I feel like your argument basically distills down to: "All flat designs look alike."
Surely, that's not the case. And as I've been messing around with IOS7, I'm noticing a lot more than just a graphical redesign. This is also a usability redesign. Little things like including a contact button at the top of the Messages app itself rather than at the top of the message view. IOS7 is full of these little tweaks that have been standard fare in the jailbreak communities.
To boil it down to "a boring lull in mobile design" is to really ignore the quality of the IOS7 redesign.
I think you may have made my point better than I did: I'm just not that impressed with Apple finally cribbing off the jailbreak community, and I sincerely hope that the future of iOS is not endless tweaking held up as some paramount of interaction design. Am I happy with these changes? Sure, the same way I'm happy that Mac OS X has finally fixed the multiple-display bug that has plagued it for 3 years. But these (long overdue) changes a bold OS do not make. And perhaps the argument is that Apple is not trying to make a bold new OS. However, that is definitely what it is presenting iOS 7 as, so I feel that I have a right to disagree.
I think the community in general has felt that iOS 7 was Apple's chance to respond to the criticisms (fair or not) that iOS was stagnating, and I feel that that is what Apple feels it has accomplished. I feel they have done so in the shallowest way possible. To me they presented a corporate image of playing catchup: catching up to Windows and Android visual design cues, catching up to jailbreak experiments that have been happening for years, catching up to interactions we saw in Web OS ages ago. I'm not saying they shouldn't have done this, I'm saying that in my eyes these are bug fixes and there exists an Apple that pushed further. There are a million things I wish Safari did every single day that I use it, and quite frankly "3d tab organization" is not one of them.
This is my point, I think people are not seeing the actual usability improvements that could have taken place. You think design is more than just visual stuff, its usability. I agree, I just think its more than making things take 3 taps less. Remember the original iPhone and iOS, it was a completely different way of interacting with your phone that allowed you to do NEW things you couldn't before. Google is now exploring real new territory with their excellent services like Google Now. If Apple wants to keep fighting services and infrastructure with "design", that's fine, but its going to require more than endlessly spinning its wheels trying to figure out the "best" weather interface possible and micro-optimizing insignificant interactions with the OS.
"I'm just not that impressed with Apple finally cribbing off the jailbreak community, and I sincerely hope that the future of iOS is not endless tweaking held up as some paramount of interaction design."
I see the jailbreak tweaks as the alpha version of features that will one day make it into the main source. People who are not afraid to test things out play with and refine the tweaks until they're ready to be official.
I love the fact that at least eight tweaks have been integrated into the main source!
I'm surprised that many of the little tweaks that Apple has added weren't available sooner. For example, on iOS 5 you could adjust the screen brightness via the double-click home menu on the bottom on the iPad, but not on the iPod, which was bizarre.
Surely, that's not the case. And as I've been messing around with IOS7, I'm noticing a lot more than just a graphical redesign. This is also a usability redesign. Little things like including a contact button at the top of the Messages app itself rather than at the top of the message view. IOS7 is full of these little tweaks that have been standard fare in the jailbreak communities.
To boil it down to "a boring lull in mobile design" is to really ignore the quality of the IOS7 redesign.