[inthewind]

Ouch!

When someone first described the idea of theming, as in something like CSS and HTML, I totally got it. Can't apps use a descriptive semantic language underneath and just have the OS skin most of it for you?

Swapping themes and making applications and the OS more accessible thereafter would surely be much easier. I know I'm simplifying things somewhat, but isn't this the next evolution in responsive design?

I'd find it someone hard to think that apple would eschew accessibility Perhaps high contrast mode will exist at the very least! Even Windows 8 has made a few inroads.

[canthonytucci]

This is essentially what the OS does if you use the standard controls. You say "I want a title bar at the top of the screen with a back button" and iOS 6 interprets this as the shiny ones you're used to, while 7 sees this as the new version. The problem is that the amount of variation you're allowed by apple is pretty slim. You can change the tint of the bar (UINavigationBar) and the text, provide an image to be the title instead of text....and that's about it before it might start breaking when they go from one version to the next.

Because things were the same for so long (IMHO that's why anyway) we've seen a lot of devs bringing their own ui items that looked similar but slightly different to the standard elements, I assume in the attempt to stand out visually. Apps like tapBots' TweetBot will likely be OK because they most likely don't use ANY of the standard UI elements, but apps that use a little custom and a little standard stuff have a lot of work cut out for them.