Rumored Redesign in iOS 19 and macOS 16
Mark Gurman (Mastodon, MacRumors):
Apple Inc. is preparing one of the most dramatic software overhauls in the company’s history, aiming to transform the interface of the iPhone, iPad and Mac for a new generation of users.
The revamp — due later this year — will fundamentally change the look of the operating systems and make Apple’s various software platforms more consistent, according to people familiar with the effort. That includes updating the style of icons, menus, apps, windows and system buttons.
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A key goal of the overhaul is to make Apple’s different operating systems look similar and more consistent. Right now, the applications, icons and window styles vary across macOS, iOS and visionOS. That can make it jarring to hop from one device to another.
I feel like we just had a major redesign, and it mostly made things worse. So, surely, there are many areas that need refinement, but this sounds like not that. With bugs everywhere and Apple Intelligence in disarray, why is Apple choosing to introduce even more chaos? Plus, they should not be doubling down on the mistaken idea that the problem with macOS is that it doesn’t look enough like iOS.
This is the same thing said by Alan Dye in introducing MacOS Big Sur’s overhaul less than five years ago: “we wanted consistency throughout the ecosystem, so users can move fluidly between their Apple devices”. I do not think this is a worthwhile goal unto itself. It is unclear to me how today’s Apple operating systems are insufficiently consistent in ways that are not beneficial to the user experience. I do not think MacOS, iOS, and VisionOS should all look and work the same because they are all used in completely different ways.
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This has me excited and worried in similar measure. There are things on all of these products which could use rethinking. This could be the culmination of many years of rethinking every component and interaction to figure out what works best. But I do not think it is worth getting too hopeful for a rethink or even a reintroduction of depth and texture across Apple’s systems. This set of redesigns may be described here as “dramatic” but, given the number of users who depend on these operating systems, I doubt it will be. I do not think much re-learning will be expected, despite Gurman’s belief this will “go well beyond a new coat of paint like iOS 7”.
I am trying not to get too far in my thoughts until I see it for real, but I do not like the sound of more glassy, translucent effects. One of the most common phrases I have used in recent years of filing Apple bug reports is “insufficient contrast”. I am not optimistic that pattern will not continue.
“Consistency” is bullshit. Because it always tends to give way to the lowest common denominator.
Let the Mac be a Mac. Let the iPhone be an iPhone. Let the iPad be an even better iPhone. Lend to the individual strengths of each platform.
Maybe if each platform OS utilized its unique platform strengths, we wouldn’t need redesigns every 3-4 years. They’re expensive for them (and us, as devs).
They need to stop making my powerful desktop look/behave like an iPhone.
I don’t know anyone who has ever complained that the differences between their phone’s UI and their computer’s UI made the experience of going from one device to the other “jarring”. There’s lots to complain about in iOS and in macOS, but none of it has anything to do with the fact that they are different.
Gurman’s story is acting like Apple hadn’t already done this years ago.
While the report is light on detail, the few clues it provide does make it sound like the upcoming software updates could almost a complete reversal of the flat look we’ve had for more than a decade …
With iOS 7, Apple ditched all the 3D and skeuomorphic elements in the UI in favor of very flat graphics which have remained in use ever since.
The report – which of course may or may not turn out to be accurate – says that the new look will be “loosely” based on visionOS.
Please not the circular icons.
Israeli website The Verifier was first to report about the potential visionOS-like redesign, but it said the changes were coming in iOS 18. It is possible that this report was accurate about the details, but wrong about the timeframe.
Then, earlier this year, Jon Prosser claimed that iOS 19 will feature a redesigned Camera app. In a video uploaded to his YouTube channel Front Page Tech, he shared renders of the app's alleged new design, revealing translucent menus and other visionOS-like elements. He speculated that the changes could extend to the Home Screen and beyond.
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At a minimum, you can expect iOS 19 to have a more simplified and translucent appearance, if these rumors are true.
