Themes On iOS

anon(5140585)

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Years ago, I developed themes for BlackBerry, some free and some for money through AppWorld. By adding something as simple as a theme, the whole experience change IMO. With iOS 7 out (I did not upgrade yet), plenty of users expressed their dislike for the update based on the UI. My whole point of this post is, does anyone out there think Apple will EVER allow developers to create a simple theme overlay for the iOS UI???

I know I would be sold immediately on whatever iOS product because Apple makes THE BEST hardware... hands down! There is just something about iOS 7 that I cannot push myself to update.
 

anon(5140585)

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Never??? I would like to think that Apple will adopt some user customization to stay competitive in the current market. I mean... it's a simple tweak to allow a change of colors and icons. Themes will in no way make Apple open source like Google, but would definitely give them an edge. Themes would also not change how the operating system works or functions, just the look. Apple cannot be that closed minded to not consider themes.
 

sting7k

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Years ago, I developed themes for BlackBerry, some free and some for money through AppWorld. By adding something as simple as a theme, the whole experience change IMO. With iOS 7 out (I did not upgrade yet), plenty of users expressed their dislike for the update based on the UI. My whole point of this post is, does anyone out there think Apple will EVER allow developers to create a simple theme overlay for the iOS UI???

I know I would be sold immediately on whatever iOS product because Apple makes THE BEST hardware... hands down! There is just something about iOS 7 that I cannot push myself to update.

My problem with themes was that after I spent all day customizing my Android phone I would then forget what I did out in the wild. When it came time that I really need to use the phone the theme was just in my way. I always ended up reverting to stock anyway.

Apple and Google spend tons of money to make the UI on their devices highly functional. No offense but I'm not interested in something someone cobbled together in their basement just because they could.

I don't see Apple allowing themes.
 

anon(5140585)

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I understand your point. I am running iOS 7 on my Mini and the "Invert Colors" changes the look completely. I actually prefer this to the regular UI. To prevent "cobbling together", maybe Apple should a theme color palette with their OS.
 

anon(4698833)

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Never??? I would like to think that Apple will adopt some user customization to stay competitive in the current market. I mean... it's a simple tweak to allow a change of colors and icons. Themes will in no way make Apple open source like Google, but would definitely give them an edge. Themes would also not change how the operating system works or functions, just the look. Apple cannot be that closed minded to not consider themes.

And there it is...lol. Apple doesn't need to adopt it to "stay competitive", they are front runners without it.

Not to mention, theming is one of the biggest draws to jailbreaking, so there's really no reason for Apple to go through all the bugs and issues that come with theme customization when a person can easily achieve such by jailbreaking their device.
 

anon(5140585)

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Front runners for now... BLACKBERRY ring a bell? Technology is all about competition and innovation (which will burst at some point). Customization is going to be the king, and this is where Apple falls short. You can at minimum change the color scheme in WP.
 

anon(4698833)

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Front runners for now... BLACKBERRY ring a bell? Technology is all about competition and innovation (which will burst at some point). Customization is going to be the king, and this is where Apple falls short. You can at minimum change the color scheme in WP.

I'm not getting dragged into this argument outside of this...people have said for years that Apple was "falling off" and falling "behind", they said that people are losing interest in Apple products because they aren't more "customizable" (with things like themes, as you mentioned)...people say all these things, but year after year after year, the iPhone is the best selling smart phone pound for pound compared to any individual smart phone on the market.

Blackberry's downfall wasn't lack of customization or feature sets that were too narrow compared to the rest of the market. Blackberry failed because they made piece of junk phones on a decade old, stagnant OS and when they finally saw the light, they brought a whole new experience to the table with modern devices and a new OS, but it was too little too late. Blackberry never enjoyed the kind of consumer device success that Apple did, even in their golden days...they enjoyed success and being a front runner for quite a long time, but nothing like what Apple has across the spectrum, not just with the iPhone and iOS.

There's nothing "innovative" about customizable themes, I mean you have to face it, Android phones have offered near limitless native customization options on their devices for the better part of 5 years now, but they still can't compete with an iPhone launch.

Again, you can disagree all you want to but the proof is in the pudding...Apple doesn't need to implement things like customizable themes to be "competitive", you just feel they lack competitiveness because YOU want theme options. It's not as big a demand as you think my friend...and even saying that, the iPhone isn't locked out of theme options in the first place, you just have to jailbreak the device in order to open up those options.

So not only are the options unnecessary for competitiveness, but in the end, they're still available to iPhone users if they choose to do so. If you go and read polls about jailbreaking though, I think you'll see that a pretty staggering majority of iPhone users don't care about this customization demand, and don't jailbreak their devices because of such.
 

anon(5140585)

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I apologize if it felt like I was starting an argument. While I agree with you 100% on your statements about BB and iPhone being the top selling phone.

