Apple iOS 7 In A Nutshell (Three Minute Read)

by Morgan on June 11, 2013

This week Apple unveiled iOS 7 to some very excited Apple fans in San Francisco at their World Wide Developer Conference. While TechCrunch, CNET and many more have plenty of in-depth coverage I thought I’d share the CliffNotes with those of you who want the three minute elevator pitch.

Ready? Here’s what you need to know:

New Look-and-feel: remembered when slick beveled icons were in? Well they’re out now and the new iOS has a very flat look to it, some love it, some hate it, every Mac geek like me will use it either way.
Core Apps++: Apple decided to revamp some of their core apps like mail, messages, weather, calendar, photo etc. This has been a long time coming.
iTunes Radio: have you heard of Pandora? Apple’s finally doing it, uh, like ten years later. This is cool except for the fact that we’ve all built our favorite Pandora stations and tuned them for years.
A Better Siri: people use Siri? I sure don’t and honestly don’t know anyone else who does, but yes people use it and it’s getting better. Might be a reason to try it again.
Smarter Multi-tasking: pretty slick feature that allows you to view the full-sized app screens rather than the tiny icons at the bottom of the screen.
Back Button: swipe to go back, easier than trying to pin-point the back button in your favorite app.

Yes there are more features but these are the core ones that you should know about, the rest you’ll discover when you upgrade. There’s a new Mac Pro, Macbook Air, and Mac OSX and I’ll be doing a “In A Nutshell” version on these as well this week.

Bam! There you go, now you can spend your day surfing, wine tasting, hang gliding or whatever it is you were planning to do 🙂

Photo Credit: William Hook via Compfight cc

{ 13 comments… add one }

Tristan June 11, 2013, 4:51 pm

Love the new features (such as the new multitask bar), but the design is terrible. The icons look terrible. I know iOS 7 isn’t complete yet (super slow at times, a lot of bugs, etc), so hoping they work on the design before the final release.

The biggest issue I have with iOS 7/Mavericks though, is that Apple stole other peoples’ ideas and designs.

Just look at Mavericks, the new tabbed finder idea was stolen from TotalFinder. The new password feature over iCloud comes from 1Password. Then iOS… stole designs from Android running on Samsung (almost exact copy), and the lock screen looks very similar to the Yahoo Weather app. These are just a few examples.

Here’s two articles on it:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/11/4418188/apple-ios-7-design-influences
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/06/10/ios7-vs-android-a-quick-comparison-after-the-wwdc-keynote/

If you guys want a good laugh, check out this Tumblr showing how stuff would look like if designed by Jony Ive:
http://jonyiveredesignsthings.tumblr.com/

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- Morgan June 11, 2013, 9:35 pm
  
  @Tristan – great comment and I really appreciate you sharing your opinions and the articles! While it does seem like they may have “borrowed” some ideas/features from others, isn’t imitation one of the greatest forms of flattery? The new Facebook iOS app took a page out of Path’s design book but sometimes there are just better ways to do things.
  
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owen frager June 11, 2013, 5:08 pm

I know lots of disabled and Carpel Tunnel folks use SIRI to dictate texts. Thus far it’s pretty far off getting it right, though, which you know if you read any of my stuff. Some people at Apple couldn’t wait for Jobs to leave to change his designs. Ultimately this will backfire as did the guys who left for JC Penny and failed not realizing that their success at the Apple Store was to the credit of the “Jobs Factor.”

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Ian June 11, 2013, 9:50 pm

Is iRadio available outside the U.S? Pandora isn’t in Europe at all (umlike Spotify and Rdio) and despite there being more far people online in Europe than the entire population of the U.S.

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- Morgan June 11, 2013, 9:52 pm
  
  Hi @Ian, that’s a great question, does anyone else know?
  
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Tristan June 11, 2013, 9:58 pm

@Morgan – That’s true, but have to remember that Apple killed all those apps with iOS 7/Mavericks, so the devs are going to lose a lot of their income (possibly all). This is a good example of why you need multiple income steams and a backup plan.

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- Morgan June 11, 2013, 11:17 pm
  
  @Tristan – excellent point and completely agreed.
  
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Bram C. June 11, 2013, 11:34 pm

As for your point 4: I use Siri all the time and know a lot of people who do. I can’t even remember the last time I made an appointment or reminder on my iphone the “manual” way. I use Siri for at least 50% of the stuff I do on iPhone and iPad.

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- Morgan June 12, 2013, 10:03 am
  
  @Bram – very cool, glad to hear you like Siri, I know there are definitely plenty of Siri users out there I just don’t know any of them.
  
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Ian June 12, 2013, 12:57 am

I’ve just now watched the keynote in full. It looks like iRadio will be available in other countries but as ever it’s only in the U.S initially.

I am very glad to see unlimited Safari tabs, so no more to webpages lost forever due to being overwritten without warning, although I can’t help wondering would Safari still be the most popular mobile browser if people on iOS could change the default browser.

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Mike June 12, 2013, 1:28 am

Hi!

I sure like the new features but about the design i am not so sure.
Maybe i update my daughters 4S first…

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Ian June 12, 2013, 11:35 am

I use Siri, not very often, but if I’m having a conversation or leaving comments on a blog… hmmm… Then I will use the Siri sometimes too had a comments to my blog, if I am feeling Like not typing. Obviously, it’s part of this comment was posted using Siri!

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Morgan June 12, 2013, 12:41 pm

@Ian – your comment illustrates exactly why I don’t use Siri 🙂 Most everything I dictate to Siri ends-up being filled with grammar errors like your comment above, then I spend time fixing it and realize it would have been faster just to type it!

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