http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/06/14/fertile-ground
I’ll just leave this here.
m
Interesting article, Matt, but for those of us not developing native apps i.e. we’re using Corona, what should we focus on - flat buttons, ‘bouncy’ UI … ?
Stefan
From the point of the article, I think the focus for any one of us should be to think hard about the overall design language of our apps from right now. Not just the images used as our UI elements to affect the aesthetic, but the entire journey through the app.
I don’t know what that would entail as I haven’t read the Apple design guidelines, but I’m sure there’s a lot of changes which we, as Corona devs, can take on, regardless of how much or how soon the new iOS APIs become available in the Corona libraries.
I updated all my Bar Exam apps. They all had a nice wood background and curved buttons. As soon as the UI was shown in the keynote… I changed all 7 apps to have a whitish background flattened out the tilebar and even made the tabbar widget grey instead of black… flattened it too. Then changed all the font (except for logo based stuff) to the Helvetica-Neue-Light. All 7 are up in the Amazon store, Google Play and one of the 7 have been approved so far in iOS. No irony there.
http://www.californiabarexamapp.com
matt
Nice job. Matt! Are you using Widgets 1.0 or 2.0?
widgets 2.0
So did you create an iOS7 theme for Widgets 2.0?
Not really… I just “colorized” the old assets files used prior to them being builtin with widgets 2.0… So I loaded them back into the assets directory and changed the colors and removed the edges so the whole thing looked like one color. then added a thin display.newLine to the top of the bar and the bottom of the titlebar instead of the shadow… removed the gradient from the titlebar example that I was using and voila.
Neat! Job well done!
2.0 - just updated the reorder tableview post in the code exchange to work with Widgets2.0
I hate that in iOS 7 all non-game apps are going to blend into one homogenized look. The whole “flat” thing is idiotic. There’s nothing wrong with green felt on a gaming table. There’s nothing wrong with wood grain on a bookshelf.
But yes, I’ll be bastardizing my apps as well.
Jay
PS - Matt, the new paint job on your app *does* look nice.
Here’s something else interesting that fits here – and kind of echoes what I’ve been feeling:
http://shawnblanc.net/2013/06/ios-7-and-apps-with-personality/
I *hope* there are still apps with personality – I’m just afraid too many people will go too far toward the “boring” side of things.
Jay
Actually I think Apple is trying to put more power in the designers hand by getting as much UI out of the way as possible. The weather app is a great example. It looks great.
Here’s a take on “wrong design”: http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/53308781143/wrong
IMHO, The design change to apps that Apple has made is great, in that it puts a lot of power in our hands. I do worry that beautiful standards guidelines will be lost or, at least, sullied. Eg: What will UK Train Times look like now and will there be a design guide for others who want to follow it? Or: Could I build a similarly designed app without knowing what their UI refresh will look like?
Interesting article, Matt, but for those of us not developing native apps i.e. we’re using Corona, what should we focus on - flat buttons, ‘bouncy’ UI … ?
Stefan
From the point of the article, I think the focus for any one of us should be to think hard about the overall design language of our apps from right now. Not just the images used as our UI elements to affect the aesthetic, but the entire journey through the app.
I don’t know what that would entail as I haven’t read the Apple design guidelines, but I’m sure there’s a lot of changes which we, as Corona devs, can take on, regardless of how much or how soon the new iOS APIs become available in the Corona libraries.
I updated all my Bar Exam apps. They all had a nice wood background and curved buttons. As soon as the UI was shown in the keynote… I changed all 7 apps to have a whitish background flattened out the tilebar and even made the tabbar widget grey instead of black… flattened it too. Then changed all the font (except for logo based stuff) to the Helvetica-Neue-Light. All 7 are up in the Amazon store, Google Play and one of the 7 have been approved so far in iOS. No irony there.
http://www.californiabarexamapp.com
matt
Nice job. Matt! Are you using Widgets 1.0 or 2.0?
widgets 2.0
So did you create an iOS7 theme for Widgets 2.0?