You’re going to hate the new iOS 19 design, and that’s okay

We’ve been hearing for a few months now that iOS 19 and iPadOS 19 (and, to a lesser extent, macOS 16) will feature a huge redesign. Possibly the biggest since Apple swept away skeuomorphism back in iOS 7.

The latest leak gives us a few hints at it, though maybe not at much as it seems. Jon Prosser’s 10-minute video spends a lot of time in a catfight over who leaked what first and who has the real info, but only offers a few small insights into the actual design changes. The icons are much rounder (though not perfect circles), the toggles look different, and most of Apple’s apps use a new “TabView” at the bottom of the screen to fluidly move between sections of the app.

Notably, we don’t have much information on how the animations and transitions will work. When iOS 7 came about, everything changed from fonts to notifications to multitasking and more. Apple has been slowly changing major aspects iOS for years now: the App Library and widgets in iOS 14, customizable Lock Screen in iOS 16, icon tinting in iOS 18, and so on. There will probably be some additional changes in iOS 19.

Prosser’s video is animated, but it’s a reconstruction of the interface as he saw it, not actual screen captures. It’s also not necessarily complete—as he mentions, Apple compartmentalizes the changes so they’re not all in one build together, and some are hidden in clever ways.

The point is, after you update to iOS 19, your iPhone (and iPad, and Mac) is going to look very different, and for some things it’s going to behave very differently. Your muscle memory will be broken.

You’re going to hate it. And that’s fine.

Everyone always hates big UI changes

Big interface changes are a necessity. Modest updates offer stability, but the capabilities of technology and the way people use it changes over times, and those modest, stable changes can’t ever keep up. Every now and then, you need to shake things up and make it easier and faster to do the things you do today, rather than the things you did five years ago.

Obviously, there are good interface overhauls (iOS 7) and bad ones (Windows 8), but any time you dramatically change the way someone’s beloved device looks and operates, you’re going to get pushback.

People always hate UI changes, at first. Even the most successful, like iOS 7, are met with trepidation and complaints. “Change for the sake of change,” “fun, but annoyingly slow,” “bold but flawed” are just some of descriptions in the wake of iOS 7’s release. While most were excited about the idea of bold change, nits were picked on everything from misaligned and unharmonious icons to animations that made phones feel sluggish.

When we get our first thorough hands-on with iOS 19 with the initial developer beta at WWDC this June, people are going to find all sorts of problems with it. That’s just part of the deal when you get a brand-new interface. There are lots of good changes and a few annoyances that you just can’t overlook.

Jason Cross/IDG

Apple will deal with most of those in time, and for others, we’ll just get used to them. My hope is that it follows the trajectory of Safari in iOS 15. Remember that? Apple moved the address bar to the bottom of the screen and changed the way it worked. With the first beta releases, I hated it, and so did many others. We rejoiced when Apple added the ability to move it back to the top in a later beta update.

But then, over the course of several more updates, Apple more or less fixed it. The “floating” nature was dropped in favor of a single cohesive browser interface section, buttons were added, others were moved, and swiping behavior was changed… by the time most iPhone users actually got iOS 15 on their phones, the Safari browser bar was a lot better. Seeing it on the bottom was still a shock, and there were some changes to the interface flow, but it all more or less worked.

And I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of iPhone users have their browser bar on the bottom of the screen today, and don’t give a second thought to this sweeping UI change.

With iOS 19, we’re going to get a beta in June that has a lot of big changes, and a lot of problems. It’s going to get both praised and panned, probably. Hopefully, Apple will listen, and make rapid improvements over the course of the beta test. Then, when released, the public will have a strong reaction as well–and get over it after a few months.