A concept version of OS X inspired by iOS 7. Includes some good flatness, translucent blurs, and overall streamlining. Enjoy!
Click on an image for a larger version.
OS X Concept
52 Comments
OS X in flach: Konzept zeigt wie es aussehen könnte - Apfelpage
December 12, 2013 at 8:50 pm -[…] und flacheren Elemente ziehen sich durch das ganze System. Als Paradebeispiele wählt Ambrosino den Lockscreen, die Mitteilungszentrale und die Mail App und fügt seine Kreationen direkt in den […]
Gorgeous OS X 11 concept imagines iOS 7-inspired transparency and apps
December 12, 2013 at 11:31 pm -[…] Source: AJAmbrosino.com […]
Chris Ellis
December 13, 2013 at 2:20 am -Great work, i think you caught the Jony Ive spirit with your work. Keep it up, i hope this is along the lines as to what the next release of OS X will look like. Do you have a source for your wallpaper? It’s pretty spectacular.
ajambrosino
December 13, 2013 at 2:23 am -Thank you! The wallpaper is standard with OS X 10.9.
Chris Ellis
December 13, 2013 at 11:43 pm -Thanks for your reply. 
I was looking at some of your other work, truly an inspiration to me. You do great work, i hope to see more great things come from you
Concept Shows How An iOS 7-Inspired OS X Update Could Look | MOBILE361
December 13, 2013 at 10:12 am -[…] together by Andrew Ambrosino, the concept features what its creator calls “some good flatness, translucent blurs, and […]
Concept Shows How An iOS 7-Inspired OS X Update Could Look | TechNewzie
December 13, 2013 at 1:12 pm -[…] together by Andrew Ambrosino, the concept features what its creator calls “some good flatness, translucent blurs, and overall […]
Matthias
December 13, 2013 at 1:24 pm -looks very nice. and i think apple has to do some Design redesign. actaully it looks very old, like the old iOS Versions (6 and earlier). So this looks very nice, only the icon in the dock looks not so good, but the rest very very nice, like the flat minimal style. Hope apple will do something like this, and not so buggy like iOS 7
ajambrosino
December 13, 2013 at 1:47 pm -Thank you! I agree that the dock icons are not stellar, but I spent only a few hours on this and didn’t expect it to be big. Maybe I’ll take a look at refining it.
New OS X 11 Concept Brings Apple's Desktop OS In Line With iOS 7 [Images] | Redmond Pie
December 13, 2013 at 2:19 pm -[…] AndrewAmbrosino) Thanks, Andrew for sending this […]
Thomas
December 13, 2013 at 2:21 pm -Looks aweome!
Can I use this pictures for an article on http://www.my-idevice.de? Thanks!
ajambrosino
December 13, 2013 at 2:23 pm -Absolutely!
Thomas
December 15, 2013 at 3:31 pm -Thank you! Here is my article: http://my-idevice.de/?p=21505
Also mentioned your Apple TV UI-concept.
Hope there will be more of this concepts in the future.
Blur
December 13, 2013 at 3:36 pm -Making it look cool isn’t that hard… making it usable is the problem.
If mr. Ive continues on this track, we’ll be crying a lot more in the future.
fustian
December 13, 2013 at 3:58 pm -No one wants to do multi-touch on that sized sized screen when it is in the vertical position. Your arm would get exceptionally tired very quickly.
But embed it in a tiltable drafting table and add a stylus and we’re getting somewhere.
I think of it as the digital drafting table and it’s the next big thing.
Andrew Ambrosino
December 13, 2013 at 4:01 pm -Totally agree. That’s why I think an OS shouldn’t differentiate by screen size but be flexible to the various modes of input.
fustian
December 13, 2013 at 11:17 pm -I had originally thought that Apple was going to merge MacOSX with iOS. Looks like that isn’t the plan, although I wouldn’t be surprised to find some convergence. Instead the plan is to grow iOS into new form factors.
Some people wonder if this is desirable. Well if you’re like me all of your conventional monitors have fingerprints on them from people forgetting that they aren’t multi-touch. It’s like that Star Trek movie where Scottie tries to speak into the mouse. People expect to touch their screens.
And the rubric of multi-touch not being able to support content creation goes away with more screen space. Fat fingers require more space for similar functionality. 4K multi-touch embedded in a table supporting touch and stylus is the future. Keyboards are here to stay, although voice will play an increasing part.
Duncan
December 13, 2013 at 5:38 pm -There’s a lot to like about this. However I’m not totally sure what I feel about your concepts. They look good (except the invisible menu bar) though. As long as I get an option for a “classic” menu bar I could come to love it.
Keep up the good work.
Ken
December 13, 2013 at 5:58 pm -I don’t think limiting the look of OS X to Jony Ive’s ability to “draw good” is a good idea. It’s bad enough that our iPhones have been turned into Hanna-Barbera cartoons without the disease spreading to OS X.
Too many of the apps are blinding white and could serve as flashlights, such as Notes, Calendar, and Safari.
