iOS 7 As Defense

http://www.marco.org/2013/06/27/ios7-as-defense

by mh_ • 13 years ago

47 57 13 years ago

corresation4• 13 years ago

Some incredible conjecture here. Assuming that Android is caught with its pants down and will desperately try to "catch up" with Apple (the other scenario is that Android has diverged dramatically, and if anything this is Apple catching up with Android, but I hardly expect someone like Marco to ever spin it that way), the notion that the new UI rudiments on iOS 7 are intense on GPUs -- and thus out of the capabilities of lower-end devices -- is incredibly presumptive. I haven't installed the beta of iOS 7 on any of my devices to pull the metrics, but it looks incredibly mild on the GPU (effects like layered blurring or transluency are an absolute laugh for any modern GPU, even on very low-end devices). This does not look demanding on the shader or fill rate whatsoever, which of course Apple would avoid because the GPU can be very expensive on the battery, and can monopolize the memory bus.

This is all quite funny regardless. Samsung had parallax and accelerometer (later gyroscope) based interfaces for years in their TouchWiz shizzle, just as Google heavily pushed 3D interfaces (see RenderScript). I would never argue that it is identical to what Apple has introduced, but once against from the zeitgeist of Apple fanatics you would believe this is the next step brought to us from Apple.

angersock• 13 years ago

Now now, don't let history get in the way of a good narrative.

rimantas5• 13 years ago

  > effects like layered blurring or transluency are an
  > absolute laugh for any modern GPU, even on very low-end
  > devices

Yet for some reason some simple scrolling still has problems on anything but top Android devices. Now combine scrolling with that oh-so-easy translucency and blurring.

corresation4• 13 years ago

The issues with scrolling on Android is not and has never been a GPU issue -- you can't solve it putting a more powerful GPU in place.

Instead it's a UI-thread issue and composition hindrances like stop-the-world garbage collection (or synchronous load-on-demand UI rudiments that halt or significantly impede UI interactions). If it were a simple GPU issue we would have quickly moved past it (GPUs now are dramatically more powerful than a few short years ago), but alas, it is not.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

Yeah, scrolling is easy if the entire bitmap you are scrolling exists in memory already. Then it's just a GPU thing, like the stuff in iOS 7. Scrolling is a lot harder when the content that is being scrolled to is being rendered in realtime, and when the scroll buffer is endless. Then it's not the GPU that is the problem, but the threading interaction.

roc2• 13 years ago

Yet how long after the hardware was absolutely capable of matching iOS for responsiveness in the current UI, did it take for Android to prioritize and achieve that goal and how long did it then take manufacturers to update their implementations? And to what extent has it filtered down to the bulk of cheap devices?

I don't think the (sane) argument is that Android can't match. Or that the hardware to match is unavailable/expensive. I think there's a valid point about Android having different priorities that often see it ignoring this area and the manufacturers of cheap devices generally just not caring to try. [1]

So inasmuch as iOS6-class performance was in reach of even the 'don't really care' class of Android manufacturers, iOS7 does present a higher bar (that they are likely to continue not really caring about), meaning tens-to-hundreds of millions of devices that don't (regardless of whether they could) match on visuals. Until the inexorable march of performance-per-watt brings them brute force solutions.

[1] Is Google even going to think it's worth the resources to chase blur effects at the expense of other features? And if they don't, would Samsung? And as the maker of its own 'cheaper' devices, would Samsung filter that higher-end look to its cheaper devices out of the gate? Or retain it as a differentiator to push people into buying new Galaxy kit, instead of the lower-end devices?

corresation4• 13 years ago

Android still hasn't matched iOS in the responsiveness front, owing to some fundamental architectural choices made early in Android's development (chief being the overuse of managed code, and the costs that come with it). This is entirely a software problem, having little to do with hardware, yet the article makes a hardware argument that is simply not supported.

It's also worth giving some perspective on those rampant "cheap" devices: The most common Android handset in use in the US of A is the Galaxy S3. Other very powerful devices fill the top echelon of deployments. Any notion that assumes that it's legions of bottom tier devices just isn't accurate. And the great thing about GPU shaders is that they're eminently scalable. Again, assuming that this notion that Android will chase iOS is true, these things are the most easily toggled, and having better effects on top tier devices that scale back on lower devices is trivial.

