Twelve years after Apple redesigned iOS 7 away from its skeuomorphic roots, it appears the company is on track to overhaul not only the iPhone’s visual identity but also the Mac and iPad too.
A bombshell report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple has been working to unify the look of iOS/iPad and macOS. This includes new icons, menus, windows, and more. The report claims that the company is not just overhauling how things look, but also exploring ways to simplify its apps and operating system.
Reportedly, the main driving force will be to match the aesthetic with the Vision Pro software. People have been speculating on this for a while, especially since the Invites app features a different design compared to other first-party iOS apps.
The report says that Apple expects a sales push around the new OS, but I would be skeptical unless the retailer locks the latest software to new hardware. And since it just aligned a lot of its hardware to support at least Apple Intelligence, I’d expect that, at the very least, all of those devices will work with the new system. But, even then, I think it would be crazy for Apple to hold back a new visual iOS update from older devices.
Right now, Apple’s software is led by Alan Dye, who designed the Apple Watch software under Johnny Ive back in the day. Now, Dye runs a team of 300 people that’s in charge of all Apple software looks.
Apple started with an enjoyable skeuomorphic design in 2008, then it was redesigned to be flatter and involve bold colours in 2013. Apple has slightly updated and tweaked that design year-over-year, but it’s still holding onto a lot of the core design ethos, even if the inside of the apps and a lot of app icons have changed considerably since then. Arguably, the last big iOS redesign was in 2019, when the company added dark mode to the OS.
When you take a step back, it seems like Apple has rolled out some form of iOS design upgrade every six years, which puts us in another upgrade year in 2025/2026. So this rumour seems to line up with Apple’s upgrade path in the past.
While I’ve been a fan of how the software looks on the Vision Pro, I’m worried that removing colours and backgrounds from the equation on the Mac and iPhone might make the interface look slightly duller. That said, I’ve been using third-party icons more often on my iPhones because I’m getting bored with Apple’s software.
Source: Bloomberg
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