This summer I had a lottttt going on: relatives visiting, travelling to India, moving to a new place, starting a new job…and yet, one of the highlights was downloading the beta version of iOS 7.
I’ll be honest, when I first got it, I loved it and hated it at the same time. It was really cool, it was pretty new, but it was horribly laggy. Then again, it was a beta version. (Should have been an alpha version.) Nah, it was ok. Especially after the first update, when it was actually fast enough for me to use!
Anyways, so the very first thing that I noticed and that impressed me was the lock screen. It was beautiful. It was flat. It was very….dare I say it, Windows 8. And, I totally liked the fuzzy-but-still-can-see-the-background thing! As for the flat theme, that extended beyond just the unlocking. All the stock apps suddenly had new icons. It was a change, but it was a pleasant one. I definitely liked the feel of it.
Control Center
The Control Center is wayyyy cool. Absolutely. Totally. Mind-blowing. So the way to access it is to swipe up from the bottom. In the beginning, I kept accidentally opening it, but once I got over that little hiccup, it was SO CUTE. Pretty much, it’s a swipey menu that has a lot of the little settings & apps that people use often. The five buttons on the top just turn on/off things: Airplane Mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb (which seriously, who actually uses that? Does it even work??), and Portrait Orientation Screen Lock. I think they did a pretty good job of picking which five things to button-ify. Then, there’s a slider for screen brightness (as there should be). You have music control, which is nice. Andddd the four buttons at the bottom that open apps: Flashlight, Timer, Calculator, and Camera. Those are nice….although I do wish they were customizable though. I would have switched Timer to the Alarm Clock. Regardless, those are nicer since you can access the Control Center without unlocking the phone….so quick-draw flashlight? pretty sweet.
Photos
So, another thing that changed was Photos! Essentially, photos were no longer photos; they were now moments. All the moments are organized by time, separated by location, and grouped into Collections. Nice concept. I like it. Actually, for me, that definitely helped me find pictures. I think, before I think about when a photo was taken (or should I say moment), I remember where it was taken.
Another great thing about the new Photos is the awesome levels of zoom. There’s the single picture level and the standard level (which was the only one in iOS 6). But the new one is AWESOME. Seriously. You can zoom out to see pictures separated by location (the Collections), and then zoom once more and you get the Years view. Sweeet.
iTunes Radio
I believe iTunes Radio is yet another new feature. I haven’t really used it much, but if you have constant access to WiFi? Why not?!….Top 40 Pop songs allllll the time! 😀
[Actually I listened to the Bollywood radio more. And they had pretty good songs! New songs, which I was surprised about and pretty impressed by.]
They still need to figure something out about a Play Next feature for general music though. I thought Apple would have learned by now 😦
Other Stuff I’ve Noticed
- The camera view has a Square option now…seems like people want to take Instagram-like pictures without Instagram? omg. yay.
- OhMyGod. I seriously almost forgot one of the biggest additions to iOS 7. And since it’s actually important, I’m going to go back up and add it as the first subsection.
- Alright guys, done with the Control Center section. I’m back down here.
- Oh! And FINALLY. Apple added timestamps to all the texts in Message. Only took them about forever to add that. But, now if you swipe left on messages, it’ll display what time it was sent/received.
- The Notification Center is a little different. They added tabs: Today, All, Missed. I don’t think I ever use Missed, I just see everything in All. Regardless, I guess it’s nice to have. Today has weather and the calendar! So that’s nice of it. Pretty much the two things I need to help me decide what to wear in the morning.
I would say that’s pretty much it….I like it a lot 🙂 Took a bit getting used to, but I like the way they’re thinking! So, good work, Apple! Can’t wait to see what you’ll do next!
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