The Return of At a Glance (Premium)

The “at a glance” functionality in Live tiles was one of the central innovations in Windows Phone 7 Series. But this feature is now making a comeback.

I always expected this to happen. But then, I also expected it to happen because Windows Phone achieved some level of success and secured a position as the third platform in the smartphone industry. Obviously, that didn’t happen: Microsoft quickly stepped back from its Nokia acquisition and began dismantling Windows Phone back in 2015. And today, the smartphone industry remains a two-way race.

As you may know, I’ve been switching back and forth between the iPhone and Android ever since, mostly Android, though I’ve used an iPhone semi-exclusively since December. And while I suppose both platforms have their Windows Phone influences now, it is particularly interesting to me that Apple has gone further than Google in this regard. (That said, I feel like Google’s Material Design is the modern equivalent of what Microsoft initially called the Metro design language.)

Apple's quiet move into the design space previously occupied by Windows Phone---a transition no Apple fan would ever admit to nor acknowledge---started with the design-forward iOS 7, which ditched the silly skeuomorphic UIs of iOS past and catapulted Apple’s mobile platform into the 21st century.

The original release of iOS was as radical as that of Windows Phone 7 Series, with stark whites, new font treatments, and huge, open areas of whitespace. (It is also perhaps notable that some apps, like Mail and Apple Music, briefly displayed big, bold header fonts that were very similar to the classic Microsoft font of old, Franklin Gothic.)

“A lot of the language Apple is using to describe iOS 7 will be familiar to anyone who’s followed Microsoft’s Metro moves over the past three years or so,” I wrote back in 2013. “(An Apple executive actually uttered the phrase 'fast and fluid' during Monday’s presentation, if you can believe that.) iOS 7 uses a grid design, just like Metro, features bigger fonts with an eye on typography, again just like Metro, and uses an ‘edge to edge design that takes advantage of every pixel.’ Sound familiar? It should.”

In iOS 14, Apple added widgets to the home screen. This was five years since the demise of Windows Phone, so most people compared this feature to the similar but, at that time, ignored feature in Android.

But anyone with a Windows Phone background would have been struck by the look of Apple’s widgets, and by the Windows Phone-like App Library interface that also debuted in iOS 14.

“In bringing widgets to the Home screen and expanding their capabilities to include multiple sizes, Apple has, sort of, brought that feature that Windows phone users still lament to its flagship mobile platform,” I wrote at the time.

“Widgets can each be one of three sizes—small (the size of four icons), medium (a wide style the size of eight i...

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