“Apple’s iOS is starting to get a little long in the tooth. There, I said it. The overall look and feel of the operating system has not changed since its 2007 debut. Sure, Apple has piled in plenty of new features, but the core of the operating system is the same as it was five years ago. It needs a refresh. I’m not saying iOS is ugly or anything, but it’s starting to look a little old.”
Can’t wait for the rage on this one, all the points in the article basically say ‘become android’.
I’m going to be honest… pipedream. iOS will evolve over time, but this whole “my OS must look and behave differently to be relevant” is total BS. One of the reasons I hate Windows 7 so much is that they broke so many interface rules that I, a heavy XP user, felt were cannon. How often do I right click on the network notification icon? How often do I hover over the task bar for the previews, only to find Windows is flipping the apps too in the main desktop (WHY?) and the snap feature is a nice idea, but is really broken. Try snapping a VMWare player window which is correctly sized – Windows resizes it too small. Manually resize? Windows un snaps it. FAIL. What has all this go to do with iOS? Nothing more than anecdotal evidence that changing the window dressing might please some, but if the underlying OS had badly implemented or poorly thought out UI features, making it look pretty will not help it suck any less.
Edited 2012-03-06 00:47 UTC
Are you talking about displaying the app when you hover over the preview?
Can I ask what the the correct behavior is, if it isn’t resizing the window in the same way it does for every other application? I’m not sure what you’re expecting it to do. VMWare windows behave exactly as I expect with regards to Aero snap.
If you’ve manually sized a window, for example, to be 800×600 on a 1280×1024 screen, but you want to move it to the side of the screen to keep it out-of-the-way, Windows 7 will happily snap it to the side … and resize it to be 50% of the screen. There really needs to be an option to say “snap it to the side of the screen, but don’t resize it”.
I’m not sure where you’re getting at, or what this has to do with mobile OS’s, but:
– when you’re hovering over the task bar to look at previews, Windows doesn’t flip any apps on the desktop. Only if you hover over a specific preview, that window will temporarily bump to the foreground.
– When you snap a window to the side Windows resizes it to 50% – works as expected with VMWare. If you resize a running VM window, VMWare automatically adjusts the other dimension, which causes “unsnapping” of the window. Windows is not to blame here, you can observe the same effect with an unsnapped VMWare window.
Oh on topic: iOS has aged very very badly, especially on the iPad. Compared with webOS or even Windows 8 from what we’ve seen, it’s ugly and unusable as f*ck.
Ugly and unusable? To who? You, evidently, that’s one person’s opinion, and evidently not the opinion of the millions and millions of people who have bought the things thus far. And that’s fine, if you don’t like the way it’s designed and works, then it’s not for you, and you can go buy an Android tablet that lets you change EVERYTHING about it till it looks and operates nothing like it did when it came out of the box. Nothing wrong with that at all. But the other 99.99% of users will probably never have a need to work with files and folders like the author of this article wants to do. And that’s just fine as well.
I do agree that the design of iOS is getting a little old and could use some refreshing. Change is always good, but the basic operation is just fine as it is, and the millions of people who have bought the machine are all the evidence you need of that fact
…most of whom have never used a smartphone/tablet aside from the iProducts. So they’re the technology equivalent Americans who swear up and down that they live in the “greatest country on Earth”, while never having visited any other countries.
Nice appeal to popularity, though.
Again with the appeal to popularity? Millions of flies eat shit, so it must be haute cuisine, right? Or at least that was the counter that Apple fanboys used whenever someone pointed out how unpopular Macs are compared to Windows PCs.
Horrible assumption, and wrong. Smartphones were around and in common use nearly 10 years before iPhone came out.
Maybe they’re going on what all the immigrants from Europe and other parts of the world are saying.
Him stating that iOS functions just fine it not an appeal to popularity, it’s an observation and rightfully stated.
With all the baseless assumptions (or is it plain ignorance?), and the weaks jabs, it seems anti-Apple fanboys are just as bad.
…Anti-Apple fanboys are just as bad it seems.
[citation needed]
Except that most iPhone users are tech-tards who wouldn’t have even been capable of using a Treo, let alone any of the other smartphones that were around before the iPhone.
Durrrr… except for the minor detail that he cited iOS’ popularity as EVIDENCE for his claim. And it wasn’t just the only evidence for his claim, he even said it’s only evidence NEEDED to prove his claim; the “appeal to popularity fallacy” doesn’t get any more blatant than that.
Free hint: next time you attempt such obvious sleight-of-mind revisionism, you might want to remove the part of the quoted text that directly contradicts you.
Awwwwww, apparently I did hurt your feelings in our last exchange, so now you’re following me around & trying to hump my leg.
The fact that millions of smartphone users existed a decade before the iPhone was introduced is all the citation you need. And speaking of citations needed, it’s funny you make all kinds of claims with not a single citation in support of any of them. Then again, your claims are blatantly absurd so…….
The sad thing about you is that you don’t realize how dumb you sound, let alone how completely inaccurate your assumptions are.
Even though it’s not about popularity, and you should be embarrassed for not understanding that, the devices popularity does in fact lend itself to the truth regardless — that iOS is functionally just fine for most people in most cases.
Nothing I’ve said is in contradiction. You having a problem with comprehension and context is your problem alone.
Still saying anything, no matter how absurd, just to get attention I see. I’m surprised there wasn’t a “ZOMG” somewhere in your nonsense.
You can use this text on most (if not all) Google supporters/Apple haters.
They ask you to prove the obvious, while they themselves make the most ridiculous claims.
Funny, because I was just thinking that using the word “haters” is possibly the single most effective way to identify yourself as a fanboy.
And that substantiates your claim that most (or even a significant number) of iPhone users actually used pre-iPhone smartphone? Buwhahaha, and you’re accusing me of faulty reasoning?
