"Zoomable " App Icons

Posted by nocensure on June 21, 2012 01:33 am 0

Just recently here on the apple core, there was this rather fierce discussion on the merits and demerits of resizable icons. Some say it could work and others say such a refresh is not needed while others mention how it could be a blatant ripoff of WP8. For now though let's leave that aside.

I believe that right now the mobile industry is characterised by ecosystems that have their own identities. iOS is characterised by its simplicity mainly through its app icons, minimalism, the light blue's and gray's while Android is characterised by its open ended experience and of course widgets. WP8 has its tiles that are now obviously resizable. Going by this same principle of having compartmentalized (not to an absolute extent. For the industry to move forward it is obvious that the 3 will have to borrow from each other) features that lend each ecosystem its own identity.

Now I believe that widgets and/or resizable icons here would cause iOS to lose a part of its identity. It will become too diluted through the other mobile os's and I don't think Apple or anyone would want that. Yet there still has to be a way to make the home screen a little more exciting.

I came across this video (its pretty old) and I think this could be a perfect example of what Apple might do in the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLy7gN3Okc4

This is pretty viable because it still maintains Apple's vision of simplicity and on initial glance its still rows of icons giving future consumers indications that its still an Apple product. But things like zooming in between the spaces causes the magic to happen. Yes the "live icons" might still be "windowsesque" and when you zoom in the icons become like quasi widgets. But the implementation is so different that Apple maintains its own identity.

I admit when iOS6 came out, I was surprised that something like this wasn't in it. But then us tech enthusiasts are a very small part of a leviathan market and the rest of that market is still sampling iOS as it is right now. Consider this: in the country in which I currently reside, India, simply having any iPhone (even the original 2G) is considered pretty cool. Obviously as you move up the social strata and you see 4's and 4s's this sentiment tends to become more "westernized" but for the others, well 5 lines of unique icons are enough.

Moreover, each iOS version that comes out has one BIG thing (ex: Siri in iOS5 and maps in iOS6). Expect something like this to be the big thing in iOS7 (expect it to only run on the 4S, and iPad 3 and above though) Why? To make sure that they maintain their momentum in western countries and of course fuel the driver in others as well. Case in point: Jan Michael Carte, the guy that designed this has already been hired by Apple.

Let me know what you guys think