Amongst Steve Jobs’ many philosophies at Apple was giving prospects what they want, not essentially what they need. He famously mentioned, “Folks don’t know what they need till you present it to them. That’s why I by no means depend on market analysis. Our activity is to learn issues that aren’t but on the web page.”
At WWDC this week, Apple gave us a ton of options that had been already on the web page. A number of chapters again, in truth. One of many principal options of iOS 18 is an entire new degree of customization that permeates your complete interface, from the Residence Display screen format to the Lock Display screen, icons, and the Management Middle. It doesn’t also have a fancy title, it simply falls below the umbrella of Customization.
On the floor, it’s all good. Apple customers have been clamoring for Android-like customization for years and Apple completely delivered it in iOS 18:
- Put icons wherever you need in your Residence Display screen
- Tint apps with a darkish look and alter the colour
- Conceal the names of apps below icons
- Regulate the dimensions of apps and widgets
- Add buttons to the Management Middle
- Rearrange and resize Management Middle icons and sliders
- Swap out Lock Display screen controls
All of those have been on want lists for years, and for the primary time ever, your iPhone is as endlessly customizable as an Android cellphone, perhaps much more so. Out of the field, you may customise the look of your iPhone’s Residence Screens in all kinds of the way—however after seeing what some early beta adopters have made, perhaps it’s not such a good suggestion to offer customers so many decisions.
In fact, as with all choices, you may ignore no matter you don’t need; however so many choices create pointless visible chaos and confusion. The place Management Middle was once a managed checklist of buttons and sliders, it’s now a number of pages of choices with a considerably unclear hierarchy. We’ve been asking for this degree of customization on our iPhones for years, however now that we now have it, it feels low cost, convoluted, and a bit of un-Apple-like.
It goes again to Steve’s mantra: what you assume you need isn’t all the time what you need. The options that generated probably the most buzz—iPhone Mirroring, Safari Highlights, Math Notes—aren’t issues we knew we needed, however will doubtless change into a part of our workflow. That’s Apple at its finest. This different stuff that lets customers change the colour of icons? Not a lot.
However that’s how it’s lately. Now, Apple tries its finest to strike a steadiness between what customers need and what they want, whereas nonetheless delivering pleasant and revolutionary options. Tim Cook dinner has delivered some unimaginable merchandise and continues to carve out new and thrilling paths for Apple, most notably with Apple Intelligence, one other function of iOS 18.
It’s not possible to think about what Apple would appear to be below Steve Jobs in 2024. I’d wish to assume he’d be on board with Apple Intelligence, Imaginative and prescient Professional, even the various Apple Pencils. However one factor I do know for certain—he’d by no means allow us to tint our icons.