Ah, skeuomorphism – my favourite punching bag. Austin Carr has spoken to former Apple designers and people within the company, and they’re all confirming there’s a rift within Cupertino between people who want to move away from skeuomorphism, and people who want to retain it as much as possible, and even want to expand it. Since I’ve long hoped for Apple to ditch this “visual masturbation”, as one former Apple designer calls it, I’m happy to learn not the entire company supports skeuomorphism.
As part of an investigative article into Microsoft’s sharp and clear move away from skeuomorphism with its Metro user interface, Carr also talked to several people within Apple, as well as former Apple designers. “It’s visual masturbation,” a former senior UI designer at Apple who worked closely with Steve Jobs told Carr, “It’s like the designers are flexing their muscles to show you how good of a visual rendering they can do of a physical object. Who cares?”
I’ve always found the rift between Apple’s hardware and software design to be curious. I may find Apple’s recent hardware design to be a bit boring and bland, but at least it’s solid, well-defined, and far, far from ugly. It’s minimalist, almost cold and hospital-like. This stands in sharp contrast to Apple’s software design, which seems to be designed by people hell-bent on injecting as much of Microsoft Bob into iOS and OS X as possible.
Compared to the clean, fresh, and distinctive characteristics of Holo, and the sheer minimalism, sharpness and almost MS-DOS-like focus on typography of Metro, iOS and OS X feel condescending, childish, and, considering it hasn’t changed in five years, considerably outdated. iOS is getting that vibe Windows had in the late ’90s and 2000s; afraid of change, afraid to move forward, afraid to offend existing users. Considering iOS 6 shows no sign of change, we’ll be stuck with this for at least another year.
As it turns out, Carr has found out (confirmed by John Gruber) that I’m not alone. There’s a rift within Apple about this very issue, and it’s bubbling to the surface.
Inside Apple, tension has brewed for years over the issue. Apple iOS SVP Scott Forstall is said to push for skeuomorphic design, while industrial designer Jony Ive and other Apple higher-ups are said to oppose the direction. “You could tell who did the product based on how much glitz was in the UI,” says one source intimately familiar with Apple’s design process.But before Forstall, it was Steve Jobs who encouraged the skeuomorphic approach, some say. “iCal’s leather-stitching was literally based on a texture in his Gulfstream jet,” says the former senior UI designer. “There was lots of internal email among UI designers at Apple saying this was just embarrassing, just terrible.”
For now, the skeuomorphism group within Apple seems to be the winning side. Forstall recently demoed an animated paper shredder for iOS 6, which will animate the deleting of e-tickets and coupons. This goes far, far beyond “visual masturbation”, and has even long passed tacky station – this is just downright stupid. No wonder Jony Ive – forever my respect for the Cube – isn’t enamoured with this nonsense.
A common argument in favour of Apple’s fetish with skeuomorphism are Apple’s sales figures. If it’s such a problem, then why is it selling so well? This, of course, is a silly argument. Just as Windows’ popularity doesn’t mean it’s the best desktop operating system, iOS’ popularity doesn’t mean skeuomorphism is the best way to design software. Heck, my own computer illiterate father barked in disbelief when I upgraded his iMac and he was confronted with the new iCal for the first time.
While the rift Carr has uncovered by no means signals the end of skeuomorphism in Apple, it’s at least a positive sign the company is aware of the issue. Let’s see which of the two camps gains the upper hand.
Check this website out http://skeu.it/ and weap. This has got to stop.
That is just awesome.
this is a really good example of how crazy the people who talk about “skeuomorphism” are. they don’t reflect the normal brain at all. truly deranged.
This page convinced me, I’m all for skeuomorphism!
Meh, however…”The iPHONE 5 UNDERMINES western DEMOCRACY: 5 reasons why
Owning one will be the badge of an utter fool”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/12/iphone_five_reasons/
might as well get it in early.
Heh. That’s like having a car where you can’t refuel on you own and you’ll need to have it towed to the closest vendor gas station if you run out of gas. Closest being hundreds of miles away, if you’re lucky.
