Apple's New Vision for Software
Mark Gurman
Something more translucent this way comes:
Apple Inc. is preparing one of the most dramatic software overhauls in the company’s history, aiming to transform the interface of the iPhone, iPad and Mac for a new generation of users.
The revamp — due later this year — will fundamentally change the look of the operating systems and make Apple’s various software platforms more consistent, according to people familiar with the effort. That includes updating the style of icons, menus, apps, windows and system buttons.
As part of the push, the company is working to simplify the way users navigate and control their devices, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the project hasn’t been announced. The design is loosely based on the Vision Pro’s software, they said.
I feel like 99% of the time we talk about how disappointing the Vision Pro has been since its release just over a year ago. Or maybe that's just me. (Narrator: it's not just me.) But that's almost entirely about the hardware and/or the strategy for the device. When it comes to the software, and in particular, visionOS itself, Apple actually seemed to very nearly hit a homerun on their first swing.
And in the subsequent swings, with various visionOS updates, they certainly have. Again, it has been completely overshadowed by the disappointing bits of the platform, but it's rather incredible how good the software is for this entirely new computing paradigm – from the design on down. And now that design, it seems, is coming to the broader Apple ecosystem.
To be clear and fair, it has been making its way here slowly but surely. Some recent iPadOS tweaks seem awfully visionOS-inspired. Same with some of the Apple Intelligence elements – well, the parts Apple has managed to ship, at least. And certainly Apple's new Invites software follows some of these new paradigms. And it's undoubtedly not a coincidence, as Parker Ortolani pointed out last month, that an entirely new app created by Apple was built using some new design ideas.
And Apple has a long history of borrowing from their newer OSes and devices to extend older ones – just think about how much of iOS/iPadOS and even macOS started with watchOS ideas. While Apple may maintain that they absolutely positively do not want to merge the Mac and the iPad, they've essentially been doing so through software UI regardless. And that looks to continue:
A key goal of the overhaul is to make Apple’s different operating systems look similar and more consistent. Right now, the applications, icons and window styles vary across macOS, iOS and visionOS. That can make it jarring to hop from one device to another.
That all makes sense. Though I am curious about the timing here. Apple is in the middle of a shitstorm around their delay of AI features that were promised nearly a year ago and now may not come for another year. Meanwhile, other AI features may not come for another two years. Certainly Siri is starting to seem like the dinosaur looking up at the sky and seeing an AI asteroid coming down to create an extinction-level event. The question is how badly the fallout hits Apple more broadly. At the very least, they can't like what is being said about them right now. So... this is certainly one way to change the conversation, Don Draper-style.
Normal people probably don't actually care too much about Apple Intelligence right now. But they may be swayed just by the notion that Apple is now "behind" or not cutting edge anymore, if they read about it every day. What they absolutely will care about is "new" – as in, a new-looking operating system for their iPhone. "New creates an itch, you simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion."
One more thing: mom and dad are fighting again.
John Gruber is quick to point out that Mark Gurman's scoop here is old news, if you go off of Jon Prosser's YouTube video on the matter from a couple months back. Certainly, it looks/feels like the glimpse Prosser claims to have gotten of a redesigned camera app within iOS 19 may be legitimate – very visionOS-like – and Gurman's reporting would seem to back that up.
Really, all I care about is if we're going to get circular iOS app icons to match visionOS – and yes, Android. After 17 years of iPhones, our fingers have yet to evolve into squares with rounded corners...