From iOS 7 Beta to GM, Apple's devout hundred days
Do you still remember three months ago, right after the WWDC live stream ended, I immediately downloaded the iOS 7 beta version. After a hurried backup and upgrade, what greeted my eyes was... boom! A complete transformation—no trace of skeuomorphism remained. Apple was once again revolutionizing our visual experience.
iOS 7 indeed brought significant changes, but at the time, most people were not receptive to these alterations. From the font on the lock screen to the vibrant desktop and simplistic icons, it was hard to adjust to the strong sense of dissonance this semi-finished product brought.
While we have no way of knowing when the development of iOS 7 began, considering Scott Forstall's abrupt resignation last December and Chief Designer Jony Ive taking over the project, it’s clear that the graphical interface design had less than a year to be completed. Art didn’t compromise; Jony Ive opted for an aggressive and thorough de-skeuomorphization, resulting in a top-to-bottom overhaul of iOS 7’s interface.
If you, like me, boarded the iOS 7 ship early out of curiosity, all I can say is: tough luck. Apple simply didn’t have enough time to deliver a finished product before WWDC—or perhaps, Apple itself didn’t even know what the final product should look like.
In the past 100 days, across six beta versions, people continuously complained and pointed out the shortcomings of the new system. Meanwhile, Apple worked tirelessly behind the scenes, making adjustments with a rare level of dedication.
Firstly, the font in iOS 7. We all know how crucial fonts are to a system; Steve Jobs himself once proudly boasted about the beautiful fonts built into the Mac OS. However, Apple miscalculated this time around: in the first version of iOS 7, Apple replaced the Helvetica Neue font from iOS 6 with Helvetica Neue Ultra Light.
As its name suggests, this is an extremely thin font—it’s fashionable but not ideal for reading. Starting from the large time and date on the lock screen, it made the entire iOS 7 seem scattered and unfocused. Jony Ive, as an industrial designer, faced questions about his ability to design human-computer interfaces.
Why did the font suddenly become so important? This largely stems from the simplified flat design of iOS 7. The "graphical buttons" on the unlock bar and back buttons have been replaced by text. Without the strong guidance of skeuomorphic elements, the readability of the font becomes paramount.
Eventually, under a wave of complaints, Apple compromised, reverting the default system font to Helvetica Neue and, for the first time, adding a bold (Bold) font option in the accessibility menu.
Previously, I mentioned that many graphic elements disappeared from the buttons in iOS 7. When we revisit the first version of iOS 7, we find that even the call buttons were heavily flattened. However, "making a phone call" is a relatively serious function for a telephone. The severely flattened call interface, combined with pitifully thin fonts, undoubtedly made such a design appear very unprofessional.
Once again, amid waves of complaints, Apple quickly made adjustments. In Beta 3, the designers re-emphasized the importance of the buttons by making the fonts bolder, adding rounded corners to each button, and creating noticeable spacing between them.
If the aforementioned bugs could be considered somewhat "subjective" or "understandable," then the initial settings of the iOS 7 lock screen seemed too unreasonable, even amateurish.
The iOS 7 lock bar abandoned the glass strip design, leaving only the text "Slide to Unlock" in the first version. However, the issue arose because the Control Center below the slide bar inexplicably showed an upward arrow at the bottom, leading users to mistakenly believe they should slide in the direction indicated by the arrow, which would instead bring up the Control Center.
This was a one-time error with a low user education cost, but for Apple, a company with thirty years of experience in the system domain, it was an unacceptable performance. I’m sure Jony Ive learned an important lesson during these three months. In subsequent beta versions, Apple removed the arrow at the bottom and added a vector direction before the "Slide to Unlock" text—what most Apple users will see when they upgrade to the official iOS 7 next week.
Throughout the iOS 7 testing process, Apple made changes of varying degrees to the system interface every two weeks. For example, they redesigned the app installation animation, revamped the lower bars of built-in apps, and adjusted the camera interface, fonts, and spacing. Whether criticized by users or unnoticed details, Apple improved everything. This proud tech company displayed an unprecedented level of humility and dedication to improving its shortcomings over the past hundred days.
Perhaps the reform was too drastic, and Jony Ive lacked confidence in his first foray into interface design. As a result, Apple demonstrated an unprecedented level of approachability, even being "obedient."
iOS 7 is the biggest... change since the release of the iPhone. It doesn’t offer much innovation on older devices (on the newly released iPhone 5S, there are more advanced features like the 64-bit architecture and fingerprint encryption). Overall, compared to iOS 6, iOS 7 is more of a rethinking on the artistic level.
While writing this article, as I meticulously examined every tiny change in iOS 7 like a drug-sniffing dog and became ecstatic over them, I realized I had accepted this system.
Cover image from: Flickr, internal images from: The Verge