Basic idea is something very much akin to the look and feel of VisionOS, but brought to the Camera app, and perhaps throughout the entire system (or just parts of it) in iOS 19. Seems cool, seems fresh, and seems aligned with where Apple has been heading.
Some recent iPadOS tweaks seem awfully visionOS-inspired. Same with some of the Apple Intelligence elements – well, the parts Apple has managed to ship, at least. And certainly Apple’s new Invites software follows some of these new paradigms. And it’s undoubtedly not a coincidence, as Parker Ortolani pointed out last month, that an entirely new app created by Apple was built using some new design ideas.
Apple has a long history of borrowing from their newer OSes and devices to extend older ones – just think about how much of iOS/iPadOS and even macOS started with watchOS ideas. While Apple may maintain that they absolutely positively do not want to merge the Mac and the iPad, they’ve essentially been doing so through software UI regardless.
If Apple modifies the look of platform user interfaces, I’m guessing that SwiftUI will play a huge part in a successful transition.
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Those of you who have been digging around in UIKit to accomplish things will have regrets.
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Similarly, if you’ve been building apps with all kinds of wild design elements to make them look cool, you’re going to a bit of a rude awakening.
Those of us who were around for [iOS 7] and Aqua remember exactly what that felt like 😀
I figured that was the case before the launch of visionOS, but that turned out to be UIKit all the way down and neither SwiftUI nor UIKit had any particular advantage for matching new system UI. And that was a whole new platform.
I really don't think it's going to be the case this time, either. Any SwiftUI app striving for high quality is going to have just as much of a pain in the ass working across both old and new styles as native code.
Only vanilla apps will have it easy.
what is almost guaranteed, by the unforgiving yearly cycle and the engineering effort otherwise wasted on AI, is that any major redesign in 2025 is not going to have anywhere near enough resources or time in the oven, so I expect a lot of pain and churn over the summer no matter which UI framework you choose
Rumours: Apple are redesigning their operating systems Us: Oh god, please no!
Twenty years ago, we’d have heard this and been excited for what delights it would bring. These days, not so much.
To these veteran Mac coders, the reaction to Aqua was universally negative. People were actively very angry. It’s a waste! It’s ugly! It’s confusing! How could you. It went on and on, and I was surprised because Aqua looked cool and fun to me.
The Aqua look and feel was definitely polarizing. And Apple dialed back its most exuberant details with each subsequent Mac OS X update — less transparency, subtler pinstripes (pinstripes!), etc. But iOS 7 was equally polarizing, and its excesses also got dialed back (or perhaps better, said, dialed back up) with each successive iOS release — a little more depth, some subtle hints of texture.
Either Apple is never going to ship an altogether new UI theme, or they’ll ship one and a large number of people will declare it utter garbage and proof that Apple has completely lost its way.
Why does that have to be the cycle? Why can’t they iterate internally and ship something that’s more refined instead of a design at the outset that’s obviously too much? Why do they have to throw out the old design soon after its excesses have mostly been fixed? It’s the same modus operandi as forcing an annual major OS release so that new features and bugs are being introduced just as the next major version goes into beta. It’s a treadmill that never arrives at a polished version.
I want to be on record saying that iOS7 and later still sucks in comparison to having actual buttons and other affordances.
Same with this ‘courageous’ new world of overloaded titlebars, overflow menus, and touch-centric controls on a mouse-centric UI.
Sure, maybe that wasn’t 20 years ago, but aside from System 7 to MacOS 8, and classic to OSX (the bones were good), Apple has been terrible at UI changes.
Am I the only one who sees the news that Apple is having SIGNIFICANT problems with A.I./Siri running head first into the news that Apple is planning a significant UI/UX change with iOS 19/macOS 16? Is everyone at Apple on crazy pills?? Last thing we need is MOAR upheaval.
Alex:
I am just wanting a new snow leopard release where they just stop features and actually fix stuff so it works
Besides destroying the interface for users, every Apple OS redesign creates a massive amount of unpaid make-work for 3rd party developers.