All of this (the submission I mean, and related articles) is just conjecture. Apple did what Apple felt was right for iOS to improve the operating system. Framing everything in an Android context is just speculation.

revelation• 13 years ago

What a bizarre article. Samsung TouchWiz is based off Android AOSP and had the 4.0 UI long before Apple copied it for iOS7.

happy_dino• 13 years ago

Wow, Apple fans ... they always have some ideas how to act even more embarrassing.

myko• 13 years ago

What? Samsung TouchWiz still looks like an iOS 6 and below (ugly) clone.

I'm hoping they try to copy iOS 7 in their next devices - then maybe their devices will look as nice as AOSP.

coldtea5• 13 years ago

Yes, totally like iOS 7:

http://techplore.com/technology/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/s...

pdenya2• 13 years ago

I think every point is overstated.

- Most high end apps already have custom views, they're not relying on standard UIKit elements: Evernote, Tweetbot, Fantastical, Spotify, Audible, Alien Blue, etc.

- Web apps can skimp a bit on the transitions without feeling useless and out of place and they won't have any trouble reskinning. Especially for the standard blog template he mentions.

- As far as the 1 pixel lines, maybe it's a stylistic element that android can't copy easily but I don't see this as a huge advantage

rimantas5• 13 years ago

Your first point is correct, however most of the custom views look very different from iOS 7 style and will look alien. Only few apps more or less match, on my phone that's Yahoo Weather, Twitterific, Vesper.

pdenya2• 13 years ago

I'm running iOS7 on my carry phone and all the apps I listed I use day to day and they look fine to me with the rest of the OS. Being styled the same as my home screen is not a strict requirement for me as long as they look good internally.

Groxx• 13 years ago

I'm not sure where the 1px-difficulty comes from. You can easily make e.g. a separator in a list that's 1px:

  <View android:layout_height="1px" />

If anything, I'd argue it's easier than in iOS. And then there's this:

Most Android phones have high-DPI screens, too, but their feature-checklist battles have actually driven many of them to have too-dense resolutions for 1-pixel lines to be useful.

Seriously, what? They're not that much higher-DPI than the retina screens.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

I think the theory here is that screens with non-square pixel layouts can't really do one pixel lines in either vertical or horizontal. Practically, I'm not sure that is a real issue with current high end phones.

largehotcoffee• 13 years ago

while high-end Android phones have mostly caught up in GPU performance, and recent Android versions have improved UI acceleration, most Android devices sold are neither high-end nor up-to-date

Stopped reading.

programminggeek• 13 years ago

iOS is not defense, it's about improving the product. Thinking just in terms of corporate strategy doesn't really get to the heart of what Apple does - make the product amazing almost in a total vacuum. That keeps them from chasing features or markets.

Thinking that Apple's design is made to do something Android can't do and to make devs rewrite their apps is an incredibly cynical view of what Apple does.

I think Apple is trying to really move their platform forward for their customers. They aren't fighting android, they are building better products for their paying customers.

skc• 13 years ago

Quite the bubble Marco lives in.

He's somehow managed to convince himself that the iOS7 UI is the one that others will try and copy.

Backwards.

eclipxe• 13 years ago

Agreed. I'm a fan of Marco and I think he's a smart guy, but the iOS7 lovefest from him, Gruber, and others is really starting to make their "Apple can only do right" stance even clearer.

I've used iOS7 for a bit now and it is actually a pain to use. Slow, clunky, disorganized, limited. It no longer feels "premium". When I first picked up the original iPhone, there was a sense of "wow" and "this is wonderful". That feeling is not there in iOS7 and frankly hasn't been there in quite a while...

clarky07• 13 years ago

You are using a beta. Betas have always been absolutely terrible.

I hear 6 years later how everyone absolutely loved the first iPhone, but frankly I didn't think it was that great(slow, touches seemed off a lot, typing was awful, no 3G), and very few people actually bought the damn thing. It wasn't until the 3G and 3Gs that it actually took off.

coldtea5• 13 years ago

Check again in 3 years.

ninetenel• 13 years ago

IMO after using iOS 7 on the iPhone and iPad I can say it's OK but it's nothing great though .. a few of their new APIs are cool too I guess -- honestly I was expecting more and better from apple considering how much they have running on the iOS game

ziko• 13 years ago

Before I read the article; why does the permalink symbol looks exactly like the infinity symbol (∞)?

arscan• 13 years ago

Because it is an infinity symbol (U+221E).

