The last few iOS releases are a disaster on both fronts. Design-wise it’s completely blank, flat & empty, and usability wise a lot of the apps are just shadows of their former selves. Music, messages, maps, App Store, podcasts, etc. Even basic text editing was downgraded.
https://images.techhive.com/images/article/2016/01/mac-os-x-...
Personally I like the friendly stylings of old which were empathetic to users' needs. Computers these days seem to take themselves too seriously, and we've lost a bit of the fun as a result.
I think Apple knew this, too. If you look at the timeline of macOS releases, 10.0–10.2 were released in the span of just over a year, and 10.3 had barely a year of life before Panther replaced it (incremental annual releases are the norm now, but they weren't then). And of course, Apple was still supporting OS 9 at the time.
10.1 -> 10.2 = 11 months
10.2 -> 10.3 = 14 months
10.3 -> 10.4 = 18 months
To me, a lot of these modern interfaces (eg Unity) feel like staring at a dark concrete city. I’d love to see some more of this come back.