A few pixels here and there, and iOS 7 is beautiful

Apple finally revealed its highly anticipated iOS 7 operating system, redesigned by Jony Ive. It’s stunning. The entire OS has been reorganized, reimagined, revitalized. It shattered expectations in every way but one: the home screen icons. After five days, I was hoping I would fall in love with them, break them in, like a new pair of jeans.

But I didn’t. Because those icons are just plain ugly.

Dribbble’s designers seem to agree, so they did what they do best: they powered up Photoshop and redesigned Apple’s redesigned iOS. They didn’t just stop at the icons. And it turns out, iOS 7 is just a few pixels away from being beautiful.

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We have to start with Leo Drapeau’s redesign, which has become a sensation on Dribbble with over 121,000 views. For the most part, Leo took Apple’s current design and balanced out the proportions and colors. Gone are the bulbous Game Center spheres, and the nonsensical Reminders icon. It’s Apple’s current design done right.

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The next is from JustD, whose design brings consistency to the home screen. Although his icons eschew Apple’s new flat design language, wouldn’t it be fun to see the shadows on the icons change with the orientation of the device?

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Zane David adjusted colors and proportions, and added a bit of depth. These icons would still look phenomenal if they were completely flat.

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Another shot with depth from Graphicure. Like Zane David’s design, these would make simple, beautiful flat icons as well.

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This one comes fromIda Swarczewskaja, who kept the lightness and freshness of Apple’s current design, but gave the icons a little more breathing room.

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Not content to stop at the home screen, Zane Davidtuned up the AirDrop action sheet. I can’t wait to use this feature.

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iOS 7′s Control Center is a tremendously useful feature that I use every day, but the separator lines look harsh and complicated. Saffad Khan used opacity to distinguish Control Center sections.

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Like the previous design, Igor Syvets’Control Center tuneup tones down the harsh separator lines and divides the panel into just two sections.

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iOS 7 has incredible potential; it’s the polish that’s missing. Thankfully, The Next Web reports that iOS 7′s visual design is in flux.It’s also clear from what we’ve seen and heard that what we’re seeing of iOS 7 right now is a “mid stride” snapshot. The work on design and development is still going full tilt, and what was presented this week is firmly a “work in progress”. We’re told, for instance, that some builds of iOS used onstage at the conference by presenters are already newer than the ones pushed out on Monday. Let’s hope Apple is listening.

Images via Dribbble.com

This article by Joshua Merril originally appeared on Josh.io, a Burn Media publishing partner.