The podcast thing is annoying. Forces you to use the app which while slightly improved is still very poor.
iOS 7
- Thread starter Captrek
- Start date
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
I've been largely happy with iOS7. My iPad2 and iPhone4 (my default iPod now) now run much, much faster than they had been running and my iPhone5 (my phone) is even better than it was before. Too, as Maurice pointed out, all three now work nearly perfectly for the things I use them for, which is just about all I can ask.
FYI: Late last night, Apple put out the first update on iOS7 too, to fix various bugs -inluding the lock screen hiccup issue.
FYI: Late last night, Apple put out the first update on iOS7 too, to fix various bugs -inluding the lock screen hiccup issue.
I voted "Step in the Wrong Direction". Not quite a disaster, but definitely not an improvement, IMO. I despise the minimalist interface look and feel. It strikes me as trying to take a page from the insipid Windows 8 playbook (also a very minimalist interface compared to its earlier incarnations), which I think is a BIG mistake. Apple has always been a leader in interface design - not a follower. This, to me, is a step backwards. Don't like what they did with Safari - then again, I think Safari as a browser on any platform, in general, is shit. And the new OS seems to be a severe battery drain, even after trying all the myriad energy saving tricks, more than ever before.
I am now convinced that Apple has hired all the hack developers that have been fired or laid of from Microsoft. They have brought the "worst of breed" practices with them and infiltrated Apple to bring it down from within, with the hopes of one day currying favor with Microsoft and being invited back into their fold. This, of course, is hyperbole, but I really do feel that the Apple of today has really taken some serious missteps since Dear Leader passed a few years back. Their complacency and indifference to the quality of their products will be their undoing. As a long-time Mac user for almost 20 years (and the NeXT back in the 80's and early 90's) It makes me sad...
I am now convinced that Apple has hired all the hack developers that have been fired or laid of from Microsoft. They have brought the "worst of breed" practices with them and infiltrated Apple to bring it down from within, with the hopes of one day currying favor with Microsoft and being invited back into their fold. This, of course, is hyperbole, but I really do feel that the Apple of today has really taken some serious missteps since Dear Leader passed a few years back. Their complacency and indifference to the quality of their products will be their undoing. As a long-time Mac user for almost 20 years (and the NeXT back in the 80's and early 90's) It makes me sad...
I think the minimalism is a great idea. You've got to ask yourself, is all of that frilly frou-frou crap actually making the OS easier to USE? Does it have a function? Is it efficient to have your contact list look like a leather book, for your Notes app to look like a yellow pad of paper, etc.? No? Then why have it?
While I'm not an old man, I am getting older (43) and my eyesight isn't what it used to be. Many of the icons and buttons not only made the buttons over-saturated primary colors, sometimes complementary colors set next together (not a good idea in interface design, generally), but the icons inside the buttons are often small, very thin lines that are difficult to make out. The metaphors they're trying to represent also seem a bit unintuitive. The art of making intuitive icons - something that Apple pioneered with the first Macs back in the 80's - seems to have been completely lost in recent years. Instead of imagery that clearly defines the function of something it's supposed to represent, iOS7 has reduced itself to a Rorschach Test of hyper-minimalism, relying on the users' ability to play constant guessing games at the potential purpose of a button, rather than to difinitively acknowledge it and allow the user to continue on his/her way unencumbered.
When something has a function, yes, I want to know what it is. Guessing at functionality based on vague and seemingly ambiguous imagery is NOT efficient. Having slightly more detail and a less obtuse color palette does, in fact, make things easier to use.
Having been a web developer for 19 years, and striving to create intuitive interfaces, it seems to me that Apple has broken many of the interface design conventions that they, themselves, established and used for almost 3 decades and have had copied and stolen over and over again by countless other companies and organizations. When it ain't broke, leave it the hell alone! Change for change's sake is NEVER a good thing. It almost feels like when Microsoft changed their entire Office suite interface around in favor of this ridiculous new "ribbon" layout. Even though it's been around now for a couple years, I still need to occasionally hunt for functionality that I used to be able to find in seconds under the old menu bar. Same mentality. That's why I'm convinced Apple has been infiltrated by lesser minions of Microsoft.