The icons in iOS 7 are inconsistent: some have the “light source” coming from above, some from below, some from straight on. Some are abstract symbols (you’d never guess that the NBC peacock sitting on a mirror is Photos without reading its label). Some are primitive skeuomorphism (the Camera) and some are just badly drawn (Newsstand looks like a fourth-grader’s attempt to draw a brochure rack and the radio icon on the Apple TV is a crude picture of an 1960s portable radio.)
The flatness of the interface causes a loss of detail in the icons, which means there is less information for the user and recognition is slower. The substitution of abstract symbols for recognizable pictures makes it harder to identify what they are for. Some are complete puzzles, until you read the text under them: who would recognize, on first blush, that the NBC peacock sitting on a mirror is for Photos or that the birthday-party balloons stand for the Game Center?
The color choices are questionable. iOS 7 uses a faint light grey and a strange blue-green color for lines and text on top of the bright light background. It uses a pleasant shade of red, but it uses a shade of green that can scrape a person’s retinas out. The “touch here to return to call” button has extremely poor legibility because of the poor contrast.
There are some people who really like iOS 7, but as the Apple Store employee told me, “This is the most divisive thing we’ve ever done.” Apple has never produced a user interface that so many Apple fans hate. Apple has support articles on how to make iOS more readable, which is not extraordinary, except these are for people with normal vision!
While iOS 7 is popular with some, Apple has to produce a product with broader appeal. Even if only 30% of the customers in a restaurant think the food is yucky, it’s time to look for new recipes.
Unless someone can convince Jony Ive that software design and hardware design are different disciplines, iOS 8 and OS X 10 will have round, faint gray icons (without superimposed symbols) on a bright white background, and no labels under the icons, because that would clutter the interface.
Ex2bot
December 14, 2013 at 12:48 am -I can respect your dislike for the design, but I disagree. I like iOS 7 overall. It’s true that some of the app icons are questionable, and I hope they revisit them. Still, I like the flow of 7. I like the familiarity—much of the system apps work the same as iOS 6. Many buttons are in the sane places. The lack of physical buttons doesn’t confuse me. Someone described 7 as having web style hyperlinks instead of buttons. Tapping them works in much the same way.
It’s true that the white backgrounds are different, but I’m used to white backgrounds. It’s what word processors have used for over a decade. I love the minimalism. The Control Panel by itself makes 7 superior to previous OS versions. Even Safari is working better and faster (though it’s crashing a bit more). I have iOS 7 on my iphone 4 because, even though it is slower than 6 on my phone, it works so much better with Control panel and other features.
I am even a fan of Helvetica Nueue. I’ve always thought Helvetica to be an almost perfectly elegant font. Admittedly the light version was too light, but they dropped it. I’m using the heavier version of the typestyle available in Settings.
I’d like to see speedier animation and better icons along with even more functionality and flexibility. So, 7.1 sounds like a positive next step.
Bot
Apple Fanbot
Tod Abbott
December 13, 2013 at 8:00 pm -OK, these are pretty. But a computer is not a book, it’s not an ad. It is not a graphic design piece — it is an information tool. And look to Edward Tufte to learn about something important with information tools — information density.
These designs have about the lowest information density of any computer interface design I’ve seen. I would be pulling my hair out in minutes trying to use something like this on a desktop (and, I’d be willing to bet, so would be most of the people complementing the clean look). How far would I have to scroll through that email list in order to see all of the 70-80 emails I normally have waiting for me each morning? These designs work for an iPhone because that is a very small screen — they actually are information dense on a small screen.
So here’s a new assignment. Try to create something that maintains the flat look and appeal of the iOS 7 design, but improves on the information density already available on the current design of OSX — that’s right, it’s not enough to just maintain the efficiency and density — let’s see you increase them. Otherwise, it’s just window dressing.
Andrew Ambrosino
December 13, 2013 at 8:05 pm -Very fair. Though I imagine that a single message in the messages list would approximately match the size of the current OS X Mail app.
Ex2bot
December 14, 2013 at 1:00 am -I’ve read Tufte. Amazing talent (No 3d graphs!! No wood textures, Apple! Be careful with your data symbolism) Andrew’s email mockup looks somewhat similar to AirMail, a neat mail app I’m using right now. Typically these programs allow one to specify how many lines are in the message preview list. You’d probably want to limit it to one or two lines, thus showing many emails per screen.
So I definitely agree, but I don’t think his design is that far off assuming his mail client allows customization. Andrew, now all you have to do is skin Maverick. I’ll wait here while you do it. Thanks
oj88
December 14, 2013 at 10:54 am -I agree. Flat design can be beautiful, and I think this is, but it has the disadvantage of having to bury information, menus, etc to not make the interface messy. For people who only want to check emails and do some browsing, it may be a good thing, to not confuse them, but for people who want to produce, not just consume (and most people on a desktop want to), it just makes it harder to reach functions and quickly find the right button, etc.
PAPLA
December 14, 2013 at 10:24 am -its look like windows 8 and ios7
udakocz
December 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm -This idea is super!!
