The Final Straw for Newsstand ⇥ markokarppinen.com

Marko Karppinen:

The folder-like design in iOS 5 and iOS 6 has been replaced with an opaque app icon. The end result is so horrible that it’s hard to avoid thinking it was done maliciously: if someone was tasked with hiding away a set of unwanted apps, they would be likely to come back with a design that was something very much like the iOS 7 Newsstand.

There is a disconnect that exists with the non-descriptive, never-changing iOS 7 Newsstand icon that does not exist with iBooks. Both are comparable in concept, but there’s something about Newsstand which makes those apps feel forgettable. This is not true for iBooks, however. Perhaps it’s a difference in the amount of immediacy that we expect from periodicals that we do not expect from books.