It Has Been A Bad Summer For Apple’s iOS 7

It has not been a good summer for iOS 7. Apple’s mobile operating system that runs its iPhones and iPads has been critiqued from the moment it was announced, plagued with bugs, seen its developer portal breached and briefly shut down and finally locked many would-be beta users off their devices.

For Apple, iOS may be a victim both of gross expectations and a little mismanagement. When the eye of the world is firmly on one company and one product, every little hiccup along the way becomes magnified.

And the iOS 7 beta has had a lot of hiccups.

Flat Design, Functional Decline

One of the reasons that the iOS 7 beta has been in such a prominent spotlight is because Apple chose to completely redesign the operating system this time around. It moved to a “flat” design that eschews the look and feel of real life objects and is much simpler and sleeker. This move away from the principles of skeuomorphic design actually started last year when Apple let its head of iOS, Scott Forstall, go and gave control over the look and feel of the operating system to Sir Jony Ive.