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9:44:00 AM
valgeo
Out of last week's Worldwide Developer's Conference in San
Francisco comes word of a new, clever, and perhaps useful feature in iOS
7: dynamic icons.
At The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW),
Steven Sande writes that developers have noted that the forthcoming
icon for the Clock app will have a moving second hand and show the
correct time down to the second. The current, static icon shows the time
as 10:15 exactly. There's a screen shot of the new iOS 7 app, check it
out.
Sande suggests that this API will be available to all developers and
there's the notion that icons could become dynamic. This little touch is
fantastic and I can see all kinds of uses for it, such as showing
changes in content or news or weather. This could be used for many
things beyond the longstanding badge concept for notification. So, for
example, a time-delayed, multiplayer game could show whether you're
winning or losing. This doesn't obviate the usefulness of badges, rather
it could be complementary to them, depending on how the animation is
accomplished.
There was a wider discussion on iOS 7 icons at several sites this
past week, observing that some of the icon images on Apple's site differ
from the ones in the beta version released to developers at WWDC last
week. So, that could be another example of this dynamic quality, or just
ordinary design differences.
Some call this "eye candy," as they have called the Mac or iOS
interface. This has been the label hung on Apple products for decades,
first by PC users about the Mac interface and now by other mobile device
vendors about iOS. Somehow, there's the lingering feeling that
something fun can't be really powerful or truly useful.
Instead, Apple has long known that these small niceties around
details in the interface can have a strong impact on the user, creating a
sense of fun and enjoyment. And loyalty.
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