I know some people aren’t a fan of Apple’s rampant skeuomorphic design sentiment, but I think I might actually like the new dedicated Podcasts app (although I’d like it more if it actually downloaded the newest episode without opening it). Don’t tell anyone that I might like it.
I was caught off guard this morning when I accidentally swiped RayRay’s smug mug and revealed a tape deck and additional controls. Whoa! I wondered where these controls were hiding, but hadn’t seen any screenshots of this part. It’s probably a little gratuitous, but why not? It makes me smile. The tape cassette even changes from the left reel to the right as you play (or fast-forward) through the episode.
Oh, sorry. Did I lose you at skeuomorphic?
…this means applications that are designed to have elements of them that look or behave like their real-world counter-parts. For example turning a digital page to resemble the experience of reading a physical book.
It is a style that Apple have been been utilizing for a long time, but lately seem to be pushing very hard. In particular on the iPad, which is a veritable smorgasbord of skeuomorphism.
An excerpt from MediaLoot’s ‘Skeuomorphic Design: What it is, Who uses it, and Why You Need to Know’. A nice, sexy read with lots of good examples. Contrast it with a rant from Co.DESIGN or this article, which calls it “regressive aesthetic infantilism.”
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