When something has a function, yes, I want to know what it is. Guessing at functionality based on vague and seemingly ambiguous imagery is NOT efficient. Having slightly more detail and a less obtuse color palette does, in fact, make things easier to use.
Having been a web developer for 19 years, and striving to create intuitive interfaces, it seems to me that Apple has broken many of the interface design conventions that they, themselves, established and used for almost 3 decades and have had copied and stolen over and over again by countless other companies and organizations. When it ain't broke, leave it the hell alone! Change for change's sake is NEVER a good thing. It almost feels like when Microsoft changed their entire Office suite interface around in favor of this ridiculous new "ribbon" layout. Even though it's been around now for a couple years, I still need to occasionally hunt for functionality that I used to be able to find in seconds under the old menu bar. Same mentality. That's why I'm convinced Apple has been infiltrated by lesser minions of Microsoft.
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I, too, am not fond of the overly minimilast interface. I can understand simplifying some things for greater efficiency---and my iPhone and iPad do seem to work better and faster---but the interface bugs me whenever I look at it because I find it unattractive and amateurish looking. The rearranging of some things has also bugged me. A simple example is the bookmark button on Safari---I was so used to it being on the left (where it still is on my iMac (running Mountain Lion) that I keep missing it now that it's on the right in iOs7.
Yeah, I also wonder if something has gone missing with the passing of Steve Jobs.
Yeah, I also wonder if something has gone missing with the passing of Steve Jobs.
^^^ It's almost like it's an interface that was designed and built by Fisher Price. Sadly, this was the description I gave of Windows 8 when its screen shots started gracing our presence in online reviews.
I, too, think it's amateurish looking, but apparently it's all the rage now. One of my favorite online web mags (Smashing) just recently did an article on this, sadly, in favor of the practice, rationalizing all the things I mentioned above and then-some: Flat and Thin Are In - blaming (or crediting) most of this "trend" on information over-saturation allegedly inherent within previous-generation interface designs. Something I disagree with. Many have confused "feature-rich" with "busy" over the years. I agree that some have blurred the lines and delivered bloated products to justify higher price tags, but if an interface designer knows what he/she is doing, an interface can effectively deliver a large amount of information without bogging the design down with perfunctory widget-mongering. Again, it seems to be a lost art.
Ugh. Well, since things like this seem to come and go in a pendulous manner, I guess I'll just have to wait for another 10 years for it to swing back.
Sigh...
I, too, think it's amateurish looking, but apparently it's all the rage now. One of my favorite online web mags (Smashing) just recently did an article on this, sadly, in favor of the practice, rationalizing all the things I mentioned above and then-some: Flat and Thin Are In - blaming (or crediting) most of this "trend" on information over-saturation allegedly inherent within previous-generation interface designs. Something I disagree with. Many have confused "feature-rich" with "busy" over the years. I agree that some have blurred the lines and delivered bloated products to justify higher price tags, but if an interface designer knows what he/she is doing, an interface can effectively deliver a large amount of information without bogging the design down with perfunctory widget-mongering. Again, it seems to be a lost art.
Ugh. Well, since things like this seem to come and go in a pendulous manner, I guess I'll just have to wait for another 10 years for it to swing back.
Sigh...
Yes, perfect description.It's almost like it's an interface that was designed and built by Fisher Price.
Sigh...
I really haven't noticed the battery life being different although there was one day I thought my iPhone did drain more quickly than usually and I hardly used the phone that day. But it's been normal ever since. Weird.
You may want to try some of the usual tricks to save battery life, like turning off location services, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc., when they're not being used. If there are a lot of internal and external notification pushes happening, that can draw down the battery as well. Hi-end graphic games, particularly that use the 3D engine will suck life out especially.