No seriously, you can’t easily change the battery?
Awesome, welcome to 1995.
Not so much that I like Metro but when skeumorphism helps that’s okay. But not to the point of visual masturbation. Best way to put it…
There are concepts like flipping a page (with gestures) where skeuomorphism may work, but when I first saw calendar or address book in Lion I just thought that it is the most ugly piece of UI I ever!
Young generations will grow up without traditional (paper) calendars or address books, so there is absolutely no need to mimic these.
When I see the latest OS releases from Apple I always feel the same:
– most times easy to learn
– but not easy to use (no short cuts, wrong assumptions about how power users are working)
In the old days the UI balance from Apple was much better.
No, not even that. Flip back and the analogy falls apart (in a book, does flipping right the right-hand page brings back the left-hand page?). It also muddles the message that a digital book is not a real one, it has many digital-only features, such as the ability to resize and change fonts.
Not to mention that all those animations and other bling bling are sucking ever more power when one is running battery. While i don’t care for the metro UI I can see why they got rid of Aero, first thing I did on my netbook was kill the thing and you can tell a difference as far as how long the battery lasts.
To me the best way to look at UI design is this: Does this make it easier and quicker for the user? Does this give an actual benefit to the user and help them perform a task? if the answer to any of the above is no? Toss it.
Originally Mac OSX v. Windoz was easy. The animations and apparent glitz or bling on Macs indicate something – were useful while on windoz were not relevant.
Now Apple is doing irrelevant junk.
The kwe question is does a paradigm make things significantly easier or is just eye-candy that eats resources.
I think this whole Skeumorphist thing might have been the reason the App Store got so big so fast. Apple gave devs and designers free-reign with regards to looks (possibly to compensate for other restrictions they placed, I dunno), and this is what you got.
Not that I support the idea or anything. I hate all this inconsistency. So much so that, now that I use Android, I’ve limited myself to using Holo themed apps exclusively as much as possible (games and some Autodesk software being the only exception).
Forget about apps. Just do a comparo between Google Now and Siri. Disregard the voice detection and accuracy of results for a moment, and just concentrate on the way each pulls up their results. Google Now gets the consistency points with results either via cards or Google’s search. On iOS, it’s all over the place. Yahoo weather widgets, Google search results, Wolfram Alpha paper for calculations, some hideous clock widget with rounded edges for time, sports results in sharp-edged cards, etc. For a company that claims to be design-oriented, this lack of consistency is downright abysmal.
Whatever this rift is about, I sure hope the side that wins brings a far more consistent UI experience. I’m not asking for terminals everywhere (though that would be awesome in its own way), but at least make them stop being so damn tacky.
Edited 2012-09-11 22:22 UTC
Nope. Skeumorphism was not that much pervasive in the beginning os iOS. It sticked to metallic and plasticky textures which were:
1)cohesive all across the OS;
2)cohesive with the hardware design of the whole Apple brand, stores and accessories included.
NB: My argument below is on good design where form and function are equal.
WTF does it matter!
Your app has a leather look or wooden look or notepad look or whatever.
Designers cannot win, some will opt for real world look and feel, some will want a more abstract design.
What I do like about visual masturbation is someone who has never used the system before can get an idea of what the “object” in question does (if done right).
The real world gives us cues, so why not use them.
I do agree that if the design gets in the way of function then I have an issue, but if all things are equal, who gives a #@$%
Personally, I don’t care, if the app works and is easy to use and understand, then I’m happy.
iCal is very easy to use and understand, I have 0 problems with it.
It works, Except for the fact that it doesn’t even look like real leather.
It just looks like somebody took a Sh*t over the ui
Edited 2012-09-12 08:54 UTC
I had to launch iCal to see what leather you were talking about.
Personally I don’t care much for fake leather or skeuomorphism, partly because I don’t even see it. My eyes and brain have adapted to only see and process what I need and ignore the rest, like skeuomorphism, ads or unimportant details.
