Many people are familiar with list-making app Any.do. It was one of the first apps to ditch the skeuomorphic look of most productivity apps and opted for a simple, clear design. What most people don’t know is how the Israeli military and Jony Ive were involved in the app. A recent post by The Verge connects these dots in a surprising way.
According to The Verge, Any.do founder Omer Perchik did a short stint in the Israeli military and called upon his Israeli Defense Force buddies to build a team with some of the best and brightest intelligence officers. This group would develop Perchik’s dream to-do app.
Unlike most to-do apps which adopted a daily planner look and feel, Any.do broke that model with a simple, but powerful flat, minimilist design that took the focus away from how an app looks to you to how it works with you. It debuted first on Android and then landed on iOS in June 2012. Collectively, the Android and iOS app has been downloaded over 7 million times.
Any.do’s UI was so good that it caught the eye of Jony Ive and his team of talented designers at Apple. According to people familiar with the matter, Any.do was one of several apps that Apple considered when it designed iOS 7. Apple has never commented on the matter , but its design ethos of iOS 7 echoes that of Any.do — “In taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.”
You can read more about the origins of Any.do and its influence on iOS 7 in the article at The Verge. You can also check out Any.do — it’s available for free in the iOS App Store.
[Via The Verge]
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