Apple just updated both its
platforms – we already saw the
new Mac OS X, now it's time for
iOS 7. It brings a ton of usability
improvements, many of which
we've found missing in iOS for
quite a while now.
New look and more capable
multitasking
iOS 7 brings a brand new look for
the operating system with flatter
icons and UI elements. All system
icons are redesigned around a
standardized grid to unify the
look. It also brings animated
wallpapers (not quite live
wallpapers) and there's a
dynamic parallax effect between
the icons and the wallpaper as
you turn and tilt your phone.
New lockscreen and app
drawer
A much bigger change is a
revamped multitasking system
that allows apps to update much
more often, while not wasting
battery. To do that, iOS 7 keeps
track when you use a specific
app (all day, just in the morning
and the evening) and lets the app
update during that period. It also
uses "opportunistic updates" –
when you wake the device, it's
going to use power anyway so
iOS lets any available app update
run in the background. It also
keeps track of signal quality and
if it's good, it updates multiple
apps at once (since the radio is
powered on anyway).
The new face of multitasking
Smarter Siri, better
notifications, toggles
Yet another big update is the
new Siri. It got a polished new
interface and it goes after
Google Now with card-based UI
and new services to provide
answers to your questions
(Twitter, Wikipedia and Bing,
take that Google). It can also
control your iDevice (increase
brightness, turn on Bluetooth)
and it offers a new, more life-
like voice (both female and male)
for English, French and German.
Siri has a new voice, can
answer more questions and
do more things
There's more! The notification
center has been rebuilt from the
ground up to provide info about
today's goings on (birthdays,
weather, upcoming events from
the calendar, stocks and even
some info for tomorrow).
Notification center also show up
on the lockscreen. Also, once you
dismiss a notification, it goes
away on the other devices too so
you don't have to see the same
notification multiple times.
New notification area
There are toggles too! You get to
those by swiping up from the
bottom of the screen. This
launches something called
Control center. You get controls
for the screen brightness and the
music player, the new AirDrop
feature, and AirPlay along with
some app shortcuts, including a
flashlight toggle.
Toggles, brightness and
music player controls, app
shortcuts
New camera and gallery with
automatic tagging
The camera got revamped too, it
now features four modes –
regular stills and video, square
photos with color effects (hi,
Instagram) and panorama.
The new camera has four
modes - stills, video, squares
and panoramas
The Photos app has been
redesigned and now sort your
photos based on where and when
you took them - automatically
putting a meaningful title to the
collections. Zooming out shows
new auto-generated albums for
multi-day trips and zooming out
even further groups the photos
in years.
Photos automatically get
tagged with location info like
street name
Updates to Safari and App
Store
The Safari browser for iOS was
updated with a new 3D UI for
switching tabs (looks kinda like
the one Chrome for Android has)
and you're no longer limited to
only 8 tabs. The browser now
features a single smart search
filed rather than having two
fields - one for URL typing and
another one for initiating Google
searches.
Safari with unlimited tabs,
reading list, share links and
Keychain
Safari will also show what tabs
are open on your other devices
and features the just announced
iCloud Keychain integration,
meaning it would be sync your
passwords and credit card info
with your Mac. The Reading list
and Shared links features of the
desktop Safari are available here
too.
A cool new feature lets you swipe
from the sides of the screen to
go back and forth through your
browsing history.
The App Store got tweaked too –
it now automatically updates
apps (hi, Play Store) and suggest
apps based on your location (just
like Windows Phone).
Location-based app
recommendations
There's more: audio-only
Facetime, AirDrop, iTunes
Radio, Weather
Phew, we're already out of
breath here but the Apple team
isn’t done yet – Facetime got an
audio only option, which is
basically VoIP calling.
There's AirDrop, which is Apple's
answer to NFC (they even made a
joke about not having to bump
your phones together). It's a
streamlined and centralized
interface for sharing stuff with
other people, who our close by. It
uses a peer-to-peer Wi-Fi
connection for that.
Finally, the Music player has
been revamped as well and now
it offers a new service, called
iTunes Radio – an ad-supported
streaming music service for free
(launching in the US). This one is
also available on Macs, PCs and
even Apple TV.
The new iTunes Radio
There's also a cool new weather
app that shows the weather in
multiple cities with beautiful
animations, a detailed forecast
for today and tomorrow and the
weather for the next five days.
You can check the weather of
one location or all of them at
once.
The weather app is based on
Yahoo!
iOS 7 is available for the iPhone
in beta today. In the Fall, iOS 7
will be available on iPhone 4 and
later, iPod touch 5th gen, iPad
mini and iPad 2 and later.
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