iOS 7 is one of the most drastic changes that Apple has made to its mobile operating system that runs on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc. While developers have no issues getting around iOS 7, the designers will have a tougher time tweaking their apps to be in accordance with iOS 7’s design guidelines. The operating system has some major design changes, including changes in icons and interfaces.
In this article, let me discuss the major changes that Apple has incorporated to iOS 7’s UI design.
Last year, Apple’s iOS design chief Scott Forstall had to resign from Apple after the Apple Maps failed. Afterwards, Apple’s hardware design chief, Jony Ive has headed development in software as well. He is responsible for this refreshing new change in iOS.
Important Changes in the Operating System
To be able to better compete with Android, Apple’s nemesis, here are the changes that iOS incorporates.1. A Flat Design
3D style of icons that used to be there in all the previous versions of the operating system is gone. Now, the icons and the interfaces are rather flat. With thin lines and soft edges, the icon has a layered style. While this is a refreshing change in Apple’s design standards, some people may find the older version more appealing. It is however simply a personal opinion.
2. Color Scheme
The iOS incorporates a brand new color scheme to be able to create this flat design. Soft, delicate shade of white, black, red, green, and blue can be found in these icons. Apple has an elegant new color palette to work with iOS icons.
3. Fonts
Apple now uses Helvetica Neue UltraLight as the primary font. The desktop operating system, OS X Mavericks also features this font. This font represents a new ‘skinny’ interface of the iOS. You can of course change the font size to fit your needs.
4. Layered Design
Within an app, the layered design of iOS allows several different screens. It gives an illusion of a collection of very thin layers on each app. While layered design is going to give a bit of a headache to some designers, it is a refreshingly straightforward design strategy that involves translucent windows.
5. Motion Detection
In one of the recent news reports, Apple is known to be testing motion detection on iOS 7. It will be available once the new iPhone 5S comes to the market probably by the end of the year.
6. Menus and Bars
In the main lock screen of iOS, you can open the Control Center. There are also notifications of the latest calls and messages. Since the color scheme and user interface options are slightly different, the menus and bars are quite elegant on iOS 7.
Porting Apps to iOS 7
One of the changes you can find in Safari is that the browser now involves a page stack interface where you can view all your open tabs in one place. This is one of the examples of the layered design we talked about earlier.Apple provides about 900,000 apps through its iOS app store. In essence, it is the largest app store in the world for any mobile operating system. Android is close behind. iPhone developers have been required to follow some important app design guidelines in the past. With iOS 7, there should be some slight changes to the interface.
Apple requires every designer to do three important things now: change the icon of the app; change the launch image; start supporting the Retina Display.
It is not easy to get your app approved in app store without tweaking the necessary things. Apple has always had some important design guidelines in place and wants the designers and developers to follow the company guidelines very closely. Due to this reason, it is important that the app designers learn about the iOS 7 design standards and work out a brilliant app that conforms to them.
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