Apple, what the heck are we doing?
An iOS 16 visual design rundown.
Let’s be honest: the new release of iOS, with its number of bug fixes, additional megapixel of resolution in each picture, and reduction of .023 mm in size, has all but become a meme.
While in previous years iOS updates were glossed over and forgotten, this years’ changes are a stark departure², starting with the entirely new visual look of every iPhone’s lockscreen.
This year the iPhone turned 15 and new customization options headline many new changes released in iOS 16. These new iPhone customizations are never expected, because Apple has been infamous for constrained hardware and software design language.
In its release year, 2007, the iPhone’s target market was mostly made up of millennials who were a group of users marked by professionalism and a staunch predilection towards pragmatism. Now in 2022, the evolving target market is littered with Gen Z users adjoined by a fierce identity of individualism and expression.
Since the phone’s inception in 2007, the landscape of identity has not only evolved, but also has expanded to include so much more richness especially in the areas of sexual identification, sexual preference, social impact groups and much more. Other titans of the industry have accepted this awakening and have redesigned their visual language to fit the changing social fabric. Now, after 15 years Apple has finally adjusted, raising its inclusivity present in its platform.
New Lockscreen Customizations
In iOS 16, Apple has provided the option to customize the lock and home screens with various effectiveness. While the idea allows for quite a bit more self-expression, the execution of the tools to make this happen either appear to be half-baked, or aim for a level of visual intrigue that saps solid user experience.
Immersion
In product design, immersion plays a significant role in attracting users to platforms and making them stay; Tiktok, the undisputed champion of immersion has shown this with its infinite snap-scrolling architecture. In a similar but different way, Apple has updated its visual immersion in its phone’s lock screens to mimic this principle.
While immersion can be very useful in creating personalized and memorable experiences, it’s historically been one of the most challenging principles to pull-off in experience design; I’m looking at you Oculus.
iOS 16 struggles with immersion, especially with its suggested photos feature. Using face-detection technology, Apple looks to blend a photo’s subject with the clock, as to make the end-user feel more immersed.
While the integration of image and text should be explored more in digital products³, it cannot come at the price of the core experience. A primary use case of the lockscreen is to efficiently check the time, rather than to admire the wallpaper. While pretty wallpapers should be an additive feature of the experience, it should not be the experience.
Lockscreen Architecture
Recently, Apple has evangelized a curious design pattern of utilizing the bottom 20% of vertical real-estate to house crucial actions. This can be seen in its update to the Safari toolbar⁴.
This pattern has been continued in iOS 16, as notifications now come in from the bottom and can be pushed up to their normal position.
In quite a few other apps similar patterns are used, where important actions are housed at the bottom of the screen.
Apple has stated that its notification design decision was made for two reasons: 1). To allow for new widgets to be used on the lockscreen and 2). To allow for more immersion with the wallpaper in the lockscreen¹.
While these changes increase immersion and visual intrigue, they fundamentally ignore the key sequencing that users take when interacting with notifications. In a typical user journey, the user will get a notification, visually check the notification and then decide if they want to act on it. Users like me who read left to right, top to bottom expect to read these notifications in the top left rather than the bottom left
A reason why Apple might be evangelizing this new bottom-first model is because of touchscreen thumb and finger sized design⁵. Some of the iPhone Max models are especially difficult to grip with one hand, and putting these crucial actions in the thumb radius is a more inclusive way to design for users with various sized hands.
I just wish they reserved actions that required reading (notifications, toolbars) for the top left
Typography
Not all the changes in iOS 16 were doom and gloom from a product design standpoint. One change that isn’t receiving the headlines it should is Apple’s additions to typography. Now in iOS 16, Apple allows users to customize their lockscreen’s typeface, weight, and color.
As stated earlier, Apple appears to have finally accepted the requirement for its product to express the individual that’s using it. While this realization is definitely a big deal, another development to watch is how these changes affect branding and the Apple ecosystem.
