A lot was made of Scott Forstall’s departure from Apple, with Jonathan Ive taking control of all design. The first major product we are going to see in the wild as a result of this changeover is iOS7.
We know that Ive is no fan of the skeumorphic, textured, designs that Jobs continually pushed for, and we have reported here at the MacObserver that much of that will be going. Icons will be flatter and slimmer, the colour scheme simplified.
It is though fascinating to think of what else Ive may have thrown onto the cutting room floor. For starters, Forstall and team must have been desperately working to improve maps, but, given Forstall was ultimately responsible for the first disaster, it would not surprise me if what we finally see has little resemblance to what he originally had planned.
As am example, I think the paper flick at the bottom of the maps will go, and the menu options just drawn up by a single button. I imagine that Forstall would have really just focused on the actually mapping data, not the presentation of the app itself. I suspect that Siri will has been thoroughly Ive’d too, with result presentation simplified and the search itself made even more accurate. Ive is now responsible for the entire Human Interface of Apple products, so there is little chance of him having left such a key feature of that interfae untouched.
Given how tight time is many of Apple apps probably will not see a major overhaul just yet, probably notes (black, white and grey, no more legal pad,) possibly any textures in calendar and that’s about it.
In upgrades in the near future I have no doubt that Ive will lead an overhaul of a variety of these apps, as has already happened in the second iteration of Podcasts.
In his biography of Steve Jobs, describes the huge turnaround and how the company worked flat out to rebuild MacBooks when he returned.
While Ive may not have had much time to weave his magic, there are few companies more adept than Apple at making major product changes quickly. Come WWDC, I think we will see proof of this once more.