Since the dramatic redesign of iOS 7, some people clearly miss the original look and feel of the very first versions of iOS, particularly iOS 6. Now you can take a trip down memory lane with an app called “OldOS”. Written with SwiftUI, this app reimagines iOS 4 on a modern iPhone.
Running the app works mostly as you’d expect. The developer did a great job mimicking the look and feel of iOS 4, from the “Slide to Unlock” slider to even the battery percentage that reflects the current percentage of the device. Even most of the apps work mostly flawlessly with that classic UI, from web browsing, looking at photos, and even listening to music.
I’ve tested this out myself, and the most notable missing features I’ve seen are YouTube and Messages since they’re still facing issues with implementation. Historically, the YouTube app was a built-in app on iOS 6 before iOS 7 discontinued it.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an app that reimagines a classic Apple user interface. In December 2019, Rewound launched an app that would mimic an iPod classic for your iPhone. Apple swiftly (no pun intended) pulled that app from the App Store just a few days later.
You can try this app for yourself on Apple’s TestFlight service, but you might want to hurry because Apple might do the same thing for this app for store violations. You can also find the entire project on GitHub for you to keep the source forever, so you can compile it in Xcode later on.
What do you think about this nostalgic app? Let us know in the comments below, or tweet us at @Appleosophy.
