Part of me really likes it, but part of me hates it. The visual is beautiful and elegant, but I find myself wanting to read the text while seeing the image.
I really hate the UI they used for this for the same reason as you. When I hover over an image I can't see what that image is about. I have the move the mouse away from what I want to focus on. That seems like poor design IMO.
Exactly. Too many people in software thing that "design" is the paint brush. They think design is CSS. It can be part of it, and certainly visual design deals with these things sometimes, but design is the way something works, NOT JUST HOW IT LOOKS. Something can be a fantastic design but text-based, or use grey forms and white text boxes. Great design helps users intuitively use software quickly and efficiently. Conversely, terrible design can look good. There are tons and tons of apps + sites these days which look cool / modern / fun while being absolutely awful to use. Some of them are almost on purpose, like Snapchat with hidden features that you'd have to discover by randomly swiping, tapping, holding, shaking, etc. Oversimplification can also be bad design. See: Google's recent phishing happening where the malicious authorized app appeared as "Google Docs" with a legit logo everywhere including in the "authorized apps" section in your account, with the actual publisher hidden in a small grey arrow drop-down menu item ( https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/google-docs-phish-w... ).
Well said, this is a visual puff piece, could the information have been conveyed more effectively using a single page magazine style layout, undoubtedly, that was not the brief, I imagine the designers were led to create something visually exciting that will show people how great their iPhone pictures can be.