Apple
has finally decided to give iOS a proper redesign. iOS has looked
almost identical update-to-update since the system first arrived back in
2007. That’s when the first iPhone launched – aeons ago in tech terms.A core part of the redesign is new icons. All the old designs have been ditched in favour of a new look. The outline-heavy style of previous versions has gone, in favour of a more supposedly chic look.
Who is behind this new version? It’s Jonathan Ive, the man who was behind the hardware design of the iPad, iPhone and the original iPod – which made its debut in 2001. He's an Apple veteran.
It’s not all about icons, though. All of Apple’s own apps have been given a new simplified tweak, including Email, the camera app, the browser, the photo gallery and – arguably the most important of all – the Apple keyboard.
iOS 7 Camera App
The Camera app of iOS 6 has been completely redesigned for iOS 7. In previous incarnations, the iPhone camera app was the simplest mobile phone photo interface of them all – just giving you access to an HDR mode, panorama, and the grid (seldom-used).
iOS 7’s camera app is completely different. Apple has realised that iPhone users love things like filters and the ability to easily share their photo history with friends.
The iOS 7 camera app now offers eight hipster-friendly filters, and you can remove them after having applied them if you like. There are now ‘photo collections’ too, which amass your photos into a timeline that stretches over days, weeks, months – and even years.
Apple is clearly out to blast services like Instagram into the past with iOS 7. Your photos are shared on iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage service.
Smart Multitasking
Multitasking has been completely redesigned in iOS 7. Instead of just showing you icons of apps you’ve recently loaded, you’ll see shrunken previews of what’s on-screen, similar to those seen in the near-defunct Palm WebOS.
Apps will now learn when you search for updates in your daily schedule. So if you look at Facebook every day at 9am, your iPhone will update that app just before that, so you’re ready to see all your friends’ latest inane insights.
The idea is that this will help iOS 7 to save a bit of battery, so it won’t have to look for updates 24/7. iOS 7 will also capitalise on Wi-Fi connections, updating all its content when connected in this manner – Wi-Fi uses less battery than 3G.
We’ll have to see how this works in person.
AirDrop
Apple has been criticised by many for not including NFC in its latest devices. The iPhone 5, the iPad 4? No NFC.
The iOS 7 stop-gap is AirDrop. This uses Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth to let you share files – primarily photos, contact and videos - with people nearby.
If anything, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are actually superior Wi-Fi standards for this purpose as their ranges are far greater than NFC, which peters out after about 10cm. You’ll still have to select a contact to send files too as well, so you shouldn’t find random strangers sending you photos either.
Safari Redesign
The
Safari browser of iOS has been given a long-needed overhaul. In common
with the rest of iOS 7, it now tries to keep things simple, with an
interface that hides interface elements until they’re needed.
Its tabbed browsing view has also been changed. Rather than appearing as flat planes, they appear as 3D animated tabs – five of which can be shown on-screen at once.
Safari now uses iCloud too, letting you save your passwords and logins so you don’t have to type them in every time. And, for the social networkers out there, you save your ‘reading list’ URLs and share them over Twitter if you like.
SiriiOS 7's Siri is a little more advanced than before. Most of the updates are ‘experiential’, meaning you should only notice it’s better without necessarily realising why. There’s more feedback about when Siri’s listening and not. You no longer have to guress.
Siri should no longer have to leave the Siri app, either. Apple has done a deal with Wikipedia that will see the voice assistant search Wikipedia within the app, so it should almost never simply dump you out to a web search.
Apple has been criticised by many for not including NFC in its latest devices. The iPhone 5, the iPad 4? No NFC.
The iOS 7 stop-gap is AirDrop. This uses Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth to let you share files – primarily photos, contact and videos - with people nearby.
If anything, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are actually superior Wi-Fi standards for this purpose as their ranges are far greater than NFC, which peters out after about 10cm. You’ll still have to select a contact to send files too as well, so you shouldn’t find random strangers sending you photos either.
Safari Redesign
The
Safari browser of iOS has been given a long-needed overhaul. In common
with the rest of iOS 7, it now tries to keep things simple, with an
interface that hides interface elements until they’re needed.Its tabbed browsing view has also been changed. Rather than appearing as flat planes, they appear as 3D animated tabs – five of which can be shown on-screen at once.
Safari now uses iCloud too, letting you save your passwords and logins so you don’t have to type them in every time. And, for the social networkers out there, you save your ‘reading list’ URLs and share them over Twitter if you like.
SiriiOS 7's Siri is a little more advanced than before. Most of the updates are ‘experiential’, meaning you should only notice it’s better without necessarily realising why. There’s more feedback about when Siri’s listening and not. You no longer have to guress.
Siri should no longer have to leave the Siri app, either. Apple has done a deal with Wikipedia that will see the voice assistant search Wikipedia within the app, so it should almost never simply dump you out to a web search.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eZy0YjnNgTk
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