Middle ground is probably the most fertile - the current iPad version does reveal the groupings, but uses such heavy contrasts to do so that it can look more like a piano keyboard than a schedule of work. This iPhone version has gone, for the moment, to the other extreme, and requires us to do the cognitive work of identifying the groupings ourselves.

There's clearly scope now for restoring just enough contrast to reveal the grouping patterns without foregrounding the UI itself. Tufte's minimum effective difference formulation is, as always, useful here, as is the whole chapter on Layering and Separation in Envisioning information.

The initial clearing of the decks has been very useful though - a way of stripping back to the basics before bringing back just enough contrast to reveal more of the data structure.

Not easy to make a transition from a decorative framework (catching up with the latest look) to optimising the information design - maximising what is revealed, and minimising the noise and distractions.

The formulations in the blog which announces this release:

http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/iOS-7-...new-whats-cool

suggest that that transition (from decoration to cognitive optimisation) is still underway. It foregrounds the decorative concepts of 'design aesthetic' and looking 'gorgeous', rather than Apple's new and deeper design principles, which are pushed into the background (far end) of the opening paragraph, and labelled as 'suggestions', which the new design 'represents' rather than implementing, or being built around.

Nonetheless, over-prominent Tokyo Metro fruitloops and weakened visibility of groupings apart, still a real step forward, I think.

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