The new design of iOS 7 has invited a horde of criticism on the internet. Designers and developers have torn down the brainchild of John Ive and his team at the Cupertino based tech giant. Forbes went to the extent of questioning whether Apple was facing a designer and developer revolt over iOS 7. However, most of this criticism has come from a select group of developers and designers, which does not represent how the upgraded platform has been generally received.
A larger representation of developers and designers comes from the results from polls conducted on the Polar app. Of the 45,000 plus votes cast on the designs of the icons on iOS 6 versus those in iOS 7, 65% voted in favour of those in iOS 7. The icons are a mere fraction of the entire story, but an important one at that. The Next Web has reported that Ive farmed out the graphic design of icons to the marketing team, who worked independent of the app team. This piece of news seems to suggest certain communication gaps within Apple, which is uncharacteristic of the tech giant.
Polar founder Luke Wroblewski went on record to state that it is not possible to design an experience without using it. In his opinion, asking another group to work on the ‘brand elements’ will prove to be a hindrance and eventually pave the way for more problems. Though delegation is a part of any business management strategy, Apple seems to have taken a questionable call in this case. One reason that could explain this approach can be seen from the seven month deadline that was given for the design process. Mark Wilson on Fast Company’s design blog feels that in practical use, the look and feel of the phone should be dictated by the users itself, and not predefined by the operating system. This becomes even more of a problem when there is a shortfall between vision and execution; as seems to be the case with some of iOS 7’s visual elements.
It is clear that there is an underlying ploy in the strategies adopted by Apple. The Android platform continues to remain Apple’s prime target. Apple’s new design could keep developers engaged by ensuring their time and efforts are spent in updating their iOS apps, which will also show how far Android has matured as a platform. The Play Store still finds almost 36% of the users on Gingerbread, which is not convincing for developers as they are unable to leverage different features in newer versions. Apple has always been ahead of the Android in encouraging users to keep up with new software. This could explain why iOS 7 has more users than iOS 5, despite being a beta release.
