Even with the launch of iOS 7.1 a few months back, Apple fans are always hungry for more. With the World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) just around the corner, fans are speculating Apple will reveal the release date for the highly-anticipated iOS 8 update.
Though Apple has kept us in the dark of what features to expect in the new update, we can only hope, dream, and imagine what it would be like. And a UX/UI designer, Jay Machalani, did just that. Machalani created a series of concept videos depicting his hopes for iOS 8, which were featured in 9to5Mac’s community forums. In the videos, Machalani completely redesigns the home screen design of iOS icons and introduces us to his vision of Android-style widgets on an iPhone and iPad.
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Unlike Android and Windows phones and tablets, Apple’s products are simple to use and lack customization–a big turnoff for most Android platform users. Machalani also goes on about how “Apple has fallen behind Android and even Windows Phone when it comes to offering users the ability to customize their experience.” Even as a longtime iPhone user myself, I have to agree with the artist.
Machalani’s iOS 8
What he imagines for iOS is a “block, interactive icons that fold out to a square widget taking up the space of 4 normal icons and providing media controls, toggles, or quick access to info without having to launch the actual app itself.”
In his iOS 8 vision, you’ll be able to pinch apps icons to make them larger. Pinching an app (or opening) shows a preview of whatever you were last doing in that specific app.
Similarly to Android-operated products, you’d be able to resize and rearrange app icons be pinching and zooming, almost like a widget.
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Design
The “Block” Features
A Block has three possible sizes. 272 x 296px for the iPhone, 504 x 474px for the iPad in portrait orientation and 544 x 434px for the iPad in landscape orientation. Of course, these are Retina resolution and Blocks would only be compatible with Retina-equipped devices as the extra pixels would be necessary to ensure quality and sharpness on-screen as it gets pretty small on your display.
Though this isn’t likely to appear in iOS 8, it’s still a cool concept for Apple fans to enjoy and hope that Apple will one day move towards this direction. If you’re an iPhone user, would you want an update like this? Why or why not? If you’re an Android or Windows user, would you consider switching to an iPhone if changes like this were introduced in future models? Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments below! And be sure to follow the discussions of other topics here.
