The internet appears to have gone overboard after the departure of Scott Forstall. Some proclaiming that this will see the death of Skeuomorphism in Apple’s software and how this will be the greatest thing to happen to iOS.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with Skeuomorphism – to some degree I sort of like it.
The problem with iOS runs deeper that these superficial skeuomorphism issues and finally someone was able to put this point over in a very insightful way.
Here are highlights of Kontra’s views on the iOS skeuomorphism issue, which I totally agree with:
Kontra On Sir Jony Ive And The Real Issues With iOS
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What’s not publicly known is Ive’s role, if any, on Apple software. The current meme of Ive coming on a white horse to rescue geeks in distress from Scott Forstallian skeuomorphism is wishfully hilarious. Like industrial design of physical devices, software is part form and part function: aesthetics and experience. Apple’s software problems aren’t dark linen, Corinthian leather or torn paper. In fact, Apple’s software problems aren’t much about aesthetics at all…they are mostly about experience. To paraphrase Ive’s former boss, Apple’s software problems aren’t about how they look, but how they work. Sometimes — sadly more often than we expect — they don’t:
- Notifications, dark linen background or not, is woefully under-designed.
- Six items that drain mobile device batteries (GPS, WiFi, cellular radio, Bluetooth, notifications and screen brightness) still require laborious, multiple clicks in multiple places, not immediately obvious to non-savvy users to turn on and off, without any simple, thematic or geo-fenced grouping.
- iCloud-desktop integration and direct file sharing among Apple devices are circuitous and short of “It Just Works.”
- Many Apple apps, like the iWork suite, are begging to be updated. Others, like Preview, TextEdit, Contacts, desperately need UI and UX overhauls.
- Core functionalities like the Dictionary or the iOS keyboard layout and auto-correction are not the best of breed.
- iOS app organization in tiny “folders” containing microscopic icons on pages without names borders on illegible and unscalable.
- Navigating among running iOS apps (inelegant and opaque for users) and data interchange among apps in general (vastly underpowered for developers) remain a serious problem.
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Kontra On The Challenges Apple’s Jony Ive Faces In Overhauling iOS
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It’s not known if Ive’s is a transitionary appointment necessitated by Scott Forstall’s departure or a harbinger of a longer term realignment of Apple design under a single umbrella. Unification of hardware and software design under a czar may certainly bring aesthetic efficiencies but it can also be pregnant with dangers. Much as the “lickable” Aqua UI ended up doing a decade ago, a serious mistake would be to hide many of these behavioral, functional and experiential software problems under a more attractive, aesthetically unifying display layer, such as:
- A more modern, less cheesy Game Center redesign that still doesn’t have a social layer.
- An aesthetically unified iTunes without appreciably better content discoverability.
- A Siri app without the background linen but still lacking much deeper semantic integration with the rest of the iOS.
- A Maps app without the ungainly surreal visual artifacts but still missing a robust search layer underneath.
- An iBooks app without the wooden shelves or inner spine shadow, but still with subpar typography and anemic hyphenation and justification.
- A Podcast app without the tape deck skeuomorphism, but with all the same navigational opaqueness.
In the end, what’s wrong with iOS isn’t the dark linen behind the app icons at the bottom of the screen, but the fact that iOS ought to have much better inter-application management and navigation than users fiddling with tiny icons. I’m fairly sure most Apple users would gladly continue to use what are supposed to be skeuomorphically challenged Calendar or Notebook apps for another thousand years if Apple could only solve the far more vexing software problems of AppleID unification when using iTunes and App Store, or the performance and reliability of the same. And yet these are the twin sides of the same systems design problem: the display layer surfacing or hiding the power within or, increasingly, lack thereof.
Yes, unlike any other company, we hold Apple to a different standard. We have for three decades. And we have been amply rewarded. If Apple’s winning streak is to continue, I hope Jony Ive never misplaces his Superman cape behind his Corinthian leather sofa…for he will need it.
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Source: Kontra