Oooh, got me there! You truly are a master-debater.
“the basic operation is just fine as it is, and the millions of people who have bought the machine are all the evidence you need of that fact”
Sorry, you were saying? I can see why you would agree with the OP’s statements though, since you both believe that saying “and that’s all the evidence you need” makes for a compelling argument.
Riiiiight, so it’s not about popularity, except when you say it is. Impressive! Backpedaling AND self-contradictory statements, all in one run-on sentence.
You know, you could have saved yourself some typing & just written “I know you are, but what am I?”
And if that is the case, you fell for it hook, line, and sinker, didn’t you? Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Correct, according to AT&T.
The only problem with the above is that none of it is true. Are you really that stupid that you still don’t get it? People tend to buy what works, especially when it works well. Popularity is a result, not a cause. So no, it’s not about popularity, and I never said it was. To answer my own question, yes you really are that stupid.
You know why I expect childish comments like that from you? Because you behave like a child.
It’s about as hypothetical as the Earth being flat, but yes, in a sense I did. You crave attention and I willing gave you some. Good job kiddo, you got what you wanted.
And those who visit them (hopefully avoiding random sexual abuse by the airport staff) often wonder what’s the big deal (oh, and non-trivial portion of them seems to return, quickly disillusioned).
“The greatest” place which generally isn’t at the top of positive societal stats, leads in few shameful ones (for example, how only the most oppressive regimes can rival the US in incarceration rates, expansiveness of prison industry & perpetuating the underclasses feeding it).
A place taken by silly myths of “American dream” or “land of opportunity” …while being at the bottom of developed countries in actual measure of this stuff, social mobility (the popularly derided so called “nanny states” at the top BTW).
And generally, a curious type of people seems overrepresented in those emigrating there. Really, too bad they & their descendants, in the case of my place, keep the citizenship (also voting rights) essentially no matter what – and their votes in national elections tend to be… curious (for example: biggest single supporters & financiers of some minor party where the youth wing borders on & has contacts with neonazis). Oh well, at least they aren’t numerous enough to break things much.
You should put “:” after “Horrible assumption, and wrong” there, not full stop…
By “the millions of people who have bought the machine” evidence standard, Symbian does have fine UI after all… (not to mention S40; or, generally in ~computing, Windows)
Edited 2012-03-12 23:23 UTC
Why doesn’t he just get an Android device, then?
Maybe he wants a pretty Apple logo on the back?
The author of this article wants Android. There’s an easy solution for that, I think.
In all seriousness, I don’t get this trend to change the UI for the hell of it just because something “looks old.” I’m not saying that iOS shouldn’t change its UI around a bit (in particular I think the entire springboard/app launcher system needs a complete overhaul) but to say it needs to be changed because it “looks old” is just idiotic. Change for its own sake is a pointless exercise.
“Now that Microsoft has aligned the look of its PC, tablet, and smartphone platforms, it would behoove Apple to do the same.”
Apple correctly recognizes that a Touch OS and a Desktop OS are inherently different. That is why they set out with a separate UI in the first place. Merging them the way MS did is disregarding this for some superficial consistency.
Apple does not need to follow MS anywhere. (but they should ditch the skeuomorphic textures. I really don’t like fake leather and woodgrain and would prefer to turn that crap off)
If Apple were to follow MS anywhere would you care to guess where it would end up?
MS would follow that up with a gazillion lawsuits.
The fact that there are differences is what it is all about.
Android on an HTC platform is different to that on a Samsung one. IMHO, HTC sucks bigtime. But that is my preference.
Why should Apple change something that clearly works?
Has it aged in a way that makes it unusable? I don’t think so.
For me, IOS works quite nicely on my iPad. I find it more intuitive than my HTC phone.
If you think iOS is starting to look old, why don’t you go out for a night of drinks and re-evaluat its appearance once you’re good and liquored up. Maybe it will look more ‘sexy’ to you then.
Or better yet, find something of actual value to write about.
Edited 2012-03-06 07:57 UTC
is stupid and a waste. just get a new theme (if it can handle themes)
The “summary” for this news article isn’t a summary at all, it’s the first paragraph of the article that’s been linked to. Since the only name against this story is David Adams, it looks like David write that paragraph, whereas it was actually a chap called Eric Zeman.
Wouldn’t it be more honest to at the very minimum put quotes around the summary text to make it slightly clearer that the text is a quotation? More honest still would have been to prefix the quotation with “Eric Zeman writes for InformationWeek:”…
Sorry to confuse, but our convention for the right column, “page 2” articles is to excerpt them, usually their first paragraph.
David, I hadn’t quite understood that this was convention for the right column, but I do think that you may need to modify your convention just a little to clear up the obvious ambiguities that can arise.
In this case the chosen paragraph was particularly problematic since it uses the first person, specifically in the sentence “There, I said it”. Since there was no visible identification as to the source of the paragraph it really looks like the it’s your opinion being presented.
As a long time Linux fan, I was embarrassed to admit how much I loved the iOS/iPhone interface when trying it in 2007. I think there is no reason to drastically change a great interface when that simple, intuitive interface is what made the OS and products successful in the first place.
I have seen this happen too many times: A company will change software for no good reason. Microsoft was infamous for changing Word shortcuts and menu items in the 1990s, just after everyone had gotten used to the current version.
yada yada yada
im starting to get tired of living in this new world full of opinionated shmucks, who feel like blogging about every half arsed thought they might have just farted.
a good interface could last 20 years or more.
if you are bored, try taking a dump in the woods for a change… would love to hear about such experience in your blog.
perhaps start your own tech company, with your own os interface, then maybe, just maybe, your opinion will be worth 5 cents…