Traditionally, Apple’s products have expressed the company’s branding of clean, and minimalistic style that echoes its principles of productivity, design, and classiness. Unlike Android phones and Windows PC’s, Apple products have traditionally offered little in regards to customization options that change the foundational feel of their systems.
This progression from very little customization options to some customization options reflects the company’s gradual change in its brand visual messaging. The first inkling of this happened when Apple released animoji’s, giving users the ability vividly express themselves in domain-specific software⁶. At the time, this idea seemed very un-Apple and a downright attempt to mess around with the new facial recognition technology.
However, with the new typography and customization changes, the level of brand visual messaging has been expanded with many more looks possible in iOS 16. This is a bigger deal than it’s given credit for because instead of customizations applying to a small system (animojis in domain-specific uses such as messages), the lockscreen represents a foundational system that links both hardware and software.
Apple has never given its users this much authority to customize its product; themes in browsers is an industry standard in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox that is notoriously missing from Safari. While branding visual language has clearly been a keystone to Apple’s success, the gradual evolution and removal of this from key surfaces is going to be an interesting story to watch as the company moves forward.
New Focus Options
Focus has been a feature that has evolved from a glorified do-not-disturb moniker to a now fleshed out functionality to help users intentionally plan their time¹. IOS 16 builds off its predecessors and gives users the ability to customization their lock and home screens when in certain kinds of focus modes.
This feature is extremely user-centered and builds off the pattern that the original do-not-disturb created. Now when a user is at work, they can set a more professional based wallpaper, have a muted home screen background and even choose who’s able to contact and email them.
This might’ve been my favorite change from the update because it echoes Apple’s core product thinking that’s made it so successful throughout the years. Rethinking the experience of do-not-disturb follows Apple’s storied traditions of expressing experience through their design. In the context of do-not-disturb, there are certain moments that require ones phone to work as a tool, like for work, while in others it should work as an entertainment device, like on a train. Through countless functionalities, Apple has understood and reimagined physical experiences as digital ones with stunning levels of precision.
So what does this mean…
Recently, Apple has dipped its toes into the business of more customization and expression for its users. While there are a number of other changes from the update, customization was the main headline of its revamped operating system.
Apple is a uniquely strong brand because of its brand voice and how similar its products are to each other. When using a device in the Apple ecosystem, users are constantly reminded they are inhabiting the Apple ecosystem through intentional design decisions and language⁷.
This foundational language has now expanded ever so slightly, and while Apple products still have great parity with familial devices, users running the new iOS have the option to slightly alter their devices from one another. Ultimately, this leads to a varied number of feeling and interpretation of what it means to be an Apple device owner and now what an Apple device means to each of its users.
[1]: “IOS 16.” Apple, https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16/.
[2]: Muchmore, Michael, and Gabriel Zamora. “Apple IOS 15 Review.” PCMAG, 22 Mar. 2022, https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/apple-ios-15.
[3]: Valdivia, Gabriel. “Immersive Design: The next 10 Years of Interface.” Medium, 12 Mar. 2018, https://uxdesign.cc/immersive-design-the-next-10-years-of-interfaces-16122cb6eae6.
[4]: Perez, Sarah. “Apple Walks Back Controversial Safari Changes with IOS 15 Beta 6 Update.” TechCrunch, 18 Aug. 2021, https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/18/apple-walks-back-controversial-safari-changes-with-ios-15-beta-6-update/.
[5]: Clancy, Martin. “Designing for Touch: Thumb and Finger Sized Design.” MobiForge, 15 Dec. 2015, https://mobiforge.com/design-development/designing-touch-thumb-and-finger-sized-design.
[6]: Fitzpatrick, Alex. “Apple Announced Animoji for the Iphone X. Here’s What That Is.” Time, 12 Sept. 2017, https://time.com/4938361/animoji-emoji-apple-iphone-x-10/.
[7]: Andersson Aaberge, Martin. “Apple’s New Imac Design Is Branding — Not Poor Engineering.” Medium, Better Marketing, 11 May 2021, https://medium.com/better-marketing/apples-new-imac-design-is-branding-not-poor-engineering-a4f9c15c4855.
