Color is a great way to impart vitality, provide visual continuity, communicate status information, give feedback in response to user actions, and help people visualize data.
- Use color judiciously for communication. The power of color to call attention to important information is heightened when used sparingly.
- Use complementary colors throughout your app. The colors in your app should work well together, not conflict or distract.
- In general, choose a limited color palette that coordinates with your app logo. Subtle use of color is a great way to communicate your brand.
- Consider choosing a tint color to indicate interactivity throughout your app. If you define a tint color that denotes interactivity, make sure other colors don’t compete.
- Provide two versions of your tint color to make sure it looks good in both light and dark modes.
- Avoid using the same color for interactive and noninteractive elements.
- Consider how artwork and translucency affect nearby colors.
- Test your app’s color scheme under a variety of lighting conditions.
- Consider how your use of color might be perceived in other countries and cultures. 
- Avoid using colors that make it hard for people to perceive content in your app.

iOS: Color

Successful branding involves more than just adding brand assets to your app. Great apps express unique brand identity through smart font, color, and image decisions. Provide enough branding to give people context in your app, but not so much that it becomes a distraction.
- Incorporate refined, unobtrusive branding. Using colors from your app icon throughout your interface is one great way to provide context in your app.
- Don’t let branding get in the way of great app design.
- Defer to content over branding.
- Resist the temptation to display your logo throughout your app.

iOS: Branding

In Dark Mode, the system uses a darker color palette for all screens, views, menus, and controls, and it uses more vibrancy to make foreground content stand out against the darker backgrounds.
- Comply with the appearance mode people choose in Settings.
- Test your designs in both light and dark appearances.
- Ensure that your content remains comfortably legible in Dark Mode when you adjust the contrast and transparency accessibility settings

iOS: Dark Mode

Apple provides two type families you can use in your iOS apps.

- San Francisco (SF). San Francisco is a sans serif type family. Designed to match the visual clarity of the platform UIs, the system fonts are legible and neutral.
- New York (NY). New York is a serif typeface that provides a unique tone designed to complement the SF fonts. NY works as well in a graphic display context (at large sizes) as it does in a reading context (at text sizes).

Using both typefaces can help you create stronger visual hierarchies or highlight semantic differences in content.

iOS: Typography

Three primary themes differentiate iOS from other platforms:
- Clarity: Throughout the system, text is legible at every size, icons are precise and lucid, adornments are subtle and appropriate, and a sharpened focus on functionality motivates the design. 
- Deference: Fluid motion and a crisp, beautiful interface help people understand and interact with content while never competing with it. 
- Depth: Distinct visual layers and realistic motion convey hierarchy, impart vitality, and facilitate understanding. 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The Human Interface Guidelines — “HIG” for short — offers in-depth information and UI resources for all of Apple’s platforms, including specific technology areas. The HIG is full of information for designers that can help them create more compelling, intuitive, and beautiful experiences and design better apps that integrate with Apple.

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

- Formatting Content
- Touch Controls
- Hit Targets
- Text Size
- Contrast
- Spacing
- High Resolution
- Distortion
- Organization
- Alignment

Apple's Do and Don't

Four primary themes differentiate macOS apps
- Flexible: People expect macOS apps to be intuitive, while simultaneously adaptable to their workflow through customization and flexibility
- Expansive: Large, high-resolution displays are typical for most Mac users, and people often extend their workspace by connecting additional displays.
- Capable: Macs are extremely capable in terms of hardware and software. Apps can harness this power to offer an extensive range of features and workflows
- Focused: macOS is designed to keep the current task clear and in focus. Visual contrast, translucency, and a large drop shadow make it easy to differentiate the active window from inactive windows.

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