More Rumours on Flat Design in iOS7

Copyright © ... I wish I could tell. Found at The Verge discussion forums.

We are getting more speculative information concerning the very next release of Apple's mobile platform. Unsurprisingly, flat design UI is making its way to iOS 7 under Jony Ive's direction.

According to Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac, their supposedly credible sources have offered new details on the iOS design overhaul:

Sources have described iOS 7 as “black, white, and flat all over.” This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements.

Sources say that over the past few months, Apple has re-architected iOS 7′s new interface several times, so until the new software is announced at WWDC, interface elements could dramatically change from what Apple has been testing internally in recent weeks.

We finally have a bit more on the details of feature set expansion:

the latest iOS 7 builds being tested include new panels for quick access to information. For example, in addition to local weather and stocks information (like as introduced in iOS 5), Apple is testing other widgets for Notification Center. Sources shared examples such as localized news feeds. Additionally, Apple is testing a dedicated, easily-accessible panel for WiFi, Airplane Mode, and Bluetooth toggles.

In addition, all Apple-designed core applications such as Mail, Calendar, Reminders, as well as Game Center, Notifications and the Weather app have received flat treatment.

Thankfully, the same article offers some indication as to what to expect during upcoming WWDC conference next month:

While the new interface will be a major change for consumers, sources say that iOS 7 is also an ambitious update for developer-focused features.

All of that makes the waiting more exciting. Black is always sexy, but on top of that flat components arguably consume less processing power to render, therefore I would expect a more streamlined iOS7 performance across the board.

I strongly recommend to read the article in full length, as it goes in great details about what is believed to come to iOS soon.

Stay tuned!

Myth Busting

Rarely do we find an excellent piece of analysis supported by solid data that aims at dispelling a popular and falsely claimed belief. John Kirk of Techpinions cogently decomposes the market share dominance is everything logic heralding Android market dominance.

In his article, he offers a structural break-down of publicly available numbers and pointing out the flaw in valuation based on that single criterion. Instead, John offers a more realistic and economically founded approach of profit share where ratio of profit to market share is used for quantitive market analysis.

Below, you will find a few interesting takes on the matter:

Scoring by market share alone and ignoring profit is like saying that a baseball team won because it had more hits when the other team scored more runs. Scoring by market share alone and ignoring profit is like saying that a football team won because it gained more yards when the other team scored more points. Scoring by market share alone and ignoring profit is like saying that a hockey team won because it had more shots on goal when the other team had more goals.

Market share without context is not only useless, it is worse than useless because it is likely to be misinterpreted.

Finally, some stats, I quote:

Apple’s iPhone 2013 Q1 market share was 18% with 57% profit share. This means that Apple’s iPhone took in a lavish 3.12% ((0.57/0.18) of all profits for each 1% percent of market share it controls.

If Android manufacturers needed to sell 2.4 phones just to gain 1% profit share, they would need to sell a staggering 7.5 units just to match the profits that Apple garnered from the sale of a single iPhone.

Android accounts for approximately 70% of global smartphone shipments and 29% of global profits. This means that the average Android manufacturer creates just .41% of profit for each point of market share (0.29/0.70 = .414). In other words, the average Android manufacturer needs to capture 2.4 points of market share just to increase their market profit by 1%.

Samsung is doing far, far better than the average Android manufacturer. Samsung’s 2013 Q1 market share was 33% and its profit share was 43%. This means that Samsung reels in 1.3% of the profits for every 1% of the market share it owns (0.43/0.33 = 1.30). Samsung, unlike all other Android manufacturers, is earning, rather than “buying”, market share.

Conclusion:

Apple may or may not do well in the future but right now, and contrary to popular belief, they are winning the smartphone wars and winning them handily.

RATIO OF PROFITS TO MARKET SHARE

3.12% Apple

1.30% Samsung

0.41% All Android

Not only is market share not the best way to evaluate the relative positions of competitors but, without context, it is one of the worst. Assuming that market share will always bring you success is like assuming that a bigger truck will always bring you bigger profits. It’s literally a joke.

John's article is a must-read. It is available for your review here.

Thanks to John Gruber of Daring Fireball for sharing.

Clear App Updated With New Features

Clear by Realmac software, one of my favourite iOS apps ever created has received some feature update. In particular, we now have the ability to email to-do lists to users via email. Neat.

In case you have not heard, Clear app is one of those heralds of fresh UX relying on flat UI principles and is a gesture-rich app allowing you to take full control of to-d lists and tasks with using merely your thumb. It features an extremely clean and unobtrusive UI composed of three views: the main a main menu, list view and item view. Depending on currently active view, a user can create tasks, or lists, prioritize them and mark them as complete, with a single swipe. The app syncs flawlessly with the iCloud backend.

Check out the official video featuring the app.

Currently, Clear is available for your iPhone/iPod touch, iPad and Mac and sells for $1.99 for the iOS version, and $9.99 for the OS X version.

Enjoy!

P.S. Check out the trailer for AnalogCamera, their newly developed app. Cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Dave's Tumblr

Fantastic piece by Marco Arment offering a very direct and heavily photographed story on his collaboration with Tumblr's Dave Karp.  

It contains a candid overview of their collaboration with Marco reminiscing on the development of ideas that have been the driving force of Tumblr. 

This is a quote that I found particularly inspiring:

David always obsessed over his newest ideas, features, and designs until they were completely polished and ready to go. He’s a workaholic — he truly lives and breathes Tumblr. I’ve never even seen him show any desire to work on a side project. David is all Tumblr, all the time.

He expects people around him to be similarly into work and Tumblr, and often drove me hard with seemingly impossible demands. But David has a lot of Steve Jobs-like qualities, and like many people who worked for Steve, I look back on Tumblr’s crunch times with mixed feelings: I don’t want to return to that stress level, but David pushed me to do amazing work that I didn’t think was possible.

That sounds like a definition of a great leader.

Thanks for the piece, Marco.

More Social Networks Coming to iOS 7

According to this article by Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac, both Flickr and Vimeo direct integration features are to be included in the new iOS release:

Both Flickr and Vimeo will now also be integrated deeply into the new operating system, so users will be able to sign into the respective networks via iOS 7′s built-in Settings application. Like with iOS’s Facebook and Twitter ties, Apple customers will be able to log-in one time into each social network and have full sharing access.

With Flickr and Vimeo integration, iOS users will have the ability to share, respectively, photos and videos stored or snapped using iOS device; the sharing feature is reported to be accessible via a single tap of the screen, very much like Twitter/Facebook integration currently is, and configured by a dedicated Preferences control pane.

More details on the matter available here.