This needs a dose of cynicism I think. The success of the iPhone in 2007 really wasn't driven by hardware capability (except arguably the capacitative touch screen). Even then, other phones had faster processors, more memory, and equivalent GPUs. Apple won because it invented new usage models, not because it drove its designers to "show off what's possible in" 2007.<p>The stuff this is talking about is just eye candy. The original iPhone was much more than an eye candy improvement.
<p><pre><code> iOS 7 was clearly designed to show off what’s possible in 2013.
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I absolutely agree with this point.<p>And, while I disagree with the post's main thesis — I believe the changes were in no way directed towards the web — it's a pretty entertaining take on the updates, OP.
Gauging iOS's progress on aesthetics alone is like a Formula 1 driver on the highway saying "I have no idea where I'm going, but I'm making great time!".<p>They only recently implemented a sane notifications system and quick-access settings, and they STILL don't have anything comparable to Intents on Android, which I believe is a revolutionary feature that should be core to any mobile OS.
>If we felt really crazy, we’d make simple things like home screens and modal dialogs subtly shift in 3D, real-time, in response to gyroscope input. (To a mobile web developer that sounds like a troll feature request.)<p>Uh, except that's all completely possible on the modern web, thanks to tools like CSS3 and deviceorientation APIs. In fact, when iOS7 was revealed a few weeks ago, developers raced to duplicate the parallax background feature, and did exactly that in very short order: <a href="http://matthewlehner.net/ios-7-style-parallax-background-based-on-device-orientation/" rel="nofollow">http://matthewlehner.net/ios-7-style-parallax-background-bas...</a>
If this article is accurate - and that iOS 7 has so much eyecandy that it will only work on the latest high end hardware - does this mean that a low end budget iPhone is off the table? Or is this Apple's way of segmenting a high end version of the OS and then a version with all the eyecandy disabled for the cheap iPhone?<p>It's interesting that Apple and Google seem to be going in polar opposite directions right now - with Apple going for high end effects, and KLP reportedly focusing on reducing the minimum requirements and letting it run on lower end hardware.
> The 3D, the blur, the compositing – all of them are disabled or degraded on the [iPhone 4's] A4.<p>I hadn't heard that before, and it's quite interesting. Does anyone know if previous iOS versions have similar feature segmentation, other than the obvious (and perhaps artificial) ones like Siri and 3d maps?
Anything that pushed native over web in my mind is a step backwards. Let's think about the challenges that come along with native ios apps:<p>- Less accessible. Objective C is a strange, low-level, difficult-to-learn, niche language used only for mac development.<p>- More work. See above explanation of Objective C. You need an IDE to even be remotely efficient, an IDE that Apple also controls.<p>- More work to port anywhere else. Popular app on iOS and want it on android? Time to rebuild the entire thing from scratch in another language!<p>- More expensive. Want to sell your app? Better give Apple their 30% cut, in addition to the yearly fee in order to have an app of any sort.<p>The common theme of these points being that Apple wants control over everything, and <i>has</i> control over everything. But that's a point for a separate rant. My point here is that the web has none of these drawbacks. The web is a uniform interface across devices, the languages are fairly simple and widely used, and the environment is open.<p>Apple could still take control and sell web apps, but they seem to be very purposely not doing that, and pushing native as hard as they can while occasionally implementing a buggy web app feature here or there. It just makes me sad. We don't need parallax when we move our phones around. We don't need blur effects everywhere. We need an easy, clear, open, and accessible way to develop apps for mobile devices.
Good point. Hadn't really though of it this way before. I guess as a mobile web dev I'm going to be always behind the curve here. Something interesting to think about.
Will it be true that Apple still has enough weight to cause ripple effects in design paradigms completely unrelated to a mobile device? I am guessing so, but mostly because a lot of designers are coupled strongly to Apple ideology and it affects their designs directly.<p>This is of course painful as someone outside of this bubble - watching designs that conform to a device and a way of thinking instead of living and breathing in their own right.
From my brief, albeit limited time, running iOS 7 beta 2 on my 3rd gen iPad I have to say that I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. Bugginess aside, it just feels like a significant step backwards in terms of intuitiveness and usability.<p>It's as if Apple (obviously) had to do something and prioritized jumping on the flat UI bandwagon over a well thought-out / polished experience.
This is assuming that everyone is chasing the same level of perfection as apple. If the web can provide a "good enough" interface will the bulk of developers go to the extra effort of native apps?<p>Currently things like games are (largely) not good enough on mobile web and so the issue is forced, but building a native app for a nicer blur effect? Probably not.
Nice to see a non-negative analysis of iOS7. Not having tested it myself, I hadn't realized that iOS7 was actually pushing the boundaries of what's possible with modern hardware. My previous impression was that, if anything, it was a simplification of sorts and that seemed a dubious direction. Thanks for pointing this out!
Apple haven't done anything with iOS 7 that I can't do with MOAI. (<a href="http://getmoai.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getmoai.com/</a>) By taking this direction, they've given me even more reason to ignore their Native GUI frameworks and continue to focus on implementing a clean, usable GUI using non-native (read: 100% cross platform) technologies.<p>I think this is a good thing, personally. I don't see any reason to write code specifically for iOS any more, when I can, just as easily, declare a similar GUI function in a language that will work on all platforms.
Apple doesn't need to introduce delicious eye-candy to its interfaces that nobody needs to hamper web developers...they can just keep neutering the shit out of WebView by keeping it several generations behind the Safari javascript engine.
Another cynicism that comes to mind - this won't only help staying ahead of competitors, but also perhaps persuading owners of older iphones to get a newer device, even though they were fully satisfied up to this point.
What's funny here is the idea that somehow commodity SoCs will not soon be catching up and providing the same hardware benefit to all the competitors.<p>Hiding behind a hardware wall is not a safe place to be these days.
"Try copying this assholes"<p>Seriously? I can't get over there are iOS fanboys out there still with their heads so far in the sand.<p>Along with more characterizations of web development that are a decade out of date... sigh. (And anyone who doesn't understand what I mean should watch the Shadow DOM and Polymers presentations from this year's Google IO. They really need to put the Sandbox on a public url for a quick impressive demo...)
You may be surprised, but iPhone 5, or even more, Galaxy S4 are capable of much more than that crap. Like the full 3D with bump mapping, environment mapping and dynamic lighting.<p>The main problem is iOS 7 does not invoke a desire to copy it.<p>Whereas various items of the old iPhone's UI can be found all over the web. That UI style is so routinely copied nobody even notices. Some things from the iPhone have even become some sort of a standard.