iOS 7 Squandered a Year of Third-Party Development on Superficial Changes 

Jared Sinclair on how iOS 7 didn’t solve any of the larger issues facing iOS as a platform:

All the big problems facing iOS in the summer of 2013 are still with us. Some have gotten even worse. It’s still impossible for customers to easily discover new apps. It’s still impractical for apps to interact with the same data and documents. It’s still unclear what the role of the iPad is supposed to be in a lifestyle filled with digital devices. Paid app sales are still sagging as scummy IAP business models are enjoying the lion’s share of App Store promotion and profit. Productivity apps are still unsustainable.

More importantly, Jared points out something very near and dear to my heart: Just how much time was wasted re-skinning apps to make them work for iOS 7. We spent an entire year with clients (and with our own apps) doing this and it was a huge pain in the ass for only visual style gains:

Fast-forwarding a year, the effect that iOS 7 has had on third party development is disheartening — which sounds like a fatuous thing to say, since there have been so many well-liked redesigns over the past year. But that’s the rub: the vast majority of third-party developers’ time has been spent redesigning and reimplementing apps to dress the part for iOS 7. Many shops, such as Tapbots and Cultured Code, were forced to delay new products indefinitely while they scrapped ongoing work in favor of reboots. I suspect that many other developers had to make similar decisions.

I’ve spent the past few days using Android 4.4 KitKat on a Nexus 5 and I will admit I think KitKat’s design language is stronger and more uniform. I think Apple made a lot of mistakes with iOS 7 and I’m hopeful WWDC will reveal changes that steer it back in the right direction. The tools are maturing, definitely, but the UI/UX has gone downhill.

(via jaredsinclair)