This makes me wonder, if someone use iCal, I mean really use it and not just launch ‘n’ look, is this fake leather stuff really that eye catching and distracting? It’s just a small bar with a few buttons, does this really sabotage your productivity?
Much more important, for me, is the menubar and it’s always at the top and it’s always pretty consistent in its layout. If this was molded in to some skeuomorphism that would be annoying, but it isn’t.
In the grand scale it matters very little. But it is amazing that they took the time to uglify something that was perfectly usable and neutral before. It does boggle the mind that somebody at Apple compared the two and said “yes, I’ll go with the turd, it looks better”.
I replaced the graphical elements with fixed versions.There are colours that I like and perfectly neutral don’t think anybody can claim that standard grey is ugly, but that brown probably isn’t the favourite of many people. I’ve yet to talk to anybody prefers the faux leather to the old chrome.
I can disagree with that. It is indeed amazing that, I assume, a group of people decided this was the way to go.
It matters the moment the secondary invention (iCal) has replaced the primary invention (the physical calendar): every function is a photo-realistic imitation of something the user has never been acquainted with.
There’s a reason why Apple invented the red stylised handset as the ‘reject call’ button instead of using a photorealistic rendering of a 1970s era phone with the handset resting on the phone itself: red is commonly used as a stop signal, whereas no one uses a 1970s era phone any more. Language is symbolic, not imitative. Imitations of things that don’t exist are meaningless to a user; symbolic representations of actual functions are not.
They “invented it”….
just read his statement and his nick in a row
Apples are thin aluminium and shiny.
If you mimic high quality designer objects in the real world then you get perceived quality in the virtual world. Apples are thin aluminium and shiny, apple owners aspire to Ray-ban and Gucci.
Skeuomorphism is not about ease of use its about perceived quality
The argument that skeuomorphic design is beneficial to new users is incredibly short sighted. Consistent look, feel, and function overall makes operating the entire system and all of its programs much easier. Learn exactly ONE paradigm that makes figuring everything else out easy compared to several completely different skeuomorphic designs. All of which have a vague resemblance to real objects but make none of the actual functional advantages of using software obvious.
abraxas, I agree. I would go wild if OS X was a model of consistency with some of the other things mentioned like more and better keyboard commands, etc.
MS-DOS had one fucking font for everything. Just how is that at all focusing on typography?
im ok with this stuff so long as it is tastefully done. it seems to make more sense design wise on an ipad. but the calendar and notes apps for the mac are fine with me.
It seems the middle finger Apple is giving to its users is not skeuomorphic enough to be recognized as a middle finger yet.
… That all this skeuomorphism is reminding me of the shareware age.
….that’s not what that metaphor means…
.. Steve Jobs felt on the matter? Though I suppose it matters far more how Cook, Ive, and co feel on the matter.
Read the article.
You are absolutely right. I should have RTFA. I guess that answers my question.
Edited 2012-09-12 08:05 UTC
… it would be really sad.
Skeumorphism sounds to me like
“we don’t think you can grasp the concept of an icon. We will make it to resemble something you may know, like a notepad, or whatever”
or:
“this is a notepad. We drew a lot of unneeded stuff around it, like leather finishing and such, because we don’t think you get what the file concept in OS is”.
I don’t like it, don’t know about you. Anyways, Apple has already been through some problems with this type of stuff, because some of their icons and such are no longer recognizable by younger audience of users, like a “diskette”, or an oldschool microphone, or a tape in “record” applications.
Now, this is hilarious!
…I think it is pretty hideous. Ditch it. Just make the UI/apps consistent in appearance, not “realistic” or divergent.
The author lost me at this line: “During my reporting for Fast Company’s upcoming feature on design at Microsoft, set to go live this week as part of our October design issue, I spoke with a number of designers, Apple veterans, and industry insiders hostile towards Apple’s approach to software design.”
