Chan Karunamuni on the Duo’s Open/Close Translucent Transition
Chan Karunamuni, human interface designer at Apple, on X: iPhone Duo is here! Excited to have worked on the design of our open/close transition. It’s designed to make the two displays feel like one seamless experience by perceptually bending the focal plane, not the content, so that it feels like opening a window onto a singular view. Karunamuni thanks a few engineers by name, which is always…
Chan Karunamuni, a human interface designer at Apple, expressed excitement on X about the iPhone Duo's open/close transition. He worked on this design to create a seamless experience by perceiving the focal plane as bending, rather than shifting the content itself. This results in an illusion of opening a window onto a unified view.
Karunamuni expressed gratitude towards several engineers, which is a rare act of recognition within Apple. Johnnie Manzari, who used to be an HI designer at Apple before moving to Google DeepMind, retweeted Karunamuni's praise, stating that the transition was the next "change the whole industry" design from him. Karunamuni's previous groundbreaking designs include the Dynamic Island, the "shockwave" feature for AirDrop or NameDrop, and the Flashlight beam UI in iOS 18.
He also endorsed Steve Lemay's promotion to lead all of Apple's human interface design following Alan Dye's departure for Meta last December.
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