Apple’s WWDC invite suddenly makes sense (opens in new tab)

The thing is that the previous years of invites haven't really had any deeper meaning, going back to 2010 or so. They've just been getting more and more stylish in representing "a lot of apps".

2010: Tube tiled with app icons

2011: Apple logo "window" into space tiled with app icons

2012: Apple logo made up of translucent round rects (stylized app icons) of various colors.

2013: Translucent round rects stacked on top of each other

Sounds like the Harmattan look. Each app had a flat modern UI with a highlight of color: http://harmattan-dev.nokia.com/docs/ux/pages/Colour.html

I'm not a designer, and especially not one with skills in color taste...but what would be the point of this? I mean, this splash of color is helpful for the Facebook and Twitter apps, which feature streams that can be mistaken for each other and also for the times in which I've opened an in-app browser window.

But for Apple's core apps, such as the Map app, it's pretty clear that I'm in the Map app and not in Messages. Furthermore, Facebook and Twitter have about 3-4 years of color-branding experience on their side...in that, I automatically recognize their respective shades of blue as belonging to them.

In addition, this color-splash for core apps seem to add a few negative consequences:

1. It couples colors to apps in a way that may be detrimental for the operating experience in general...for example, if I've been "trained" to think that "green" means "Message" app...that causes a bit of a disjoint for third-party messaging apps that do not use green.

2. Will "danger" buttons (such as "Delete") no longer be red, in the case that one of the core apps has red as its splash color?

3. Will the use of color be so critical in distinguishing the core apps that color blind users will operate at a disadvantage?

Honestly, if Apple releases an entire new look for UIKit without breaking retro-compatibility, I think the iOS team can be commended as one of the most impressive engineering teams in the world.

The Play Store on Android is designed exactly this way as well. I don't really have any strong opinions on whether it's good or bad design, but it's interesting to see the top mobile OSes start to converge in this direction.

It would be nice if the WWDC invite could somehow be interpreted as having anything at all to do with their PC products and/or their OSX operating system.

Not only does it appear not to, but prior to this comment, the string "osx" is not in this comment thread anywhere.

1. As users learn UI abstractions, they no longer need skeuomorphic crutches to figure out what's what.

2. Designs that used to be helpful are then considered clutter.

3. UIs become flatter.

4. New category of hardware is introduced

5. rinse and repeat

Kremlinology.

This reminds me of Microsoft's Office Suite. It seems the current colors are:

Access - Red

Excel - Green

OneNote - Purple

Outlook - Blue

Publisher - Teal

PowerPoint - Orange

Word - Navy Blue

New headline suggestion: "Apple Copies Microsoft Design Ideas"? Just kidding! Associating a color with each product in your lineup is an old practice.

MMXII => 2013

That's pretty cool how they almost achieved a "mirror" effect for the characters.

My thought was "Hey, rainbow apple logo for the XXI century."

Kind of hard to put that on device lids/backs, though. But it would look nice on stickers.

P.S. Amusingly, http://danhadi.com/blog/?p=526 (classic rainbow on modern lid) comes up in fourth place for me with https://www.google.com/search?q=rainbow+apple+logo

More rumours. I wouldn't hold my breath. These Apple rumour-mills (the one the author is using as source) always miss by a mile.

This colour scheme seems possible to me, especially with the latest iPod Touch (and Nano) colour schemes and the rumoured iPad and iPad Mini bodies that pictures emerged of a few months ago. I wonder in the hardware refresh in November will reflect the new colour scheme? I'd like a more colourful device range.

So the app icons represent apps... and??

I can't help but notice these layered colors look like transparent cellophane. Maybe this is the metaphor, app controls, etc, are reflective transparencies layered atop data?

I wonder if that's the look that "folders" are going to have in iOS 7 then? I think that'd look pretty nice.

gald to know that some has founded and decoded the wwdc 2013 banner before wwdc 2013 keynote

http://www.techglued.com/wwdc-2013-keynote-address-scheduled...

Spot on analysis. stoked for WW!

I really hope the changes aren't extreme. I'm not a tech geek and I work in finance in a non-technology role (I'm only on HN for my consumer-level interest in tech, and the conversation here is better than other forums like reddit). I am pretty much the mainstream consumer and I actually like iOS a lot as it is. I hope Apple aren't making changes for the easily bored tech geek/pundit crowd who require change for the sake of change. They're not idiots so I'm confident that whatever changes are made will be well thought out, I'm just a tiny bit concerned because the only people on the web that are vocal about it are the tech geeks.

Look, there is simply no chance that Apple is going with flat UI and color coded icons. The changes wont be extreme, Apple is not going to fire their graphics department so they can implement flat squares. Yes they will get rid of the kitch.

Think how many peoples' apps would break if they went to Flat UI, think how many users they would alienate? Think how iOS is supposed to have some kinship with OS X design ethos. Is anything in OS X flat?

Linen is staying. Drop shadows, gloss and rounded corners are staying.