Alberto R.
December 14, 2013 at 2:59 pm -When OS X will be this way, after 20 years of Mac, I’ll switch to LINUX.
Hamad
December 14, 2013 at 3:41 pm -Haha .apple really should have alook at your design . nice work . I think apple doesnt think about mixing the design of ios and mac system . They want to make every user has his own impression and feeling
MrHatken
December 14, 2013 at 10:44 pm -Looks great. I like the invisible menubar and use of translucency. It looks very modern, clear, and less cluttered that OS X currently.
I wonder why though, you swapped the order of the Windows buttons?
You seem to have close, maximise and then minimise which is not the regular close, minimise, and maximise.
Tim
December 16, 2013 at 4:37 am -I actually don’t like the translucency. It should only be used for notifications or sheets. Translucency as part of app windows is not good from a usability standpoint. My parents have a hard enough time reading text on their computer without the background showing through.
Carlo
December 16, 2013 at 8:00 am -Improve the information density and, then, send them to Apple!
Spar Meg for Dette
December 17, 2013 at 7:23 am -This is not much of an UX study, and the concept would not work in real life. How about multiple apps open at once? Would like to see a lot more well based and thought through stuff, maybe a video, but this is nothing. Yet.
TJ
December 19, 2013 at 8:25 pm -Love it! Except I’m too poor to ever buy an apple product - any chance you could ever design this into a gnome 3.10 theme?
This iOS-Inspired OS X Concept Looks Good Enough To Touch | Gizmodo Australia
December 20, 2013 at 8:30 am -[…] that’s how Andrew Ambrosino’s OS X concept was born. This designer’s vision is full of flatness, frosted glass and bold colours — […]
Mjog
December 21, 2013 at 1:08 am -Haha, cool - good to see people on OSX finally want to catch up with GNOME 3!
Bodysoulspirit
January 12, 2014 at 8:33 pm -I made an iOS 7 screensaver for mac OS X based on the lock screen with Andrew’s permission
Download it here for free:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/iOS-7-screensaver-for-mac-OS-X-by-bodysoulspirit/13676287
JANG HAEJIN
January 15, 2014 at 12:46 am -Nice look. I recommend you to work in Apple or hope apple employs you as a chief designer of OS X.!
sojoudian
January 15, 2014 at 7:00 am -how to use this theme ?
Andrew Ambrosino
January 15, 2014 at 7:47 pm -A screensaver is available from bodysoulspirit at https://www.behance.net/gallery/iOS-7-screensaver-for-mac-OS-X-by-bodysoulspirit/13676287
Yi Fan Chin
January 15, 2014 at 7:49 am -This design is good, but not the best. It definitely captures iOS 7′s new look and feel, but the concept leaves much to be desired. First of all, it would be impractical for Apple or anyone to leave the status bar blank, except for the time, battery status and all those nice things in iOS 7′s status bar. The status bar on a Mac includes the awesome and practical quick access tools, like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles, date/time, battery, spotlight search, and many other downloadable add-ons. Second of all, the iOS 7 inspired notification centre for Mac seems bloated, where as the current notification centre on the Mac does the job just right. Third of all, the ‘swipe to unlock’ title on the log-in screen seems just downright stupid. The gesture may work right on a touch screen device, but is just unnatural and unintuitive to do with a keyboard/mouse/touchpad. In a nutshell, some people may like the design and the fact that it captures the essence to iOS 7′s beautiful new mobile interface, but to me, the design just seems like a blown-up mobile interface —one that Apple strives not to do as best as it can.
Me
January 15, 2014 at 7:36 pm -i hate it, i don’t like .. i so windows 95 monochrome
JOSE CEVALLOS
January 16, 2014 at 3:38 am -Es muy bueno, felicitaciones.
JOSE CEVALLOS
January 16, 2014 at 3:41 am -MUY BUENO, SERIA EXCELENTE Q APLEE LO INTEGRE EN ALGUNA ACTUALIZACION. FELICITACIONES
athayworth
January 17, 2014 at 7:54 pm -gimme gimme
Andy Janes
January 18, 2014 at 8:25 pm -What a truly fantastic concept AND website! Seriously jealous of your skills..
carlos moya
January 19, 2014 at 6:13 pm -excelente
mApples - Smart Tech
January 19, 2014 at 10:15 pm -This is simply BRILLIANT and we can’t wait for more.
Pete/ed - miApples interActive
http://miApplesinterActive.blogspot.com
Denis Yeremuk
February 15, 2014 at 8:03 pm -I really hope maybe you could release it as in like a rom. You know like on Android. I would definitaly run this on my Mac
hamad arabi
February 28, 2014 at 8:58 pm -oh very nice design … but why i need ios7 inspired by-design in the mac ? i want a different UX . the mac isn’t an a ipad ! ….they are very different for different people . ” i think we should unite the goal but not the way we do it … “
isaac moncure
March 17, 2014 at 2:08 am -i NEED this so bad right now. this is the best iOS inspired OS X i have ever seen in my entire life. you need to make this downloadable