I recant "competitive" with my OP, I was simply trying to say this:

People do care what their phone's UI looks like, iOS was the fastest and most downloaded update in Apple's history. Do you think that is because of internal functions the OS can perform, or that is it 64-bit capable? IMO, 90% of iPhone users don't know or don't car about that. They care of the front facing user experience. Android has live wallpapers, so Apple may or may not have made Parallax to compete in this scenario. I think it would be a smart move on Apple's part to include a simple theme (maybe just color schemes) switcher. It would add more appeal just like Parallax.

Do you at least see my point here?
 

born2ride41

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I don't think blackberry had piece of junk phones I think they where great and ahead of most of the others until after the blackberry curve. After that is when they failed to realize speed and screen size was gonna be king but I LovEd my BB Curve.
 

anon(4698833)

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I don't think blackberry had piece of junk phones I think they where great and ahead of most of the others until after the blackberry curve. After that is when they failed to realize speed and screen size was gonna be king but I LovEd my BB Curve.

Certainly...they were ahead of their time against a sea of TRULY junk phones. But compared to what they were capable of (what we've seen over the last year), it strikes me as unacceptable that a company like RIM/Blackberry would continue making phones like the Storm...which was honestly almost a comical attempt at touch screen technology. Now don't get me wrong, when Blackberry was king, I had quite a few of their devices, including about 3 Pearls and 4-5 Curves...but NONE of them worked properly, they all had major issues, the OS was just complete crap, the navigation of the devices was so wonky that even then, before the time of modern smart phones, I thought to myself "God, I hope someone does better some day..."

All things considered, and looking back at what was offered...the device Blackberry released vs. what they were full capable of were so far apart it was ridiculous. Imagine those phones, with an OS that was clean and precise, that didn't suffer from the battery pull plagues and lack of application support. It could have been glorious...and that was my point, Blackberry never got to that point...Apple hit that point almost IMMEDIATELY after the iPhone was initially released. People went "Holy sh*t...this is the future."

I apologize if it felt like I was starting an argument. While I agree with you 100% on your statements about BB and iPhone being the top selling phone.

I recant "competitive" with my OP, I was simply trying to say this:

People do care what their phone's UI looks like, iOS was the fastest and most downloaded update in Apple's history. Do you think that is because of internal functions the OS can perform, or that is it 64-bit capable? IMO, 90% of iPhone users don't know or don't car about that. They care of the front facing user experience. Android has live wallpapers, so Apple may or may not have made Parallax to compete in this scenario. I think it would be a smart move on Apple's part to include a simple theme (maybe just color schemes) switcher. It would add more appeal just like Parallax.

Do you at least see my point here?

I can't argue against the logic that these things would make the iPhone more attractive for some people, and I completely understand your view point about the introduction of further options for the end user when it comes to the iPhone...my ONLY hang up was with the comment about Apple's competitiveness in regards to these additions...I have no issue with the idea of bringing the stuff to the device, I just completely disagree with the idea that Apple needs them to be competitive (for previously mentioned reasons).
 

Jerry_

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One of the reasons for not yet having moved my iOS devices to iOS7 is indeed the new UI.

While being technically minded and definitely paying care to technical aspects, even for me the UI is a major factor, when deciding to migrate.

Having used iOS now for a number of main versions I feel that Apple is moving away from its position of a stylish interface into a massproduct. While this obviously does not change any technical feature, it however shows a trend where Apple products loose their exclusive and innovative aspects for the sake of being closer to other OS (not to name any), eventually with the expected aim to make the shift to Apple devices smoother. As a result I don't see adding market shares for Apple so, but rather it becoming a uniformish system sinking in the mass of other OS (except for their pricepolicy).

Therefor I would definitely support the idea of being able to customise my themes.

As mentioned before themes require changes in user habits, and offering the posibility to keep themes f.i. as in previous iOS version would rather allow for a smoother transition and thereore probably for a higher acceptance of new versions.
 

taz323

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I've had phones where I could change the themes, drove me nuts, either it was buggy, or lag, battery drains. Choice is good, but I like not having to worry about it.
 

anon(5140585)

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Apple has done some things that most thought would never happen. A bigger screen for one, where Jobs said 3.5 is the ideal size. An iPad Mini, to offer something to more customers. Apple is testing out bigger screen sizes as we speak and what is the main reason of that? To offer choice? To offer what other companies are offering? So to say it will NEVER happen is a little extreme based the trend switch that Apple has been doing the last couple of years. All companies need to stay competitive one way or another.

You mention about bugs with themes, iOS 7 has bugs, iOS 6 had bugs, etc... everything has bugs. So it would not hurt Apple at all for them to create their own theme/color toggle. They have just done this with their 5c, a cheaper model (competitive????) and various colors.
 

BLiNK

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what's up with the obsession of themes?

when i would jailbreak even that became "boring" and daunting. how long do you actually stare at your OS to even care about a theme
 

Just_Me_D

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To answer your initial question, "does anyone out there think Apple will EVER allow developers to create a simple theme overlay for the iOS UI???", my answer is no, I do not think they will allow it.
 

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