I like Apple products, and like the good tech nerd that I am, I was quite excited to see what Apple would announce for iOS 7 at WWDC 2013. What we got was a rather significant visual change. From a graphic design perspective, I have some major qualms about certain elements of the new look. I think that readability suffers in certain things and that the typography is a mess in places. Overall, I think that it is disjointed and in need of unification. The functionality seems to be on point, however, and I expect Apple will refine the look and feel over time. It may not ever be something that fully agrees with my personal design sense, but I do think that it will eventually be more coherent.
Reading about reactions to the announcement through tech blogs and forums, I've seen something come up rather consistently - a fear that iOS 7 is "too feminine." Too girly. Not a man's operating system. Blogger Jim Lynch went so far as to call it "An Estrogen-Addled Mess Designed for 13 Year Old Girls." I wonder whether or not his article is simply link-bait, so rather than link it here I've simply reproduced it in full after the jump. Whatever his intentions though, this seems to be a common sentiment.
This says several things to me.
First, is that men clearly think that women have no taste if they think that iOS 7's visual appearance is meant to appeal to the female brain. (It's probably located in the uterus or something, I don't know.)
More seriously, though, there is the assumption of masculine universality and feminine subjectivity. This attitude is embedded in a great deal of Western society. Male writers purportedly write universal literature and female writers write women's literature. Movies centered around men are geared towards both men and women, while movies centered around women are almost exclusively geared towards women. Men's opinions, thoughts, political ideologies, and creative output are deemed are deemed unbiased while those of women are considered inexorably tainted by subjectivity. And so, iOS 1-6 are masculine by their absence of femininity and yet, the masculinity of these operating systems should not be a deterrent to their use by the women who comprise a considerable proportion of its userbase.
If, then, iOS 7 is considered feminine, it is marked by subjectivity. The presence of femininity undermines not only its masculinity but also its universality. A "feminine" operating system should not be used by men, while a "masculine" operating system should be acceptable to women.
That leads me to my point. It is no secret that I consider masculinity to be a farce, albeit one with dangerous and often deadly implications. The celebration of strength and power within the contemporary imagination of masculinity is belied by a perpetual nervous fear of its dissolution. The slightest traces of cultural femininity are treated as major threats. The notion that one's sense of being could be compromised by bright colors and Helvetica Neue Ultra Light says less about the femininity of iOS 7 and more about the utter fragility of masculinity. But how else could a masculinity that precludes any trace of femininity operate? Masculinity is always vulnerable by virtue of its conceptualization.
Men who feel emasculated by iOS 7 are emasculated because of their understanding of what masculinity is. Not by their phone.