iOS 7 to Feature ‘Flat Design’ Under Jonathan Ive’s Leadership

Jonathan Ive

Jonathan Ive

iOS 7 could feature ‘flat design’ as Apple prepares to unveil the next operating system for iOS devices. Late last year, Jonathan Ive was just Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple but with a management shakeup at the company, his role expanded. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook gave Jonathan Ive leadership of the the company’s Human Interfaces teams. This means that Ive was now, in part, controlling the hardware and parts of the software which could provide from some tightly integrated products.

This is something that Apple is known for in its products, tightly integrated hardware and software within the company’s ecosystem. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s mobile software teams are being informed of hardware prototypes early on the cycle. Ive is also reportedly meeting with the human interfaces team to look at designs and is looking to create a ‘flat design’ in iOS 7.

Some suggested that in Apple’s next mobile operating system, Ive is pushing a more “flat design” that is starker and simpler, according to developers who have spoken to Apple employees but didn’t have further details. Overall, they expect any changes to be pretty conservative. For the past few years, Apple has unveiled versions of its mobile operating system in the summer.

Design is one example of the increased “collaboration across hardware, software and services” that Apple said it was aiming for when Cook pushed senior vice president and mobile software chief Scott Forstall out of the company last year.

WSJ’s report also notes that Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi is looking to combine Mac and iOS teams when necessary, likely to transition features between devices as they did with “Back to Mac” event in 2010. With Apple receiving intense criticism over the past several weeks for its “lack of innovation”, this is most certainly positive news.

All of Apple’s current iOS and Mac products are from the Steve Jobs era and with Tim Cook working with someone who worked closely with Jobs, it is very likely that they will come up with something else revolutionary. Apple’s products is all about integrating and learning from previous generations, which is something that they can now accomplish with Jony Ive collaborating with both hardware and software teams.

{Via MacRumors}

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