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Will iOS 7 be delayed?

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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Apple Senior Vice President of Industrial Design Jony Ive now leads development of Human Interface at Cupertino, and there are rumors that the changes he is bringing in for iOS 7 are big enough that its development is behind schedule.

Jony Ive is responsible for the clean industrial design of most Apple products, but until now he has not been in charge of how its software looks.

The Daring Fireball blog suggests that engineers from Mac OS X have been moved across to help push iOS 7 development along, which suggests both may be released later than expected.

Both Mac OS X and iOS have featured a lot of ‘skeuomorphic‘ design up until now. Skeuomorphic design means something is made to look like a material or object it is not. The iBooks app is an example of this, with its wood-effect bookshelf.

Jony Ive is reportedly not a fan of this style of design, which suggests the next version of iOS will have a flatter, more utilitarian look to it.

The recent update of the iOS Podcasts app may be a an example of the kind of changes we can expect to see in iOS 7. The original design had a retro tape reel, echoing machines of the past. The new version, released since Jony Ive took charge, throws that skeuomorphism out replacing it with a clean, flat interface instead:

iOS 7 is expected to be released around June 2013

Jonathan Riggall

Jonathan Riggall

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