iOS 19’s Biggest Design Overhaul Since iOS 7: What to Expect!

Do you recall the introduction of iOS 7 and the shift to Flat Design? Under the direction of Jony Ive, the appearance and feel of iOS underwent a drastic transformation, setting the tone for a decade of interfaces that became… completely flat.

iOS 19 is set to bring the most significant design overhaul in ten years, Bloomberg reports, a source usually in the know. Could this be an attempt to overshadow the delays faced by Apple Intelligence?

iOS 19: A Brand-New Design… Inspired by visionOS

According to Mark Gurman, it’s not just iOS 19 but also includes iPadOS 19 and macOS 16, all featuring the same icons, buttons, and windows. The aim is to bring some uniformity to the various operating systems.

While not a direct copy of visionOS, iOS 19 would reintroduce some 3D elements and transparency to the otherwise flat and uniform interfaces. Does that remind you of the early days of Mac OS X 10.0 and its Aqua interface?

Back then, the emphasis on 3D and transparency was quite pronounced: buttons turned into little orbs and menus into cylinders… The windows appeared to float in front of the screen, breathing new life into the flat, static macOS 9 that barely managed to display a desktop background image.

A New Way to Navigate

Changes are expected to be more than just cosmetic; Apple has reportedly been working on an entirely new way to navigate.

The modifications go well beyond a new design language and aesthetic tweaks, claims the source. It’s conceivable that Apple might revise how its dock functions, the Finder windows, and even the iconic stacks, all of which have been unchanged for over two decades.

However, Apple cannot overhaul everything: the developer community has never been larger, and not all developers can adapt their interfaces within a few months. Therefore, it’s likely that changes will primarily affect Apple-specific components (Finder, Springboard, control menus…) and developers will only need to make minor adjustments to elements already provided by the APIs.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, but a little refresh in style and interfaces would probably do our Apple products some good… The real question is whether this is a priority, especially at a time when Apple struggles to develop its own applications, lets iPadOS languish, and is bogged down with Vision Pro. Perhaps the goal is precisely to divert attention while engineers work on advancing Apple Intelligence and other projects…