I had the opposite reaction. In the large majority of these I think the original looks better, sometimes significantly so. But I'd be curious to see a poll of HN opinions.

I found a weird trend: If I looked at the before first, and then scanned back and forth, I preferred before.

If I looked at the after first, before scanning back and forth, I preferred the after.

Not sure if this is a known cognitive quirk, or even if others would have the same impression.

Apple used to set the standard. It is sad to see them falling into derivative design, yet I do love the 1950's cosmonaut spaceship concept behind it.

It's sad? Really?

Yes. Apple designs should be inspired from other fields (Russian cosmonaut style, 1950s minimalism, etc.) rather than being derivative of another phone's style.

If iOS 7 is not so derivative, they should speak to that so every article doesn't pin it as "Much [of] iOS 7 design inspiration came from others"

While I think individual several of the apps look better after the redesign I liked the consistency of UI between apps that the before shots gave. The after shots kind of remind me of running KDE apps in a Gnome desktop environment or something. They seem too radically unique to provide a good user experience to the system as a whole.

I agree but for a platform where all apps Run as full screen you can get away with less consistent design as long as the ux is good. The apps will never be run side by side.