Mike Rundle’s initial impressions on iOS 7:
I expected iOS 7 to be much flatter than iOS 6, but still with subtle curvatures, inset highlights and shadows to indicate subtlety and realism and that the interface was emulating some physical materials. I was very wrong. iOS 7 is as flat as a board.
Mike has some good points, and I think a lot of people agree with him — so far iOS 7 is proving to be quite polarizing. My own snap judgment, based only on the screenshots I’ve seen from Apple, is that I see a lot I really like and a lot that I’m probably going to miss from iOS 6.
Naturally, we’ll have to hold our final opinions of iOS 7 until it ships this fall and we’ve all had time to actually use it and interact with it. But also, this isn’t the end of the story. Just as OS X has been refined and improved since 10.0 shipped over a decade ago, and just as the first generation of iOS was refined and improved over the past 5 years, so too will this next generation of iOS be refined and improved. Just because it’s a radical departure and Apple’s announcement that iOS has “grown up”, doesn’t mean it will be a grand slam in every area of design and function.