^^^ Perhaps, since Apple seems to be taking on more and more of Microsoft's aspects - that's what MS does to placate their perpetually disenchanted user base when they've screwed up so horrifically. Apple has generally tended to force these trends, effectively saying that they know what's best for their users and that said users will eventually adjust to Apple's dictates. Despite the arrogance of such a stance, that has generally worked for Apple, since most of their architectural and design decisions have been fairly decent and valid steps forward in design philosophies...until now. The coming months will be interesting to witness how both sides will react.
I voted middle of the road for a couple of reasons:
CONS:
- The GUI is very cheap looking, with some elements looking like they've been taken straight out of Android. The font is too thin; I've turned on bold text to make it better. I much preferred the GUI of iOS 6.
- The double click to get the recent/active song on the lock screen has been moved to the control centre, which is slower to get to.
- I find the swipe up to activate the camera on the lock screen is very hit and miss. Sometimes it takes ages to swipe to get it working.
- The keypad to unlock my phone sometimes doesn't accept the keystrokes despite flashing to say they have.
PROS:
- The control centre is a great system, although on my phone the swipe up to get to it sometimes doesn't work first, second, seventh time, etc.
- Progress bar slider for songs in the lock screen is something I've wanted for ages.
- More than 12 items in a folder.
- Can hide the newsstand folder!!
CONS:
- The GUI is very cheap looking, with some elements looking like they've been taken straight out of Android. The font is too thin; I've turned on bold text to make it better. I much preferred the GUI of iOS 6.
- The double click to get the recent/active song on the lock screen has been moved to the control centre, which is slower to get to.
- I find the swipe up to activate the camera on the lock screen is very hit and miss. Sometimes it takes ages to swipe to get it working.
- The keypad to unlock my phone sometimes doesn't accept the keystrokes despite flashing to say they have.
PROS:
- The control centre is a great system, although on my phone the swipe up to get to it sometimes doesn't work first, second, seventh time, etc.
- Progress bar slider for songs in the lock screen is something I've wanted for ages.
- More than 12 items in a folder.
- Can hide the newsstand folder!!
I had an iPhone 4s for almost 2 years, and then lost it 2 weeks before the new phones were announced. So, while waiting to get a new phone I went back to my 3G. It was a total nightmare 
. It's amazing how many changes I've become accustomed to these past two years. Needless to say, that trip back to iOS 5 has made me more appreciative of iOS 7 than I think I would have been otherwise.
I actually like most of the design elements, the colors of the icons are a bit much, but I love the imessage and text message colors. I also love the stripped down display on the phone. As for battery life, my 5s is obviously more advanced than my 4s, but I'm now able to make it through a full day with about 50% charge left, previously on a slow work day I'd have to recharge by lunch.
My biggest complaint is that I really preferred the swipe left for the search bar to the swipe up. Maybe it's just muscle memory, but why change that? What was the reason?
. It's amazing how many changes I've become accustomed to these past two years. Needless to say, that trip back to iOS 5 has made me more appreciative of iOS 7 than I think I would have been otherwise.I actually like most of the design elements, the colors of the icons are a bit much, but I love the imessage and text message colors. I also love the stripped down display on the phone. As for battery life, my 5s is obviously more advanced than my 4s, but I'm now able to make it through a full day with about 50% charge left, previously on a slow work day I'd have to recharge by lunch.
My biggest complaint is that I really preferred the swipe left for the search bar to the swipe up. Maybe it's just muscle memory, but why change that? What was the reason?
Swipe left needed a single swipe if you started from the leftmost page, but if you started from another page you needed to swipe left multiple times, or press the home button then swipe.
^^^ Go to Settings >> (scroll down a bit) iTunes & App Store >> (under automatic downloads) turn off everything.
Good luck!
Good luck!
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