The entire thesis of the article was against Apple’s sense of design, since he only spoke to people that are “hostile”. Based on this one statement, one has to assume he did not speak to anyone who supports this design method, or that there is no one who supports it, therefore the premise of a discussion fails.
This, of course, is a silly argument. Just as Windows’ popularity doesn’t mean it’s the best desktop operating system,
Ahem… Windows is the second best operating system, and the best operating system for non-Apple computers. Everything else either has a graphics stack based on X.org (run away, run far away) and sometimes even an audio stack based on PulseAudio (mercy…), or is CLI-only, or is a walking fossil (AmigaOS, Morphos, Haiku).
Sorry, but this is how things are. If hybrid Android tablets (ala ASUS Transformer) or Android-x86 make it big, I may reconsider.
PS: X.org goes beyond plain old suckiness from an architectural perspective. It sucks so much it even breaks binary compatibility with existing apps and breaks upgrades. Just walk away.
Edited 2012-09-12 10:46 UTC
Some people like it, some people don’t. Nothing to see here.
Remember the first release of OS X (and the Public Beta)? And remember the most visually-hideous part of it? No, not the overly-literal interpretation of “Aqua” (is that a scrollbar, or a jell-coated lozenge?). And no, not the impossible-to-disable animation effects that even Apple’s then-top-of-line machines could barely handle.
Nope, the creme-de-la-crap was the hideously, hideously ugly photo-realistic depiction of a hard drive that they used as the disk volume icon. Not only was that a good sign that no one at Apple understood the connection between the words “icon” and “iconic” – but that they also failed to grasp the difference between volumes/partitions & physical disks. So not only was the icon pointless skeuomorphism (to the point of being LESS useful than the more abstract icons it replaced), it wasn’t even accurate to boot.
When they backpedalled & removed that stupid icon in later releases (and stopped filling the screen with glossy blue blobs), it seemed like they’d actually learned their lesson. But now it’s become clear that Apple’s skeuomorphism fetish is like a case of herpes – the outbreaks can be treated, but it’s never going to be truly cured.
If there is any rationale behind Apple’s current skeuomorphism fetish, it boils down to this: tackiness is no longer tacky if it’s high-res. And it’s absolutely priceless to see Apple fanboys defend it by arguing “it’s just aesthetics, it doesn’t impact functionality”… especially from a group that’s STILL repeating the same incredibly lame, overused “LOL playskool fisherprice LOL” jokes about XP.
if the people who started to do Skeuomorphism in design for applications are either related or the same people who came up with the UI for third party device managers for Windows; for example, the Intel HD Graphics Control Panel or the RealTek Audio Manager. While these device managers are functional, they look alien to the rest of the system as though they were designed to fit into some custom theme that you’d run into on DeviantArt. Sometimes, they have a cool look and would like to be applied to the rest of the system, but most of the time I have this urge to close the device manager as quickly as possible. I guess that’s the correlation I have in my mind: almost all of the Skeuomorph examples I’ve seen makes me want to close the application and not take it seriously.
I agree.
In a way Skeomorphism is just an excuse to do what ever the developer feels like.
Some of the jarring Metro-ish apps in the Play Store are just as bad as the brain dump Skeomorphic apps for Android.
Maybe Mr Forestal should produce some UI guidelines so at least the Skeu has some guidance.
I like it
Mac OS started going off the rails with Mac OS X (actually it probably started earlier with QuickTime and iTunes). With every version it got progressively worse. It started with plastic shiny buttons, then they added some chrome, then they went all in with wood and other such garish themes. Mac OS 9 is much more beautiful to my eyes, even if it’s a bit old-fashioned for modern tastes.
I really love Android’s Holo (ICS) theme. It’s a great example of modern, simple and tasteful design.
I just don’t care at all about skeuomorphism. I’m fine if there’s none, and I’m fine if there is (as long as it doesn’t look too amateurish). The skeuomorphism used by Apple for instance doesn’t bother me one bit.
I just don’t understand why people are so passionate on this topic.