The iOS 7 Experience

Like many of you ,I was eagerly awaiting the official launch of iOS 7. September 18th arrived and I anxiously plugged in my iPod Touch for an upgrade. I have long since moved to Android and have no plans to move back to iOS. My wife, an iPhone 4S user would get the upgrade after I got done with the iPod Touch. The upgrade had its hiccups- needless to say. It bailed out a few times because the server got clogged. Eventually it got done. I have been using the iOS 7 beta for a few months now. So not much was new to me. But to see it out of beta and polished was what this was all about. Here then are my early thoughts on iOS 7- both on the iPod Touch and on an iPhone 4S.A Full RefreshWhether you agree with the need for it or not, iOS 7 is a full refresh from a design perspective. Gone are the skeuomorphs. Gone are the 2007 era icons and UI flourishes. Replacing them is a flat design that goes for a lot of color and clean text. In many places, icons are replaced by text. Jony Ive's hope is that people are so comfortable with their smartphones by now that they will instinctively perform actions be it icons or text. There is a lot of text everywhere.So what has changed?Pretty much everything. It all starts with the lock screen where a slide to unlock replaces the long standing swipe action. If you use a code for security, even that looks cleaner and simpler. Once the device is unlocked, you are greeted by new icons for all of Apple's own apps. But before going into apps, there are changes in the Notification Bar. Notifications and Control CenterThe Notification Bar was new to iOS6 and Apple adds to it. Android boasts a robust Notification system and Apple is making slow and steady progress to get there. That progress is evident with iOS7. There are three tabs now within the Notification Bar- Today, All and Missed that capture all the notifications under those logical categories. The Notification response mechanism itself has not changed much (yet).[gallery ids="1298,1299"]A completely new UI interaction is the Control Center which can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. This feature finally brings basic controls to iOS from Home. Until now, the only way for someone to say, toggle Bluetooth or Wifi was to go two menus deep within Settings. Android and all other OS'es have long boasted a Control mechanism from anywhere and iOS has finally caught up to it. In addition to all the basic controls like BT, Wifi, Airplane mode, iOS throws in a flashlight tool (using the LED flash) and quick access to the Calculator, Alarm and Camera. The Control Center also offers quick access to controlling the music player, the Do Not Disturb option and also the screen brightness.Apple Apps- Notes, Reminders, GameCenter, Newstand and ClockApple's own core apps have undergone a big redesign. Everything is flatter, cleaner and simpler in terms of look. It almost looks bare at times but that is not a bad thing in my opinion. There is a lot of text and very little of Icons. There is also a lot of welcome whitespace.[gallery ids="1300,1304,1303,1302,1301,1312"]GameCenter is now a bunch of bubbles of different sizes and colors. Reminders, Notes and Clock share a sparse look devoid of any color and texture.  The Settings menu also bears the same design and color philosophy.Camera and PhotosThe Camera settings and Photo gallery have also undergone significant changes. The Camera has two key additions - the ability to shoot pictures in square mode and pre and post processing tools to tweak pictures. The square shooting mode is targeted squarely at the Instagram user base. After being spotted and used on a bunch of recent Android devices, iOS 7 now offers filters that can be applied prior to shooting an image and also a fresh set of filters that can be used for post-processing the images.The Picture gallery has undergone significant changes. You can now see pictures as collections- by location/date and even get a year wise sort. The collections look nice.Overall, much of the options while taking pictures and the gallery changes are nothing new to users of Android devices and Nokia Lumia phones. That said, for the iOS users, there is a lot of new and cool looking things here.[gallery ids="1311,1310,1306,1321,1322"]Multitasking and FluidityIf iOS has always had something going for it, it is its fluidity and response. It has always been quick and snappy. iOS7 is no different. On a latest gen iPod Touch and an iPhone 4S I barely saw any stutter or performance issues. Things worked instantly and without any hiccups.Multitasking has changed. And it looks exactly like how it did on webOS and HTC One X. A quick double press of the Home button brings up a miniaturized version of all the current running apps as a sequence of cards. Swiping them up removes them and clicking on any of them makes it active. Early Reaction People have taken to Twitter to voice their opinion on iOS 7. There are a lot of complaints. I would attribute all that to folks not yet acclimatized to the new look. Give it a few days and everything old will be forgotten and all things new will be embraced. We use our smartphones so much that we will get used to it pretty quickly.There is a lot of Android and webOS inspiration in iOS 7. And none less than the flat UI initially pioneered by Microsoft on mobile platforms with Windows Phone 7. But with 700 million iOS 7 devices worldwide, most people will never know or care where the feature was "borrowed" from. To them, it is all new. And from that standpoint, iOS 7 is definitely a step forward.I'll leave you with this for now. Enjoy your brand new old OS.