Jony Ive has been working hard on revamping iOS 7 with a “flatter,” less skeuomorphic design, and Apple is trying to get everything together in time for WWDC in June. iOS 7 is rumored to be a pretty big departure from past versions due to Ive’s involvement. Many of former iOS chief Scott Forstall’s design choices have reportedly been undone by Ive, who prefers a more minimalist aesthetic than Game Center’s green felt.
We haven’t seen OS X 10.9 yet because Apple has been pulling engineers off the project to finish iOS 7 in time for this summer, according to multiple reports. But don’t fret, iOS 7 should still “should ship on time” later this year.
Following Bloomberg’s story this morning about Jony Ive risking the delay of iOS 7, AllThingsD has followed up with a new report saying that Apple’s iOS 7 team is in “deadline crunch mode” to get it finished for WWDC. To accomplish everything Ive wants done, Apple has apparently pulled engineers off the team that has been working on OS X 10.9, the successor to Mountain Lion.
Sources who declined to be named because they are forbidden to talk publicly about Apple’s plans tell AllThingsD that the company has been “borrowing” engineers from the OS X 10.9 team as part of an effort to double down on iOS 7. “Yes, yes — it’s essentially a repeat of the iPhone/Leopard scenario,” one source said, referring to Apple’s 2007 decision to pull engineers from OS X 10.5 to work on iPhone. “Not as much of a fire drill, though. It should ship on time.”
This was reported by separate sources at the beginning of last month, including some other juicy details. We still know very little about iOS 7 as a whole, however.
One of the best quotes from AllThingsD’s report is an anonymous source at Apple saying that iOS 7, “Sounds like a much-needed ‘deForstallization.’” Don’t expect the software to be radically different than iOS 6, but the design aesthetic should be fresher than a Coldplay album cover, if Apple’s WWDC 2013 logo is anything to go by.
Apple has said that it plans to debut new versions of both iOS and OS X at WWDC in June, but it may be awhile before OS X 10.9 actually ships to the public. Mountain Lion was unveiled to the world during February of last year. New iterations of iOS typically launch alongside new iPhone hardware in the fall.
Update: Jim Dalrymple of The Loop has given this report one of his infallible “Yeps.”
Source: AllThingsD
