Apple had announced back in June 2013 that they would be launching iOS 7, there was a lot expectation as it was the first major release by Apple after Steve Job’s death, there were rumors that Apple was going with a complete new interface in building the new iOS 7 and they were going to add a lot of new features, just like everyone else even I was very curious to find out how the iOS 7 was going to be, what are the features going to be and once it was released there were a lot of impressive features, which made everyone admire the new iOS 7, so let’s take a look at some of it amazing new features…
Passcode:
Well, it looks more different from the passcodes in the past by Apple; the numbers appear to be bigger and with a better circular design. The new passcode and phone dialing screen takes the color of your background and along with this it has a lot of security updates for its users, from its entirely new features all the way down to the tweaks and enhancements and activation Lock is one of the most awaited feature from Apple. The Activation Lock is a theft interference that works by influencing Find-My-iPhone to ensure that even though your device falls into the wrong hands, they will not be able to use it. So when Find-My-iPhone is enabled on any device with iOS 7, an automatic Activation Lock will be enable by default, so you will need your Apple ID and password to turn off Find-My-iPhone, erase and reactive your device. Bottom line – if your phone gets lost the thief will have a tough time selling the phone.
Colorful Icons:
So the days of skeuomorphic interface elements that used to make icons and apps look like paper or leather are over. Even the 3D bubble-shaped icon effects are out dated and now we have flat graphics with a dappled and pastel color scheme that brings a new elegant look and its new zooming animations, makes it feels sleek as you open and close apps. The new design may definitely take some time to get used to it, but it definitely makes the iPhone feel brand new.
Control Center:
We actually have an Android feature in iOS 7, it’s unbelievable but true and it looks pretty cool, the new feature are the Control Center and the Notification bar, the control settings allows you to swipe up from the bottom of the display on any screen to bring quick-access to some handy tools, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness, Flight mode, music controls and torch light. For notifications swipe down from the top of the display the tabs show you all your alerts, calls and the messages that you have missed, it also has a new “today” pane that lets you track your schedules for the day.
Camera:
Apple has done a lot of work in reorganizing both the camera app and as to how the images live in the photo app. The camera app surfaces all your shooting modes such as still, panorama and video all you have to do is swipe and then tap the icon to frame your shot, it also offers a basic burst mode in which you can just touch and hold the main button to take continuous shots so you can pick the best ones later.
A colorful icon on the lower right corner lets you apply filters to the still or square shots. But there are only nine filters for you to choose from and you are not going to face any problem that you have faced with other third-party photo apps on the store.
Photo App:
With the photos app, Apple has dropped the endless wall of photos from iOS 6 that could only break out into albums. With the iOS 7, Apple treats photos as moments in time and it’s organized around the geo-tagged locations. This takes a cue from Apple’s desktop iPhoto counterpart. Well what it basically means is that your photos are categorized by year in a dense mosaic. All you have to do is just touch and hold the screen to zoom into a picture from the group and drag your finger around to preview other photos. It’s a very cool trick.
AirDrop:
It is a new mode for sharing files by Apple, it lets you share any file that you want with your friends all you have do is just choose the file you want and when you click on share, the AirDrop option pops up, so when you select the option it shows you all your friends nearby, and you can chose as to who you want to share it with. You will be able to save all your data on your Macbook easily. But it only works with iPhone 5 and above.
Browser (Safari):
The new iOS 7 has come with some big changes to its Safari browser it has is a unified search and URL field, it was a usability thorn in the previous versions of the iOS where the two were kept separate for some time. It was a long overdue update that combines them into one.
There’s also more flexibility with open browser windows as well. Instead of swiping left and right to view open windows, they now preview as vertically scrolling rectangular cards and look similar to what we’ve seen on some Android phones, even the scroll bars disappear until you need them, a feature we’ve seen in many browsers before, and swiping left or right takes you back or forward a page.
iRadio:
iTunes radio, is definitely not the first of its kind, most of you would have used radio from the app store before like: Google Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Slacker Radio and other music service. iTunes radio is pretty much like Pandora, where it lets you build your own stations based on Songs or Artists, you can listen to iTunes Radio on all Apple products like your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, and Apple TV for free, and for the iTunes match user it will be ad-free.
You can choose your songs from more than 250 DJ-curated and genre-focused stations are also available. So do you like to listen to your favorite songs from your music library? Well if you do, then you can build your own station around it, too. You can also fine-tune the mix by adding new songs and artists, you can also skipping music that you don’t like, or you can adjust the number of hits or latest music you would like to hear.
Your stations can adapt to the music that you play and download. The more and more you use iTunes or iTunes Radio, it helps iTunes Radio knows what kind of music you like to listen to and your experience becomes more personalized. iCloud stores all your stations, so if you stop playing a station on a particular device, you can pick up the station on any other without syncing and no matter on what device you listen to music on, your stations will adjust with every song that you play.
Siri:
Apple’s sensational digital voice assistant gains a lot of personality with the revamp of iOS, Siri also gets a brand new voice, two in fact, considering the male voice as well, which seem less robotic and Siri’s results no longer appear as a tiny card instead it takes the full screen.
Now Siri also comes with sound wave animation, so when you speak this appears at the bottom of the screen and in the iOS 7 it is quick to process requests, the most amazing feature to Siri is that it can now access you phone settings, like switching on or switching off Bluetooth, play voice mails, which makes it super cool, as not many voice assistants can do that.
Face Time:
As you know everyone is looking for video calls rather than just voice calls, and iOS is one of the best, you can use Face Time for free long distance calls through Wi-Fi rather than spending loads on long distance calls through your telecom, in Face Time you have the option from switching from a voice call to a video call but you cannot switch from a video call to a voice call, if Apple can alter this, Face Time will become amazing.
Automatic Updates:
For those of you who have a lot of apps installed, are automatic app updates in iOS 7 is an enormously time-saving addition, Now all that you would have to do is just turn automatic updates on and never be bothered with the number indications on the App Store icon again as your app gets updated automatically, Well if you don’t like to constantly look up at the updates notification. There would be few out there just like me that would want to see what the update is on certain apps before installing them but unfortunately, there is no option for this; either you can have the feature on or off always.
Weather App (Yahoo):
Apple iOS 7 new Weather app has been changed to look more like Yahoo’s Weather app as iOS Weather is being powered by Yahoo, now you can see multiple cities weather on one screen. But the graphics looks pretty ordinary, as it changes the background based on the weather in each city.
Calendar App (Yahoo):
The new built-in iOS 7 Calendar app looks clean, but it is one change that does not make the users happy. The new Calendar app features and the new layout lets you zoom in on months and even on days and its new color scheme match up with the design of iOS 7. But the iOS 6, had a day view that actually gave you a list of the day’s appointments at the top so that you can see them at one glance. But when I looked at this new version, I couldn’t find this list initially and thought that you could only look at the full-day view, which requires you to scroll through each day to see your appointments. it took me very long to to find out that you can still see the list, by simply touching the search magnifying glass at the top of the Calendar, it’s still available, but it looks unintuitive to hide this in the search function.
As pretty as the rose can be, it still does come with thorns in it, here with the iOS 7 there also few glitches, hopefully Apple sorts them out pretty soon.
