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Comment by QuantumGood | Hacker News Reader

Most people who "agree" with Ive don't seem to share his (stated) reasoning. I mostly hear of visual distaste for skeuomorphism, but the article points out

"Ive's…reasoning behind his distaste for the texture-heavy (skeuomorphic) interfaces [is that] software designs filled with physical metaphors do not stand the test of time."

Considering how long Apple has used skeuomorphic design, it will be interesting to see how long Ive's vision lasts. I wouldn't be surprised when as many years have past, that there will again be change.

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I'm surprised he would care about the "test of time", when he's designing an OS that updates every year.

The visual design of iOS has hardly changed since it was introduced. Individual apps have changed their appearance, but the OS itself has largely looked the same.

Same goes for OS X iterations over the past 12 years. Minor variations on the same theme. That's a very long time in tech.

The basic look of iOS is unchanged since the first version. OSX has basically stayed the same for over 10 years. Apple like to find what they consider to be a great UI solution and stick to it for long periods of time.

In contrast see Windows 2000 vs XP vs 7/Vista vs 8, and Android 2.x compared with 4.x

The "find a good design and stick with it" idea seems to be an Apple trait, as it applies to hardware just as much as software.

The Mac Pro design debuted with the Power Mac G5 in 2003, the Macbook Pro design comes from the Titanium PowerBook in 2001, the same year as the iPod Classic.

The newer designs are the iMac (2007 for the current metal incarnation), Air (2008), AppleTV (2010) and iPhone (iPhone 4 in 2010, although you could argue that it hasn't really changed at all since 2007).

The exceptions are the iPod Nano and Shuffle, which they don't seem to know what to do with.

But it still uses a receiver on the icon for making a phone call? http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheFloppyDiskMeansSaveAnd14Oth...

Outside of striped lines to brushed aluminum, has the design of 10.x changed dramatically year over year? I would suggest no.

The argument Ive uses is that when the iPhone first came out and smartphones became a mass market consumer good, people needed the guidance afforded by skeumorphism to adapt to a touch-screen environment.

Now that pretty much everyone and their grandma has had a few years using a smartphone and knows their was around a touchscreen, the usability benefits of skeumorphism are no longer as valuable when compared to the aesthetic concerns. Thus, flat design.

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