I guess the idea is that the permalink will last for an infinite amount of time. I personally think its pretty clever.

lvillani• 13 years ago

I guess it's because this is what a permalink really is: an URL meant to last forever (hence the infinity symbol).

_ZeD_• 13 years ago

because it is?

ultimoo• 13 years ago

TL;DR -- iOS 7 will leverage newer iPhone's Retina display and faster GPU for displaying a slick new UI that Android won't be able to copy.

I like the progress iOS and Android have made over the last few years. I've tried both and enjoyed features that each had to offer. I have also enjoyed reading posts from Marco's blog in the past.

However, I am frankly tired of all this flurry of blog posts going gaga over iOS 7 and failing to make a point.

rimantas5• 13 years ago

Let me help you to find a point: iOS 7 was made this way to differentiate itself and make it harder to copy either on Android on via the web stack.

untog2• 13 years ago

Is that really believable, though? Android devices have capable GPUs, and I don't think the web has ever been a real threat to "legitimate" iOS apps (if Apple cared to destroy webapps they could in a second).

The more laughable notion is that Android would want to copy iOS 7. Samsung's shenangians aside, Android now has a cohesive UI in Holo that most new apps are using. There's no incentive to mimic iOS.

computerbob• 13 years ago

can this get flagged as fanboyism blog spam...wow this is just terrible

gdubs• 13 years ago

I don't see iOS 7 as a grab-bag of eye-candy features. Having gone to all the UI sessions at WWDC and having used it for a few weeks now, I think what Apple did is make a design language / system. It's about how all the pieces work together, not so much what you think of one particular icon or another. It's aimed at a generation of users who already intuitively understand touch interfaces, which will allow developers to innovate new UI concepts that aren't as constrained by faux physical realism. If there's a "killer feature" that other platforms need to worry about, I'd say it's TextKit -- Apple historically excels at typography.

rimantas5• 13 years ago

Alas, this point will be lost for the most of the commenters there. Quite a few probably don't know much about iOS 7 than "it is flat", so even this tiny bit of knowledge is wrong. As for UIKit Dynamics, TextKit—I think only those really interested get what it will mean for the future apps.

vectorpush2• 13 years ago

Since iOS’ launch in 2007, people have devoted a lot of time and money to copying the UI. Samsung, of course, is the biggest offender, but the copying has gone far beyond them: almost all modern smartphones and tablets have parts that resemble the old iOS UI

Jesus, do people actually buy into this crap? The iPhone UI was never anything special; the mobile UI metaphor has remained pretty much unchanged since long before Apple got into the game.

http://www.newsrover.com/images/screenshots/palm9.gif

rimantas5• 13 years ago

http://www8.pcmag.com/media/images/266029-apple-newton.jpg

And somehow Samsung phones did not have that interface prior to 2007.

vectorpush2• 13 years ago

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psion_Series_3a.jpg

What's your point? This is not to say that the industry wasn't heavily influenced by Apple's success, but imitating a paradigm that has been around for decades doesn't make one an Apple copy-cat. This is in the same vein as claiming anything with a solid black rectangular bezel is an Apple rip-off.

coldtea5• 13 years ago

Jesus, do people actually buy into this crap? The iPhone UI was never anything special; the mobile UI metaphor has remained pretty much unchanged since long before Apple got into the game.

A screen with icons in a grid?

Yes, you really convinced me how this is totally the same as the iOS UI.

I mean, it also uses icons in a grid no?

What's there to differentiate them? I mean, apart from a totally different visual look, different behaviors, different affordances, gestures and the employment of touch (and much more: multitouch), etc etc.

Now, how exactly "mobile UI metaphor has remained pretty much unchanged since long before Apple" and yet, all the phones pre-iPhone were non touch crap, with small screens, keyboards and BS, slow interfaces, and all the phones post-iPhone followed it's UI guidance (either directly, as Android, or in a flat facade, as Windows Phone), is a mystery.

