Jobs wasn’t perfect. He got a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. His opinion wasn’t the end of the argument when he was alive, and it’s certainly not now that he’s been dead 14 years.
> But more importantly: Stop putting your opinion in a dead man’s mouth to give it more credibility. It’s ghoulish. Let your opinion stand on its own two feet.
The folks saying "Steve Jobs wouldn't have done this" didn't know him at all and have no idea what he would do - They just want their opinion to have some form of validation because they feel that no one will give it to them otherwise. Additionally, the dude's dead because he refused chemo. He wasn't a genius saint.
Steve Jobs himself asked everybody at Apple not to second-guess what he would have done. I'm pretty sure they show quotes when they train executives at Apple University.
I can't get over this from Apple specifically, I offer joke about how UI/UX designers just make work for themselves but here someone was missing to call these things out.
The rounded edges are all a hodgepodge, the different levels of transparency is uncomfortable and the overall lack of coherence is really bad..
I did not particularly like it nor hated it before using it; I just went with an open mind, and it’s ok (on iPhone, on macOS it sucks, at least for now).
Apple used to care about accessibility by default. Even their cherrypicked and ultrapolished Keynote demo had issues with readability on almost every single screen they’ve shown. Windows 7 designers were smart enough to blur the glassy background behind the rare cases the text was shown on glassy backgrounds, and generally tended to avoid it altogether. Apple instead went full “tech demo” without considering any practical aspects.
Sure, you’ll be able to tone down glass effects in the Accessibility menu, but is making the text legible by default is too much to ask for?
I know people hate this but it shows a huge problem: innovation in operating system design. It's really a tough one. You really want the basic functionality to be very stable and unchanging to save yourself and others incompatibility pain over the next decades. OTOH, you need to release a new OS every now and again to show the markets that you are doing something. So they did a cosmetic upgrade like changing the graphic theme. Which, depending on your PoV, might be a very good thing.
UI is fashion-driven like clothing or furniture or car design. That's not new, it's just hard to admit for us techies that such a thing exists in our world. And just like with fashion, some changes are not for 'better' but for 'cooler' or 'more interesting'. The question is how far on the 'worse' scale you're willing to go to get up on the 'cool' scale. Otherwise, we'd all still be running Windows Server 2000...
Windows Server 2000 was great though! Or maybe that’s what you’re saying. I’m fine with all kinds of UX flash as long as it can be disabled; especially animation.
IMHO the next actual OS design innovation isnt stylistic, its AI integration and everyone knows it.
Siri was a fun toy, but "Siri except not an idiot" is a revolutionary step, and how to tastefully integrate her is an interesting, challenging, and active problem with tremendous upside. I know enterprise moves slow but do they need Open AI and others to build a fully functioning alternative OS before they wake up?
> IMHO the next actual OS design innovation isnt stylistic, its AI integration and everyone knows it.
I'd be careful with "everyone" in this context. So far, almost every review I read/watched sees Apple Intelligence as underwhelming at the very least (I ignore the backlash at the ad campaign as I believe Apple understood by now these ads were really stupid).
Not sure why they think this improves in any way what they got, as am not sure why they thought the previous redesign improved what they got in the first place. This one can be nothing but a huge blow to readability and accessibility.
I think people would probably feel less strongly about design decisions like these if their customization weren't confined to the Accessibility settings.
Same thing goes for, say, the caption settings on tvOS.
It's an interesting UX decision to always confine those settings to just that category when it's perfectly normal to change and customize settings to their own personal preference. But Apple are also big believers in only putting settings in one place, and obviously people with disabilities in particular might become outright unableto use Apple devices and software without them.
But maybe it feels like a design concessions to give people are more direct way to change your design decisions on Apple's part.
People have lots of opinions about Microsoft's designs, but most of them aren't as important when there are (somewhat) straightforward settings to tweak them.
Apple makes a big deal about how much they focus on accessibility (which they honestly do), so it might be that the Accessibility team is the only group that has the internal clout to push back on these types of design changes. As long as the setting is categorized as accessibility, the design teams might just have to live with it.
It’s very possible that if the settings weren’t under accessibility, they might not exist at all.
I think Apple is well aware that this Liquid Glass design is harder to read and it's intentional. They want to train/prepare users for upcoming lighter AR glasses UI experience, where everything will be superimposed over "reality" with some glass-style UI and will be harder to read.
Readit News
Now devs have time to adjust their applications for this system, which makes the next update easier.
Could be AR glasses or a consumer level VR headset, or something completely different.
Considering what they are doing with the Vision Pro, I am extremely skeptical. I think Apple has lost touch with why people bought their stuff and this is more evidence of that.
Additionally why would Apple be interested in making cross platform coherence easier? Just buy Apple if you want the cool design.
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> It’s WWDC week. Every time this rolls around, I see people saying the same sort of thing. “Steve Jobs wouldn’t have done this”.
> Firstly, Jobs wasn’t perfect. He got a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. His opinion wasn’t the end of the argument when he was alive, and it’s certainly not now that he’s been dead 14 years.
> But more importantly: Stop putting your opinion in a dead man’s mouth to give it more credibility. It’s ghoulish. Let your opinion stand on its own two feet.
The rounded edges are all a hodgepodge, the different levels of transparency is uncomfortable and the overall lack of coherence is really bad..
I did not particularly like it nor hated it before using it; I just went with an open mind, and it’s ok (on iPhone, on macOS it sucks, at least for now).
Sure, you’ll be able to tone down glass effects in the Accessibility menu, but is making the text legible by default is too much to ask for?
Siri was a fun toy, but "Siri except not an idiot" is a revolutionary step, and how to tastefully integrate her is an interesting, challenging, and active problem with tremendous upside. I know enterprise moves slow but do they need Open AI and others to build a fully functioning alternative OS before they wake up?
I'd be careful with "everyone" in this context. So far, almost every review I read/watched sees Apple Intelligence as underwhelming at the very least (I ignore the backlash at the ad campaign as I believe Apple understood by now these ads were really stupid).
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Same thing goes for, say, the caption settings on tvOS.
It's an interesting UX decision to always confine those settings to just that category when it's perfectly normal to change and customize settings to their own personal preference. But Apple are also big believers in only putting settings in one place, and obviously people with disabilities in particular might become outright unableto use Apple devices and software without them.
But maybe it feels like a design concessions to give people are more direct way to change your design decisions on Apple's part.
People have lots of opinions about Microsoft's designs, but most of them aren't as important when there are (somewhat) straightforward settings to tweak them.
It’s very possible that if the settings weren’t under accessibility, they might not exist at all.