Taking a step back, I find it really cool that these days a drastic visual and interaction overhaul is possible without changing the physical device. Just updating the software is almost tantamount to waking up with a brand new phone in ones pocket.

Article really tells you nothing new. Hopefully in two weeks we'll know the real story.

I hope someone will write a post mortem to look at all the rumours that were floated up to WWDC.

It's a shame Maciej retired wrongtomorrow.com.

I would be absolutely shocked if we didn't know the whole story in two weeks. Apple loves their schedules.

I know skeumorphism has its critics, but I'm concerned Ive's final product will look just like what Microsoft and Google have been doing. That's not a bad thing, just uninspiring.

I don't think anyone who has read a bit about how Apple and especially Ive works are very concerned about that. Their primary concern isn't first and foremost how things look, but how they work.

Here's wishing Ive all the very best. I am not an apple fan by any means and in fact don't wish well for them at all. But it's undeniable that Apple has had a very positive effect on software in the past 3-4 years. But we need Apple to move so as to move the other sloths in our industry.

(As an example, look at the PC hardware landscape. The PC OEMs are astoundingly imcompetent and seem incapable of producing any tangible competition ot the Air and Pro)

My favorite line from the article:

"Even so, his specialty has been hardware, designing a product out of materials such as aluminum and glass - not software, which is based in code."

I've been writing software wrong all these years!

My software is about 10% aluminum. I find adding aluminum shavings helps my blue code crack just right.

Let me guess, were you writing bare-metal C?

In addition to design, it'll be interesting to see if Apple catches up (widgets, etc) and finally breaks out of the grid of icons we've all been rocking since the original Palm Pilot and Windows 3.0.

Complexity isn't better design. Apple had widgets back in OS X 10.4. Not having widgets is a design decision, not being "behind".

True, but iOS doesn't address the core reason behind widgets very well: users want a more relevant at-a-glance view of things.

Notification center doesn't cut it.

> Complexity isn't better design.

Neither is simplicity. Balance is important. Taking away features makes something more simple, but not necessarily better. If it did we'd all be using Jitterbugs.

I wonder if Ive's reads this stuff and just smiles.

How is this near the top of HN? This news has been out and suggested to be false for weeks now.

Pretty obvious that Bloomberg has no real news source on this. Pure speculations based on the same rumors regurgitated by other sites.

There is some risk here for Apple. A good part of the reason people like their products is that they don't have to wander through a mish mash of paradigms and it is fairly intuitive. Breaking existing patterns, while overdue, is going to aggravate some users while being seen as not going far enough by others. I will likely be in the latter.

I'd hate to be the one in charge of that type of transition. I think you can say one good thing about all the different UI changes manufacturers make on top of Android, it let Google start clean with 3.0 and 4.0 without changing it on a bunch of current users.

After all, not many use the default theme anyway. :( I think it looks the best, but try telling Samsung and HTC that. At least they all need to include the Holo theme from now on so apps can choose to use it if they want to.

2.2 default was ugly, HTC sense was way ahead of the pack on skinning and integration, but certainly with 4.0 the default is beautiful and nicer than Samsung's certainly. (I've not tried HTC since 2.x)