(Not to mention that the Newton --or even '80s Apple stuff, from prototypes to finished products-- already had icons in a grid, if that was that mattered).

Zikes2• 13 years ago

Nobody will be mimicking iOS 7, because iOS 7 is already mimicking other UIs. Flat UI design has already been established by Windows Phone, Windows Desktop OS, and Android's Holo UI.

As has been stated by others, none of the animations are so GPU-heavy that they are impossible to implement on other devices, but they are not all terribly desirable, either.

The parallax effect, in particular, was already available as a live wallpaper app on Android and sales of that app did skyrocket after WWDC, which really only means that most Android users had that feature available and in use before most iPhone users did. I tried it out myself, and after the gimmick wore off I went back to one of my many other wallpaper options.

A variety of other effects and animations are already in use by the many replacement launcher applications available on Android, and in many cases they are customizable by the user for optimal speed and performance.

These iOS 7 articles really should be focusing on the features that will be making a real difference in this OS, like the task switcher, control center, improved notifications, etc. Those are the things that will continue to provide value to the user once the "new and shiny" lustre has worn off. I don't care if they're copies or rehashes or interpretations of features other phone OSes have had for years, they are what will make a real difference to the user.

And for the love of god, implement an Intents feature already.

coldtea5• 13 years ago

Nobody will be mimicking iOS 7, because iOS 7 is already mimicking other UIs. Flat UI design has already been established by Windows Phone, Windows Desktop OS, and Android's Holo UI.

Er, "Flat" is a visual style.

It's not something that you "imitate" (any more than anybody making an action movie is "imitating" a previous action movie director), it's guidelines to implement your design on.

Such styles come and go with design fashion. The trend has swing towards flatter styles, and Apple obliged. Like when in 2004-5, with Delicious Library et al, the trend swung towards ornaments and skeuomorphism and Apple again obliged (and even snatched D.L's designer).

Plus, none of the above UIs made even a dent on the market. So not really inviting to "imitate" a success point of view.

(With the exception of the "Windows Desktop OS". But that sold because it's the "next version of windows", not for it's flat facade, which was universally hated so much by desktop users that MS is reverting in 8.1 to let you have a start menu and boot directly to the classic Windows desktop view).

Zikes2• 13 years ago

Plus, none of the above UIs even made a dent on the market.

http://www.icharts.net/chartchannel/worldwide-smartphone-os-...

It's a small dent, but if you look really closely you can see Android in dark blue.

lucian1900• 13 years ago

So the high DPI on Apple's devices helps keep their stupidly thin lines hard to copy, except on Android devices that have even higher DPI, where the lines are even thinner? Where does he come up with this?

Also, there has been plenty of copying in all directions. And not just iOS7, Apple have already copied Android's notification bar piecemeal. And that's fine, of course.

toddmorey• 13 years ago

Here's what I think is interesting. When design works, when it's value is immediately obvious (like the magsafe power connector), very little is ever said about motivations. But when design is controversial or has dubious merit (the blurring effect and translucency), there are a lot words spent on finding the motivation: they were playing defense, they wanted to distance themselves from competitors, they wanted to show off the hardware, etc.

I don't think there's ever been a design brief at Apple that has focused on the competition or this sort of flash over substance. I don't think Ive would have accepted the mission to make it different, well, just to be different.

I think the goal at Apple is ALWAYS the same: to delight. To create "wonder" as they like to say. Is this UI as successful as the previous UI with that objective? Ultimately, that's the only criteria by which iOS7 will be judged. I see subtle genius in places, a lot of rough edges, and some genuine missteps.

counterpointer• 13 years ago

Most imitating efforts will need to be redone or abandoned to look current. And what will happen if people try to imitate iOS 7?
Presumably, Apple has a few new patents for iOS 7’s interface and behavior. As we’ve seen, this won’t prevent copying, but it can at least increase the cost. Any efforts to copy the new UI are going to have a dark cloud of potential litigation hanging over them.

This is strange.