I dunno about other developers, but I’m not sure I have the energy to redesign all my apps this year if iOS is getting an iOS-7-style revamp 😐
Not exactly looking forward to that. Still haven't fully recovered from the psychic wounds of the iOS 7 redesign, tbh.
if i imagine all of macOS redesigned from the ground up with the same user hostile thoughtlessness of the System Settings…
…maybe it really is the year of Linux on the desktop.
they did a shit job with System Settings, and they reckon they are now doing the whole OS?
As if the SwiftUI community isn’t fragmented enough, wait until SwiftUI × iOS 19 is using a different design language 🙂
If that’s the way it works out — with a new visual look drawing attention from lackluster progress on the AI front — surely the timing will be coincidental, but some accidents are happy accidents, as Bob Ross used to say.
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There should be no question that all of what Lovejoy is saying here is true. If Apple launches an all-new systemwide UI theme for iOS 19, something even half as radical a change as iOS 7’s theme was, it will be the only thing most users notice or opine about.
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Part of what makes Apple Apple is that the company is (or at least should be) led by people who both have great taste and trust their own instincts.
No, John, Apple was the company led by people who have great taste.
There is literally NOBODY remaining in Apple leadership who has great taste.
Reminder that Federighi thought the Catalyst apps got really good in the Catalina public beta and likes the new System Settings.
Gripe #47853 of UI things on the Mac / from Apple slipping through QA.
This button is colored blue and looks like it would absolutely be the default button, but pressing return / enter does not activate it.
A lot of Mac apps coming out of Apple these days no longer behave like Mac apps. Is it SwiftUI? Is it Mac Catalyst? Not sure because at least in AppKit, it would just be standard out-of-the-box default behavior for this key button to accept return/enter from the keyboard.
You may think we’re being cynical or overreacting but this is now death by a thousand papercuts and we’re just not used to this being life-long Mac users (me since the 90s).
While the Apple Intelligence fiasco is recent, I’ve been complaining about the decline of Apple’s software for ten years.
It’s not just quality control, sloppiness, and inconsistency, but fundamentally bad user interface design glazed with inadequate AI features.
Previously:
- Rumored Redesign in iOS 19 and macOS 16
- Apple Delays “More Personalized Siri” Apple Intelligence Features
- Tricked Into Installing macOS Update
- Our Changing Relationship With Apple
- Apple Invites
- Apple Sports
- System Settings
- Smaller Preferences Tab Icons in Big Sur
- Big Sur’s Sidebar Translucency
- Big Sur’s Gray Menu Keyboard Shortcuts
- Big Sur Document Icons Are Illegible
- Dismissing Big Sur Notifications
- Big Sur Notifications
- Big Sur Application Icons
- More Big Sur UI Refinements
- Big Sur’s Hidden Document Proxy Icon
- macOS Big Sur Changes for Developers
- Big Sur’s Transparent Menu Bar
- Visual Comparison of macOS Catalina and Big Sur
- Big Sur’s Narrow Alerts
- Desktop Apps Post-Catalyst
- iOS 7’s Design Inspiration
- iOS 7 Design
13 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
iOS 7 was Apple's stealth way of blowing up "pixel perfect" design. Having text-only buttons and outline-only elements and no real access to pixel-level UI element anything was Apple moving away from 320pt widths in iPhones. The iPad was always (and still is in many ways) just chasing after the iPhone. Ive was let loose and rode the "not-Forstall" contrarian wave to do anything he wanted.
Not seeing much commentary on the co-incidence of this announcement coming right on the heels of the AI major delay news. Could it not be (at least partly) intended as a news cycle diversionary tactic? And also as a future excuse for further AI delays, on the premise that they will then be so busy on their new Ive-esque platform-fusion grand plan.
A couple of things I said on Mastodon:
1. In reply to Mario Guzmán, who said, “‘Consistency‘ is bullshit. Because it always tends to give way to the lowest common denominator”, my response was: Exactly this. Note how these platforms all started to degrade when Apple began pushing for visual convergence.
