The next Apple World Developer Conference could mark a great axis in the design language of iOS, macOS and ipados, according to a new Bloomberg report.
The details are thin, but Mark Gurman of Bloomberg states that there is an effort to unify the designs and metaphors of use on these platforms, with much influenced, at least in part, by visions, which is executed within Vision Pro.
Apple’s mixed reality headphones have not taken exactly the world of consumer, but there may be something in the interface metaphors, which depend on the view and gestures, which attract Apple software designers.
Gurman states that part of the effort is to make the platforms look similar. Of course, if you observe safari or configuration icons on all platforms, it would already notice significant similarities, with the only differences often if they are round or square icons.
Time for change
Some time has passed since Apple significantly altered iOS and macOS. The desktop platform saw a great design update in 2020 with Macos Big Sur (the same year as the first Apple Silicon Macs).
The last great review of iOS dates back to a decade, when it eliminated most of the skeuomorphic design of the original iPhone.
Skeuomorphism is where icons are seen as what they represent. The photos application was a photo of a flower. The configuration application was a trio of almost tactile gears, News Stand was a shelf full of subscriptions, and the calendar looked so much like an old desktop calendar that was tempted to start a page immediately out of the screen.
If we look at the iOS today, you can see how flat and clean it is everything, and that is mainly Jony Ive’s work. The former Apple design chief loved a clean aesthetic, and starting with iOS 7, came out with his.
This new effort could be an opportunity to bring these disparate platforms to a unified visual and functional whole.
They should not look and work equally, but there could be benefits in Apple pushing them in that direction. It can be discordant if an action works in a way on the iPhone and differently in Mac, iPad and even in Vision Pro.
One would expect Apple Intelligence and a much smarter Siri (available on all platforms) can help with part of that confusion, but the integration process in the deepest part of each operating system has not gone as fast or without problems as we all expected.
Can Apple find that optimal point of uniformity and differentiation that makes sense for its vast user base? Maybe.
And we would not mind a bit back to Skeuomorphism. Having icons that seem like their purpose is a form of shorthand and will always help beginners to learn. The counter of that, and is a fair argument, is that when it designs software to look as current hardware, the software will be outdated as soon as progress remakes those objects.
The fact that the “telephone” icon of our iPhone 16 Pro Max still looks like a telephone number of the twentieth century is almost comical. The Z generation has never seen or used a phone that looks like this.
Which leads me to another important question. Will the iOS 19 redesign be so radical that the iconic icon of the telephone application will eliminate? I hope I don’t, but I suppose anything possible.
Whatever the case, WWDC 25 seems to be a great moment for Apple’s ecosystem. Of course, each platform sees updates during these events, but generally not on this rumored scale.
Keep your iPhones, iPads and Macbook; This could be a wild and visual trip.