Lets see the design principles behind Metro:

1) Content over Chrome

2) Authentically digital

3) Concentration on beautiful typography (see how it caused Google and Apple to talk about fonts in their Holo and iOS7 UI overhauls)

4) Removal of faux realistic and 3d elements

5) Flat look

6) Tasteful, subtle animations during transitions.

See the image on the left here.

http://www.redmondpie.com/ios-7-vs-ios-6-side-by-side-visual...

Apply the above principles to it in your mind.

See how similar it is to the image on the right. Ask someone else to take their opinion.

In fact to me it appears that Apple has in some places gone more overboard with the above principles than even Microsoft.

From DHH's article http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3536-apple-the-organizational...

As we watched Apple unveil iOS7, the 37signals Campfire room quickly turned to awe of what they had achieved. A redesign so shocking and deep bestowed upon a product so popular left many mouths agape. Whether you happened to like the final product wasn’t as relevant as marveling at the vision, drive, and sheer determination to pull it off.
Apple has a way of making people feel like that.
But what followed next is at least as interesting: We all sought to explain just how they did it. Is it all Ive’s eye? Is it that they explore more ideas than anyone else? Is it never accepting “good enough”? Forgoing customer input and trusting their own instinct? Hundreds of triple-A designers and developers?

I needn't even quote Gruber.

This is not to say there's nothing new or no innovation in iOS 7(there is), or even that Apple is wrong to copy(it is not) or that I think it's an exact copy(it's not), but it makes me feel Microsoft's designers(who DHH implies are F level) are basically chopped liver who are destined to live in obscurity. There isn't even a passing mention of them!

Can you imagine the reactions of the above writers if the situation was reversed? Remember "Redmond, start your photocopiers."?

I am not sure if I am missing something here, someone new to their leanings might even mistake it to be parody or sarcasm.

untog2• 13 years ago

Agreed- you can criticise plenty about Windows Phone (and there is much worthy of it) but they were truly innovative in many areas of UI. Sadly, they'll never get much credit for it.

Your quotes from the 37 Signals blog are so breathless that I'm surprised the author didn't suffocate during the keynote. Absolutely nauseating stuff.

smackfu3• 13 years ago

Metro (circa Windows Phone 7) also worked really well on quite bad hardware that couldn't run Android silky smooth.

Kylekramer• 13 years ago

It is amazing how much the Apple focused bloggers resemble political spin doctors these days. Create a talking point full of pro-Apple assumptions such as iOS 7 is an resource intensive OS that only Apple could support (another currently popular talking point is "iOS 7 isn't flat, it has depth" as if other OSs don't). Of course Android mostly sells cheap phones, that is given. Doesn't matter what the actual sales figures are. Forget the old argument that Apple places battery life over silly resource intensive things like widgets. Hammer it home with multiple articles (this is essentially a rewrite of the popular article from yesterday: http://www.allenpike.com/2013/ios7-catch-me-if-you-can/) and back patting links and retweets. Charge people thousands of dollars to get into your inner circle of spin via sponsorships of your blog or podcast, rinse, repeat.

madoublet• 13 years ago

What am I missing here? I haven't dug too deep into iOS7, but on the surface it looks like a cosmetic upgrade with new icons, a parallax background effect on the home screen, a blur effect for overlays, and some smooth transitions. None of this hasn't been seen before, and a lot of it looks derivative. I viewed it as a "catch up to Android/WP8" not a step forward.

gurkendoktor• 13 years ago

I can't believe nobody has pointed this out: The iPad mini does not have a Retina display. The iOS 7 home screen labels look gross on it. Apple is not making the competition obsolete, but its own devices (intentionally or not).

malandrew• 13 years ago

Or it could be that Scott Forstall is out and a new tastemaker is in?

Occam's razor, anyone?

olgeni• 13 years ago

Maybe the app review process is so computationally intensive for the same reason.

pearjuice• 13 years ago

A defense against Android it is, but Marco as a huge Apple fanboy wouldn't even want to admit this if he were shot otherwise. I have absolutely no problem with Apple reiterating their products and software but what I cannot stand is them acting as if they were the first whilst most of the time it is clear that they are imitating the competition and just rebranding it a bit.

The worst of all of this is, is that nobody seems to mention this but when it happens in the other direction (the competition imitating Apple), it will cause serious outrage.

iOS 7 As Defense

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