2. The last time I heard people complain about a UI feeling a bit alien was during the transition from Mac OS 9 to X. At the time I was freelancing as tech support for individuals and small businesses. I had to do refresher courses to all of them to help them transition. When iOS debuted I was doing tech support only intermittently, but in all these years I never had someone tell me, “Man, I wish Mac OS and iOS were more similar, they always confuse me.”
I'll add that more common complaints has been a general loss of intuitiveness and user-friendliness in both Mac OS and iOS, loss of consistency between apps and, ironically, dissatisfaction with first-party app redesigns after a major system upgrade (e.g. Safari, Mail, System Settings on the Mac; Photos on the iPhone)
> why is Apple choosing to introduce even more chaos?
Maybe the emoji mines are running dry so they need to find another source for BS features.
If this does happen I hope Apple use it as an opportunity to align os names. Instead of iOS 19, macOS Napa, watchOS 12 etc can we just have iOS ‘25, macOS ‘25, watchOS ‘25 etc? It may lock us in even more to the yearly release cycle but it seems was beyond wishful thinking that we’re escaping that anytime soon.
Seems like an iOS/MacOS redesign/consistency could be Apple's DOGE -- promise to fix the main issues, but instead attack and destroy the things people care about most while leaving all the biggest bugs and annoyances intact.
The SwiftUI Shitshow is the centerpiece of the highest profile UI and UX atrocities. But let's not forgive Catalyst Compromise apps, either. Both stick out (poorly) like Carbon apps of the early Mac OS X era.
AppKit or bust on Mac.
UIKit or bust on iOS.
You can still produce a crap design no matter what you use, but using anything else requires so much extra effort to get the details (and performance) right. If you're not going to put in that extra effort, you might as well ship a Chromium Crapfest (Electron) app and go for the marketshare play (instead of just running on 2 or 3 Apple platforms).
Josh Shaffer and Swiftfluencers have gaslit too many devs into thinking coding IB files by hand is fun and "good design" (and also that Swift is a good language, but that's another discussion).
"This button is colored blue and looks like it would absolutely be the default button, but pressing return / enter does not activate it."
I feel like this has been going on for a while now, especially with new apps like Apple Music.
It makes me think I'm crazy. Didn't we used to be able to tab between dialog options and then select whichever one was highlighted by tapping Space? And if it was options like Save and Don't Save, you could hit CMD-S to select Save and CMD-D to select Don't Save?
I find this rarely works anymore.
I find Six Colors' revenue pie chart very helpful in perceiving the place of the Mac in Apple's lineup just as Apple executives do: https://i0.wp.com/sixcolors.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/financials-2025-1-4-1-1.png
@Ben I think the shortcut for “Don’t Save” was changed to Command-Delete, which I guess makes typing it more intentional, but now I can’t do it one-handed while keeping my right hand on the mouse.
Gruber got something right...
My Aunt turned 91 two weeks ago. Her husband turned 95 today. My two brothers and I had brunch with them. (Don't worry, I'll keep it short.) Fun was had by all, and both of them were surprised. Conversation was fun! At one point I was talking with my Aunt about a tree I'll need to take out after this harsh winter (she used to love birds and gardening). It distracted her from my brother paying the tab.
And that's my point. After two - TWO! - major debacle called Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence it's time for Apple to, as Gruber put it, come up "...with a new visual look drawing attention from lackluster progress on the AI front...". For me that means "HEAD FAKE!" or "MADE YOU LOOK!". This from a 67 year old who still dabbles in UIKit regularly, love Swift but found SwiftUI not my cup of tea, and at my age simply can't fathom why I should ever go to Linux.
Well, they redesigned many UI elements to be more like VisionOS last year. I would not call VisionOS a widely successful product, thus it felt like a dubious move. So now, they will redesign everything to be more like Siri? This smells like the end of Apple.
