Apple's upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference could mark a major pivot in the design language of iOS, macOS, and iPadOS, according to New report from Bloomberg.
Details are thin, but Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claims there's an effort to standardize designs and usage metaphors across these platforms, with much of it influenced, at least in part, by VisionOS, which runs inside the Vision Pro.
Apple's pricey mixed reality headset hasn't taken the consumer world by storm, but there may be something about the interface's metaphors, which rely on sight and gestures, that appeals to Apple's software designers.
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Gurman claims that part of the effort is to make the platforms look similar. Of course, if you were to look at Safari icons or settings across all platforms, you'd already notice significant similarities, with the only differences often being whether the icons are round or square.
It's time for a change
It's been some time since Apple significantly changed iOS and macOS. The desktop platform saw a major design update in 2020 with macOS Big Sur (the same year as the first Mac Silicon Mac).
The major overhaul of iOS dates back more than a decade, when it stripped away most of the original iPhone's skeuomorphic design.
Skeuomorphism is where icons look like the thing they represent. The Photos app was a picture of a flower, the Settings app was a trio of almost connectable gears, the newsstand was a bookshelf full of subscriptions, and the Calendar looked so much like an old-fashioned desk calendar that you were tempted to tear a page right off the screen.
If you look at iOS today, you can see how flat and clean everything is, and that's mostly the work of Jony Ive. Apple's former design chief loved a clean aesthetic, and it starts with iOS 7, make its way.
This new effort could be an opportunity to bring these disparate platforms together in both visual and functional unification.
They don't have to look and work equally well, but there may be advantages at Apple that push them in that direction. It can be reckless to have one action on the iPhone and a different one on the Mac, iPad, and even the Vision Pro.
One might hope that Apple Intelligence and a smarter Siri (available across all platforms) would help with some of this confusion, but the integration process into the deeper part of each operating system hasn't gone as quickly or smoothly as we all expected.
Can Apple find that sweet spot of standardization and differentiation that makes sense for its vast user base? Maybe.
We don't mind a little return to skeuomorphism. Having icons that look like their intended purpose is a form of shorthand and will always help beginners learn. The counter to this—and it's a fair argument—is that when you design software to look like current hardware, the software will become obsolete once those objects are re-advanced.
The fact that the iPhone 16 Pro Max's "Phone" icon still looks like a 20th-century phone is almost comical. Gen Z has never seen or used a phone that looks like that.
Which brings me to another key question. Will iOS 19's redesign be so radical that it will eliminate the iconic Phone app icon? I hope not, but I think anything is possible.
Whatever the case, WWDC 25 looks set to be a big moment for the Apple ecosystem. Sure, every platform sees upgrades during these events, but usually not on the scale rumored.
Hold onto your iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks; this can be a wild and visual ride.
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