Some UI design updates in iOS 6

I’m not going to regurgitate all the new features in iOS 6. You can read up about them on Techmeme, in case you haven’t followed Apple’s WWDC keynote. Instead, here are some observations about the user interface (all images are pulled from Engadget’s liveblog):

• The cartoonish white status bar, which harkens back to the old iPod days, is gone, replaced by a blue-gradient version which uses the same grey icons of the black/transparent status bar.
• The menu bar is no longer glossy, but just a smooth blue (or white, similar to the iPad) gradient.
• Context menu buttons (?) have lost their gloss as well.
• The App Store and iTunes apps have gotten major redesigns.

This is all I could gather from the screenshots available now. It seems that iOS 6, while not as major an update as iOS 5 or even 4 from a technical standpoint, is the first attempt from Apple – disregarding the iPad, which is another device – to clean up and improve on the original iPhone’s UI design, instead of just adding new features.