Apple released their latest iOS version that is the iOS 7 last week and to be exact the roll out started on 18th of this month and as always there was a lot of hype regarding the first major visual overhaul to iOS after the operating system debuted on the first iPhone in 2007.
Since now the hype and hoopla has died down a bit, this would be the right time to tell you guys what good the latest iOS brings along with the bad bits. Read on…
The Good
– Control Center
The Control Center which can be accessed in the new iOS 7 through a upward swipe from the bottom of the display brings toggles for WiFi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, Do not disturb and screen rotation. Along with all the handy toggles you also get to set the brightness of the display, volume and you can change the tracks of the music or any podcast you are playing. There are also shortcuts to the camera app, calculator, alarm or timer and led flashlight. The Control Center was a much needed and much asked feature since in the previous iterations of iOS 7, there was no way to toggle WiFi or Bluetooth quickly, it was a tedious task really but finally we have the brand new Control Center and we appreciate it but it would have been even nicer if we could customize the apps we need there.
– New Multitasking interface
The new iOS 7 totally changes the way you remember multitasking on your iDevice earlier. The crammed multitasking menu you used to get on the bottom is gone and for good. The new multitasking style (which reminds us of Windows Phone, WebOS and even Symbian) takes up all of the screen estate and shows you thumbnail of the apps you have been using and now you can close them easily with just a swipe up.
– The new Camera app
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QglbZYqj4_0&feature=c4-overview&list=UUPrbArysdf6neOcQPaxzxFg
The Camera app hasn’t gone through much change in the new iOS 7 but some added features make it worth a mention in the good. The new Camera App lets you swipe between shot types which is certainly handy, the filters also give the new app a nice touch. Then there is the ability to take burst shots and the on the iPhone 5S you even get the ability to do a slow mo burst which is pretty cool. You can toggle HDR on or off and now you can take photos while taking a video which was introduced last year with the HTC One X.
– The new Photo Gallery
The Photo Gallery has been pretty much unchanged from what we saw in the first iOS version but the Photo Gallery has been overhauled in iOS 7. The new Photo app has intelligent features such as it automatically categorizes your photos in a meaningful way. There is a ‘Moments’ view which shows you the all the photos simply in a grid, then there is the ‘Collections’ view which shows your pictures sorted according to the date they were taken, there’s a also a ‘Years’ view for those who take a lot of pics and want their pics sorted the years they were taken.
– Improved Siri
Siri is finally out of beta and things have got better with the virtual assistant with iOS 7. There are some new enhancements such as when you speak to Siri, a wave is shown indicating that it is listening. It can do much more like for example if you ask Siri about a celeb, it’ll show you their tweets or their Wikipedia page depending on the question you have asked. Siri can now do even more tasks, it can navigate, play your voice mails, read your text, control certain apps. And as we all know, now Siri is powered by Bing search and if you would like to have a male virtual assistant then you can also set a male voice to assist you.
– AirDrop
With AirDrop in iOS 7, you can easily share photos, contacts and videos to your friends using iOS devices with A6 chip or higher. Well that limitation is hurting but still AirDrop is a great feature to have.
The Bad
– Notification Center
The Notification Center hasn’t changed much in the new iOS 7, it sure looks different and there are three panes now namely Today, All and Missed which pretty much explain themselves. The problem is we are so much used to the awesome Notification Center that Android offers that this seems very much sub par. The most annoying thing is you can’t remove a single notification and there is a long wait in case you want to open the notification. Basically Apple still needs to do a lot of work to get close to what Google offers.
– The Interface
The most noticeable change that iOS 7 brings is the visual overhaul of the platform which has been long due since the interface has remain unchanged since we first saw iOS so here it is folks and am not sure about everyone but i really dislike the new flat colorful iOS. Gone are the skeumorphic gradients and to be honest the interface looks plain ugly to me. Some of the icons are just bad and i really feel Steve Jobs would have never approved of this interface. But it all boils down to personal choice i guess as i know folks who like the new interface while there are people like me who totally hate it. All in all the visual overhaul was much needed although i wish Apple would have taken a different route with the interface.
– Performance
The performance on our 4th gen iPad has truly taken a hit with the iOS 7, the experience is just not pleasant. The fluid experience we all expect with iOS is just not there. We hope Apple will push out an update to fix things up.
– The new keyboard
As with everything visual, there’s a new keyboard with iOS 7, the new white buttons simply look weird and more so on the iPad. There are also some inconsistencies like some apps still show the old keyboard.
– Functionality
The new iOS 7 is surely a great update and it still is the same iOS 6 but visually overhauled and some features added here and there. Its basically identical to the last iOS version if you talk just of functionality. If you had hoped that Apple would finally bring the feature list of iOS on par with Android then you are wrong, way wrong because there ain’t any new great functionality added. So Apple fans, another year of wait and expectations.
– Gestures
The smartphone industry has been bitten by the gestures bug recently and iOS 7 also has quite a few handy gestures but they are highly inconsistent. The swipe to back works in some apps while it doesn’t on some, its highly iregular and likewise the Center Center which can brought up by a swipe from the bottom still doesn’t work everywhere but i hope these things get fixed soon with updates from Apple and app developers.
So here it is, this is what i think of iOS 7 but we would love to know how has your experience been on the latest iOS version. Sound off in the comments section below.
