How Porsche gave me a Kia (and How Apple is Killing Sonos)

When Scott Forstall left Apple and Jony Ives took over Greg Christie's responsibilities as head of Apple Human Interface department in 2012, Apple not only committed suicide with the redesign of their iOS 7 system, it also brought everyone else down with them.  Stick with me,  I'll get to the Porsche analogy in a minute.

With the disaster that is iOS 7, Apple took over 30 years of meticulous refinement of OS design principles and threw them out the window to create what may have become the most disastrous and polarizing user interface on a major consumer device of the modern computer era.  Only Apple could get away with something like this.

There is no substitute to using iOS 7 to understand what's so wrong with it.  But I will spare you the pain, and sum it up like this:  the interface is inconsistent, hard one the eyes, unintuitive, and unpolished. And it's just plain butt-ugly to boot.  You see, this is what happens when you put a hardware designer in charge of software design.  It doesn't take long to realize that the new system, now standard on every iOS device, requires constant major attention from the user to figure out the difference between focal elements of the screen (main content, such as an email text) and the contextual information (the buttons, menus, etc).  There is no delineation between these elements, and it's not obvious which ones are meant to be interacted with, and which are purely informational. To make matters worse, the new system font is thin and harder to read, and there is extremely poor contrast across the interface elements.  Light colored text over white backgrounds are present throughout, and  buttons have been replaced with text (sometimes underlined, other times not, for no apparent reason). 

To further exacerbate the issue, and to touch on the point of inconsistency, some iOS stock apps still use good old buttons, while others utilize text commands, yet some apps mysteriously alternate between both (for the same action). In another poor design example, the stock Reminders app forgoes the use of a 'new' text or a button to create a new reminder.  Top right corner?  No  icon, no button, no text.  Nada.   I challenged my smart 12 yr old daughter, a heavy iPad user,  to figure it out.  A full 5 mins later and she gave up in frustration.  Turns out you have to scroll to the button and tap on the empty space at the end of the list, to start a new reminder entry.  You won't find any other stock app that operates like this.  Incidentally, the 'check-marks' for completed reminders have been substituted for 'radio buttons', which are normally reserved for single selection lists.  Yes, Apple has made very minor changes to help with these aspects, I can only assume because of the outcry from blinded and confused iOS users, but huge fundamental problems are still there, and will likely persist.

Another fundamental design rule was violated in the new multitask screen.  Interacting with a moving target is a big no-no.  And sure enough, Apple decided to have a go at this one as well.  Try swiping through the list of open/multitask apps and everything flows left/right in an accelerating-decelerating fashion.  Fancy? Sure, but it's frustratingly impossible to click on any specific app while it is still scrolling with the remaining 'momentum'.  You have to swipe, spot the app, then tap to stop the movement, and finally click on the app you want to switch to.   The old app switcher had none of this nonsense, and worked perfectly with less effort, less skill, and less clicks involved.

Net, iOS 7 is full of riddles and sloppy design, and Apple has decided that everything they have taught us for the past three decades no longer stands.  And a real shame that is, because as gorgeous as their hardware may be, it is in the end Apple's legendary meticulous attention to detail with their user interfaces that ultimately has set their products apart. The overwhelming consensus would be that every Mac and iDevice has been a joy to use since the original Mac back in 1984.  But what was once my state of the art iPhone 5 running iOS 6 -- which I absolutely loved-- has now turned into what feels like a cheap iPhone clone from some small unknown Chinese gadget maker.  How could Apple possibly let this happen?

The Death of Sonos

Now, it's bad enough that Apple has messed up their User Interface so badly, but a bigger problem still is the fact that everyone is following suit.  Whether Apple is imposing this on every prospective iOS App programmer by making it a requirement to adopt the iOS 7 framework, or whether it's just a programmer's choice, the fact is that every iOS app is being converted to the flat and riddled user interface design.  Not surprising at all, because it's only natural that, for the sake of uniform look and feel, all apps coexisting on a device follow the same design philosophy - as poor as it may be.

And this brings us to Sonos.   If you have never used this outstanding multi-zone music player device, you've been missing out.  But don't worry, it's dying a quick death now.  You see, Sonos is a lot like Apple in many ways.  Their hardware is beautifully designed, packaged, and marketed, and their iOS (also Android, Windows, and MacOS) based music player software interface was absolutely terrific.  'Was' being the operative word here.    Apparently Sonos was caught in this whole mess of 'refreshing' their user interface look and feel for iOS 7 and, in a classic example of form over function, has turned what was once a terrific segment-leading system with a gratifying experience into an awful, dull, and crippled device that is both frustrating and unrewarding.  And much like Apple, there is no going back.  But don't take my word for it, go to the iTunes store and look at the latest reviews for the Sonos iOS app and you will see mass discontent. 

So after many years of joy, my $3,500 multi-zone investment went from being an outstanding and critical element to my enjoyment of music at home, to become a dispensable system that I despise and no longer want to interact with --  all in just one click.  Thanks Sir Jony Ive.  You are slowly taking away from me every gadget I love.

Last night, Porsche sneaked into my garage and swapped my 911 Turbo for a Kia Rio.   We no longer own anything.