Mitchell Clark:
For those unfamiliar with Apple’s Books app (formerly known as iBooks), I’ll try to explain the hole that’s suddenly been punched into my reading life. Before iOS 16, the app would play a page-turning animation whenever you tapped or swiped on the left or right edge of your device.
It wasn’t just a cheap, pre-baked animation, though; it was one of the pinnacles of the skeuomorphic aesthetic that used to rule Apple’s mobile OS. The animation is different based on whether you swipe from the top, middle, or center of the screen, and it tracks your finger; if you swipe from the bottom and then move up, the “page” will curl upwards instead of flipping to the side. If you start to swipe, then change your mind and move your finger back to the edge, the “page” falls back down, unturned.
As far as I can tell, that experience is completely gone in iOS 16, replaced by an animation that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Tinder rip-off or a PDF-viewing utility app.
Here’s where I’ll admit two things:
- While I’ve also been using iOS 16 for months (since the betas), I too did not realize this changed. Because I don’t use Apple’s Books app.
- This still sucks.
Again, while I wasn’t a Books user — largely because I was locked into Amazon’s Kindle eBook ecosystem long ago — I was always envious of this animation. It was just so beautiful. So Apple.
Yes, yes. Skeuomorphism long since fell out of favor, but this was just a magical animation. And, if I recall correctly, there was an API for it, so a few other reader apps, like Instapaper, used to use it as well back in the day.
And now it has been replaced by a card swipe. How fucking boring.
Again, I wasn’t a Books user, but I used to open the app from time to time just to play with this animation. You could literally make the faux pages dance under your finger. It showed the back of the goddamn page! It was perhaps the best showcase of both the power of touch and of the iPhone itself.
Now it’s fucking Tinder.
Update 11/23: As both Ian in the responses and Chris on Twitter note, Amazon does offer the option to turn on the page turn animation in their Kindle iOS app. It’s not on by default and for whatever reason, it doesn’t seem as smooth as Apple’s previous implementation. Still, it’s there!
