Thoughtful Pixel

Justin Williams makes an impassioned argument for using Apple’s standard interface controls when building an app:

Never customize the interface of your application just for the sake of customization. Do it because you truly believe it offers a better experience over the standard iOS way for all of your users. There is a reason that Mac OS X and iOS don’t support theming out of the box and we have a deep seated hatred for cross-platform apps. Users expect apps to look and behave in a similar way no matter where they were developed.

I’m struggling with this.

I agree in principle: the authenticity and familiarity afforded by Apple’s built-in controls are important components of User Experience on iOS.

In practice however, I yearn to improve their asthetic.

Differentiation is important, but it’s more profound than that: iOS along with many of Apple’s own apps rely too heavily on real-world metaphors and distracting UI chrome. Just because we have the capacity to build skeuomorphic interfaces doesn’t mean we should.

Indeed, embracing the nature of flat control surfaces and ditching the chrome is one thing WP7 and Gingerbread both do really well. As Steven Poole says, flat is the new black.

What matters in terms of consistency is whether an app feels right and it’s controls behave the way we expect them to, not whether it looks the same. That’s one thing Apple has worked very hard to achieve. It’s also probably the hardest thing to emulate when building a custom control.

Flat may be the new black, but it’s tough to pull off in iOS; natively or otherwise.