If it seems early, that’s because it is. But it’s already started to leak and signs are pointing to a significant design overhaul. So rather than hijack the iOS 18 thread until closer the time, I thought I’d start this one now.
Blame @revels. I personally hate all the merging into singular big broad topics. I think it goes way too OTT. Mega threads are too much for me, stuff gets lost among noise, and I don’t engage them half as much as I do smaller ones. They’re too overwhelming.
I personally prefer topics with a more narrow focus. Segregation is a good thing sometimes. I think it makes sense with mobile operating systems on a forum for a bank which runs exclusively on said operating systems.
As long as they don’t just squash the squircle icons into the middle of a circle icon until the app dev updates their icon, I wouldn’t mind the change too much. Though circles in a grid will lead to (a feeling of) a lot of wasted space on the screen.
I quite like the mock up in the video, but it needs an extra row or two on the Home Screen.
A redesign would be great and it does feel overdue now. I’m not sure circles in a grid, and some translucent widgets goes far enough but excited for the possibilities nonetheless.
I agree. I don’t like general threads in… umm… general. You just get a barrage of utter tosh being posted (aka noise). We need more focussed threads, in my opinion.
Just got around to watching the video. Makes perfect sense that they would start transitioning towards the visionOS look with the core apps only.
That way they can keep the work internal to reduce (further) leaks, and when they eventually tell app developers they need to make the adjustments, the public is already aware so there is no secret to spoil.
Another +1 here in favour of more specific threads and less general threads.
On topic though I really hope they do a full redesign, iOS is starting to look boring but after my yearly Android attempt I always end up back, so I’m staying put and hoping for the best this year.
I think the difference this year is that we actually have a leak from someone very credible which reinforces it.
Whether or not it’ll be a complete redesign of the operating system, or a more muted UI refresh of app elements (which we’ve had a lot over the years anyway) remains to be seen, but I do think some kind of VisionOS inspired visual refresh is coming. tvOS got the vision treatment last year, and I expect the iOS treatment will be similar this year.
It’s probably not as dramatic as it seems, anyway. The vision UI is largely a natural evolution of Apple’s existing UI design language on their other platforms. It’s only natural those paradigms will converge for a consistent ecosystem experience.
I thought iOS 18 had the whole “move apps around the screen” and “change app icon colour” thing. Why does it need to be changed again? And if they are going to change it, why the hell didn’t they do it with iOS 18?
(I mean in not gonna complain cuz it gives me 1.5h of entertainment some June evening)