Countdown Is On For Jonathan Ive’s New Baby, iOS 7
May 1, 2013
The eyes of the world will be on one man when Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off next month. No, I’m not talking about CEO Tim Cook, but rather the company’s product design guru, Jonathan Ive.
Six months after being given an expanded role, Ive, and the rest of Apple’s software team are said to be putting the finishing touches on iOS 7. When the updated operating system is unveiled on June 10, we’ll get our first look at what happens when a hardware guy is given a seat at the other side of the table.
According to Bloomberg, Ive has been “shunning realistic images, such as wood bookshelves for the Newsstand feature, and he’s exploring more dramatic changes to the e-mail and calendar tools” in iOS 7. As a result, the first mobile iOS not created by former software chief Scott Forstall is being called “a sweeping software overhaul.”
However, change doesn’t happen overnight. There is a chance that Apple’s “next upgrade isn’t as robust or feature-rich as projected, and some changes come in future releases.”
Regardless, we’ll know something concrete soon enough.
Most rumors now suggest that the June unveiling of iOS 7 will only be a preview. Assuming that past practices hold, this will be followed by months of iOS 7 beta releases for third-party developers. The first public version of iOS 7 is likely to arrive with the iPhone 5S, which we probably won’t see until later this fall.
For more information, see: Apple’s Low Key OS X ‘Cabernet’ To Launch Later This Year, Jony Ive Named One Of Time's 100 Most Influential People, and Jony Ive Leaves His Mark As Skeuomorphism Concept Vanishes From One App.
