Comment by earthnail

As an indie app developer, this design update discourages me massively. The previous, minimal design gave the impression of being a platform, even though it was always mostly Apple stuff in Apple land.

The new design is so visually overwhelming that I think the only way for users to deal with it is to reduce complexity. I read a statistic that said the average user had 21 apps on their phone. I think that will reduce to 15 now, or less.

As for my app, this basically throws my whole design system out the window. I don't want to add glass to all my UI elements. Remember the visual noise that translucent window borders introduced in Vista? Why would I do that to my UI?

I like the fact that the new design introduces a sense of hierarchy, and that it has more animations. I also like that transition animations are now interruptible by default (watch the "What's new in UIKit" video for that). But that could've happened without the glass nonsense.

It was hard to feel excited in previous WWDCs, but I just took it as a sign of platform maturity. This year, on the other hand, is outright discouraging.