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It’s all in the icons: the designer has revealed the secret of the appeal of Apple devices

Designer Marc Stanton published a post on what principle determines the appearance of Apple products. He believes that the iPhone maker tries to do the transitions between the faces in their devices as gentle as possible — and that makes them attractive to users. Vc cites the opinion of the designer.

“If you have never been faced with the design of iOS icons — take a look and you will see that they are a square with rounded edges. If you are a UI designer, you know that this form is called the squircle — a hybrid of square and circle. If you are an industrial designer, you know that this form is a hallmark of Apple products,” writes mark Stanton.

With the release of iOS 7 icons has found a more complex shape than a square with rounded edges. “We all know that Apple pays attention to the smallest details, but don’t see the obvious logic behind this slight change. Answer — sequence. Apple agreed on the design of its hardware and software”.

“Icons Apple don’t have the form of rectangles with rounded corners. Like her device,” said Stanton.

“Apple takes a minimalistic design, but do not confuse minimalism with simplicity. From Apple there is not simplicity” — explains the author of the material. “Secret hardware products from the company is that designers avoid the forms in which the fillet moves in a straight line faces in one point and creates smooth transitions between faces”. This principle is called Curvature Continuity.

As an example, Stanton leads the two devices with rounded edges. “Notice how sharp it looks at the first corner of the gadget. Is the result of just such a transition from the fillet to the edge,” he explains.

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“Look at the MacBook — this is another device that uses the same principle. The laptop looks so cool not only because of its matte finish (though it helps, of course). The whole shape of the device lends itself to this principle, smooth transitions — and this is one of the reasons we love Apple products,” continues the designer.

Stanton demonstrates his approval of the scheme. Two charts the blue segments represent the magnitude of curvature at points from which they go. The image on the left indicator of the curvature changes sharply at one point and does not change across the radius.

The image on the right the rate of curvature changes constantly from zero to its extreme.

Similarly, iOS 7 looks and shape of icons on the Apple smartphones. “It seems that the difference is small and find it quite difficult, but it determines the design language of Apple”.

However, notice the author of the article, Apple has no patent on this form of hardware or software — and use it if you wish, anyone can. But companies do not. “Why? They have hundreds of excuses. Inconvenient CAD tools, incompatibility of similar design and capabilities of the device. Some do believe that it doesn’t matter”.

This is not always the fault of the designer — many industrial designers would like to apply this principle to the products they create, but they are limited by the requirements of the customer.

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