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Should Apple make OS X look like iOS 7?
Should Apple bring iOS 7’s new, clarified, deferential, depth-driven look and feel OS X? For the last few years Apple has worked diligently and deliberately to bring iOS nomenclature and metaphors back to the Mac, and create a more consistent experience between their two platforms. Right now, however, iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks couldn’t look more different.
iOS 7 has an all-new physics and particle engine, making it feel like a collection of objects in space, and work more like a video game, as well as a completely new paint job with icons and interface elements the likes of which we’ve never seen on an Apple product before. They’ve both had their richly rendered textures removed, but where Mavericks lost the old leather, it didn’t lose it’s Aqua-era gloss, at least not entirely, and it didn’t gain any of the new print-inspired look, at least not yet.
Macs are often said to enjoy a halo effect from iOS devices — people buy iPhones and iPads and then start considering the Mac s well. For the last few years, no matter how different the two platforms, the interfaces looked familiar enough that the Mac was approachable to iOS users in a very direct and comforting way.
Likewise, Jony Ive is now vice president of all design, not just hardware, and not just iOS. It’s not unreasonable to think his grand digital plans will eventually encompass future versions of OS X, as they’re about to do to iOS. After all, even the best designer and design teams in the world can’t do everything at once.
So here’s the question — do you think the new iOS 7 design language will be brought back to the Mac? Will the next version of OS X once again be made familiar to iPhone and iPad users? Should there once again be a single, unified look and feel to Apple’s products going forward?
Vote in the poll up top and then tell me why or why not in the comments below!
