On June 22, 2020, Apple announced macOS Big Sur. The biggest change for current Mac owners is a new user interface for macOS. Apple is retiring Jony Ive’s flat design and has decided to add new depth and light effects into the elements of macOS Big Sur.
Designers are calling this new style “neomorphism,” as a callback to the skeuomorphic design Apple used on the original iOS to iOS 6. Skeuomorphism is a photo-realistic design paradigm, where real world textures and objects are mimicked onto the digital plane. Because the skeuomorphic interface is built on familiar objects, it makes it easy for people to navigate their way around the operating system. iOS 7, and later macOS Yosemite, switched to Jony Ive’s “flat design” which replaced the faux textures with solid colors and subtle gradients, bringing forth a more minimalist and focused approach to design. Untethering the real world from the user interface allowed designers much more creative freedom with how their applications should look. Neumorphism is the Apple’s latest paradigm, a blend of Jony Ive’s flat design with the original photo illustrative designs. The designs begin with the abstract shapes from flat design, but subtle textures are now back, and the OS now features emboss, shadow, and light based effects.
While these design elements look nice on a flat panel, they really start to make sense in Augmented and Virtual Reality environments, where distance, shadows, and light matter quite a bit more. There has already been an example of this: Microsoft’s Fluent Design. Fluent Design focuses on light, frosted materials, and motion to create depth and scale in their user interface. In 2D it looks nice, but it really starts to make sense in the Windows VR environment, as the object represented look like they have physical properties.
AR and VR platforms have a lot of money going into them, as tech companies expect the technologies to be the “next big thing” after smartphones. Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are investing large amounts of resources into these technologies and hope to reap the benefits in 10 years or so. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, when interviewed on what technology he is most excited about, he stated “AR.” In fact, Tim Cook has been repeatedly stating how excited he is for AR in multiple interviews year after year, in 2016 he even stated that AR will become as normal as “eating three meals a day.” He has stated that AR will be used by consumers, by every business he can think of, and in education. He stated: “You rarely have a new technology where business and consumer both see it as key to them. So I think the answer is that’s the reason that I think it’s going to pervade your life.” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, stated in an Oculus conference that he expects 1 billion users of VR in the future. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, stated that Mixed Reality (what Microsoft calls AR/VR technology) is one of the three technologies that will shape the future the most. Apple developing a whole new design language to facilitate AR and VR seems on par with their push toward implementing the platform and not falling behind.
The only question that remains is why Apple would implement neomorphism on the Mac, which sells 5 times less units than the iPhone, and where Apple’s ARKit currently does not exist. My guess is that Apple is putting these big changes on a smaller platform so they can work out rough edges before moving it over to the iPhone and iPad. Think of this as a “beta 2” where the design is basically done, but because this is a total overhaul, some rough edges will escape into the golden master and will be polished by the next major release. Apple probably took this route based on the fact that iOS 7’s flat design debut was a little rough at launch.
A second reason is to allow third party developers to begin working on neo implementation early and hopefully have their changes ready sooner for the iPhone. Third party developers have now been tipped off that Apple is moving into this new design paradigm and they should begin working on their own neo designs. By the time it comes to iOS, third party apps will be ready. This is similar to how Apple implemented the LiDAR sensor onto the 2020 iPad Pro before the iPhone, most likely so developers can play around with it now and implement it before it comes to the iPhone later this year.
Sources: TechAltar’s analysis on the future of AR & VR, WWDC 2020 first day, Input Magazine article on Neumorphism article in Input Magazine, Buisness Insider article detailing the numerous times Tim Cook mentioned AR in interviews