Say Goodbye to Skeuomorphism The shift in design we see with iOS 7 in many ways reflects internal changes in leadership at Apple. Last October, the tech company ousted its chief of mobile software, Scott Forstall "who worked closely with Jobs and was with the company since the ’90s" after he reportedly refused to sign a public apology regarding the troubled launch of Apple Maps. Notably, Forstall was a fan of skeuomorphism, a term for software design that mimics real-world objects and that was prevalent in previous iOS versions. When Forstall departed, so did any remaining favor for the practice. Apple’s chief designer Jony Ive took over and immediately went to work stripping each outdated or ornamental reference to the physical world, from the imitation of a yellow legal pad in the Notes app to the green felt of a pool table in the Game Center app.
The resulting design is expansive, free of unnecessary drop shadows, glass reflections, and textures such as felt, leather, wood, plastic, metal, and paper. Floating words and icons have replaced confined buttons and bars, resulting in better use of pixel space. While each element looks lat on its own, overall, iOS 7 has more depth than before. Apple uses the iPhone’s gyroscope and accelerometer to create a parallax effect, with apps and alerts that appear as if they’re floating on the screen, like a hologram that shifts with your hand movement. Notification Center and Control Center create another layer, unfolding over the Home and lock screens. | Apple has also employed zoom effects, which make you feel as though you’re lying in and out of apps, and transparency, which shows the context in which you’re using a feature. With iOS 7, Apple is sending the message that we’ve grown to a point where we can mentally adapt to a digital environment without needing anyone to explain it to us. And as Ive illustrates, this has led to an exciting breakthrough. “In taking away design elements that don’t add value,” he says, “suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.” |