Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

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Combine Marco and Gruber's [1] insight - This is a major house cleaning/forest fire. Someone (Jony, et al.) has stepped back, looked at the confusion that has developed over the last 3-5 years on the iPhone, and has decided to recreate the iPhone as a conceptual platform. The introduction (and hopefully consistency) of multiple dimensions onto the phone, and a cross-system approach towards geometry, means that iOS7 will be a complete re-think of how applications work and behave on the iPhone.

And don't be so quick to say, "or even what Android and Windows phone offers.." - Those are awesome platforms, and Apple can learn a lot from them (as Android and Windows have learned from the iPhone.) Indeed, the "Cards" approach in multi-tasking is actually reminiscent of what Palm's WebOS did [2] - so Apple has learned from them as well.

I am very intrigued as to how well the Multitasking/Notification driven background/User-interaction-Dependent-CPU-scheduling-for-background-processess will work - That's pretty innovative solution to a common problem of Craptastic background apps that you don't think about sucking your battery dry. [edit: And all the discussions about Apps checking in when you've got the radios on, when you are powered up, etc... - I've been dreaming about exactly that for 2+ years. Finally! (Non-ironically)]

Don't kid yourself - iOS 7 is the big one, and, will likely be as ugly as the upgrade was from 10.6.8 to 10.7.0 was on OS X - My prediction is that iOS 8 will basically be fixing all the glitches and problems created from this complete platform rethink - but, sometimes, to make an omelet...

Forest Fire Indeed!

[1] http://daringfireball.net/2013/06/ios_7_signature [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c20uhGxSxWo

iOS7 will be a complete re-think of how applications work and behave on the iPhone.

Of course it won't. That just reads like hyperbole. Apps on iOS7 will work almost entirely the same as they do on iOS6 and below.

Listen to half a dozen developers at WWDC right now - see if, based on what they have seen so far with the DP, if they aren't completely rethinking their approach towards how their apps need to work/behave to feel "modern?"

I'm not up in the city right now, but from the few podcasts I've listened to - people are already commenting on how "dated" their app feels.

And - with the exception of the Mail/Calendar (Apple Favoritism, at its worst) and wacky "geofencing wakeup in the background techniques", all of our backgrounded Apps on iOS have basically gone to sleep permanently (until user pulled them back into the foreground) unless they were a GPS/VOIP/Music/Newstand app (and even some newsstand apps performed poorly with background downloads - I'm looking at you NYT).

In addition to the 3-D geometry (where I'm expecting lots of slide over sheets as a new metaphor) - I think all developers are right now considering how they can take advantage of an App that they can "wake up" remotely from a notification and perform activity with.

Background downloads will change apps, sure. But does that really constitute a "complete re-think of how applications work"? It's the same feature, just implementable in a better way.

And people are in shock after years of iOS looking pretty much the same. When everyone actually looks at things objectively, they'll realise that their apps need to look a little different, behave a little different, but overall be pretty much the same apps they were before.

(and as an extra thought) you do not need to go far to imagine what apps with these new functionalities will be like - Android had them for a long time and Android apps are basically very similar to iOS ones.

There is a lot more new than just background downloads. And it will change how developers think about their applications. Dynamic text, UIKit Dynamics, UIMotionEffect will change a lot as will new navigation/transition schemes.

Right. Incremental improvements to the APIs available. That is in no way a "complete re-think of how applications work".

Although that does sound like hyperbole, the point is that they will be doing a "complete re-think of how applications work" - even though the end result will be much the same as it is at present.

You are conflating design and under-the-hood changes. I have seen absolutely nobody complain about the new APIs you mention, even though they might need a few iterations to work - just like 10.7 did. That is fine, that is how Apple has always worked. Apps that were quick to embrace features of 10.7/10.8 have always gotten a solid push on the Mac App Store, for example.

What annoys many users (and every developer is also a user) is change for the sake of change. There is absolutely no technical reason for changing the style of icons on iOS 7. Clear fit right in on the iOS 6 home screen and was a joy to use regardless.

That is true but do the new APIs offer something that would cause some revolutionary re-think and remolding of a vast majority of apps in the app store?

Sure the new APIs might offer some great features for apps and I am sure they will definitely be used in the majority of upcoming apps, but my problem (maybe not problem just curious observation or minor annoyance) is Marco taking a completely nonobjective stance on the iOS7 changes. I am completely ok with his opinion but the blind hyperbole is a bit annoying.

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