

The iOS 7 review - gmac
http://anandtech.com/show/7343/the-ios-7-review

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corporalagumbo
I think it's interesting, but for me one of Apple's weakest points as a
company is its taste in software UI. iOS 7 strikes me as catch-up - Apple is
late to a party started by Google and Microsoft, and is trying hard to pretend
its been there all along - hard to recognise the hint of insecurity behind
their ever-slick advertising, but it's there I think. It's a new area for the
company, and a good reminder that Apple has its vulnerabilities. It will be
interesting to see how things play out as the design language of the big three
(A, G, & M) equalises, norms emerge, and the competition begins to really heat
up.

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dferlemann
If you gonna say UI in general, Apple's iPhone and iPod interface were
designed first before Android caught up... Microsoft is even later... just
saying. If you are talking about flat UI, then yes, Android advanced it.
However, I agree 5c and flat UI make the current Apple reek insecurity.

~~~
corporalagumbo
I'm not talking about UI in general, I'm talking about taste in UI - style and
general good looks. I don't know how everyone else feels on this, but for me
Apple has stuck far too long to simply ugly styling on both iOS and OS X to
convince me that attractive UI is a part of company culture. Some of Google's
efforts (Now, Maps) and where Microsoft is heading (e.g. it's new websites,
Outlook, Windows 8.1) have all impressed me much more. I think Apple is
clearly trying to retrofit company culture here.

But I wouldn't say Apple "reeks" of insecurity... We don't really have any
knowledge about how much they have up their sleeves, and they've had a long
time over the last half-decade to lay foundations for future maneuvers.
Besides, if they can convince the everyman that they thought up modern design
all by themselves, they could gain a massive advantage here.

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iMark
Don't forget that the advancement of Jony Ive to oversee both software and
hardware is still a relatively new development at Apple. All the design
changes in iOS 7 have been done in little under a year, following the ousting
of Scott Forstall.

Apple are definitely playing catch up on the software design front, but signs
are that they're heading in the right direction. iOS 8 and OS X 10.10 will be
interesting to watch, to see what the Apple's design team can manage with a
little more breathing room in which to work.

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partyanimal
Siri's search result UI is a game changer and has a real chance of disrupting
Google imo. Siri's UI is customized for a mobile device, no ads, and it uses
search results from Bing, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. Missing
from the list is Google.

All they need to do is somehow figure out how to add web search to Spotlight,
use the exact same UI and Google's in big trouble.

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Yaggo
Honestly I cannot avoid a feel that Apple has lost its sense of taste and iOS
UI was redone just because of outside pressure and nobody with enough
authority having the final word.

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threeseed
Well your feelings are horribly misplaced. Jonathan Ive has more authority
than anyone at Apple (Tim Cook included).

~~~
devx
Then maybe Jon Ive is just not very good at software design. His changes to
the iOS UI seem like what an _amateur_ designer would do (brighter colors,
lots of random ugly icons, inconsistency throughout the UI, and so on). It's
like this is his first ride in software design.

~~~
simonh
I installed iOS7 for the first time this morning, and it's way too early for
me to tell. The colour scheme is a bit jarring, but it's also very unfamiliar
so time will tell how well I get used to it. Some of the setting and new
functionality seem a bit odd or confusing, but no more so than I'd expect with
a new interface. The huge configurability in the camera app was a bit of a
surprise.

Right now I have absolutely no idea how much I like or dislike the new design.
I've been able to do everything (very few things so far to be fair) I wanted
to do, and encountered some small frustrations and nice surprises. I'll see
how I feel in a week or two.

How long have you been using iOS 7 for?

~~~
guilhermetk
I've been using iOS 7 since beta 1. My first reaction was: "wtf are these
colors?". Now, after some months using it daily I'm used to it and even
started to like it.

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normloman
I don't get the hype over flat design. The original iPhone UI was gaudy and
overbearing, but the solution ain't a complete 180. Android strikes the right
balance between clean looks with just the right amount of shading to lend
affordance to the UI.

Also: Helvetica Neue? What were they thinking?

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blinkingled
I posted my experience installing ios7 on my ipad 3 yesterday but deleted it
thinking I should give it more time in order to be fair.

I continue to feel it's not an overall positive - glitchy, stuttery and slow
animations, degraded battery life, UI inconsistencies, touch lag and
inaccuracies ( never thought I would say that about iOS ) are all significant
downsides for what is essentially a paint job and a one that I happen to not
like very much.

But then maybe it works better on newer hardware. This would be the second
time in Apple's update history that older devices got a poor update
experience.

Curious what new features people like enough to offset the downsides.

~~~
partyanimal
> Curious what new features people like enough to offset the downsides.

i have iOS 7 on an iPhone 5, iPad 2, iPad 3 and iPad mini. no touch lag, "slow
animation" or "inaccuracies" so far.

~~~
corresation
I have iOS 7 on an iPod Touch 5th generation and a iPad 3rd generation, and I
will say that it absolutely brought a little bit of Android (well, to be fair
earlier generations of Android as this isn't really an issue anymore) to iOS
-- touch lag all over the place, often a second+ before the keyboard starts
accepting inputs, etc.

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rimantas
So much talk about the flat design. People, if the only experience you had
with iOS7 is looking at screenshots, then you are not really in position to
say anything.

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ocean12
As a tech enthusiast, I've spent the last several months watching the iOS7
design arguments play out online, and I've read a few reviews with interest
this week.

So it was with interest that I observed my wife and MIL's reactions to the
upgrade on their iPads, which was really no big deal at all.

A cogent reminder to me that there's a vast difference between us and them.

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nakedrobot2
Does anyone else think that ios7 and windows phone look really similar? I
don't think it is only the "flat design" aesthetic, it's something more.

I think they are both less than ideal for this reason, because it is no longer
obvious what is a button and what is not.

But it's pretty.

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harrytuttle
I use windows phone 8. No they are not the same. The style is similar but the
actual functionality is nothing like iOS 7 from what I can see.

It's _really_ obvious on Windows Phone what is a button and what is not apart
from a few shitty 3rd party apps. This is regurgitating one of the many fables
about WP.

~~~
untog
Agreed. I've heard multiple people say that iOS7 looks bad in screenshots, but
you really need to use it to understand it. I'd say the exact same has always
applied to WP.

~~~
harrytuttle
Yes but rationality and experience doesn't get you any upvotes in the tech
communities. Raging fanboyism and denouncing the competition does.

Thanks for being rational - you are spot on.

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devx
> The only issue is that after a while some animations start being a lot to
> sit through each time, especially the multitasking interface animations and
> app fly-in

This is what annoyed me a lot about WP7, too. Long "cool" animations that slow
you down with each action you perfor, get boring very quickly, and eventually
become frustrating.

On my Android phone, I've even set the animations to be faster than they
normally are, precisely because I want stuff to be done fast, not watch a
1-second long animation each time I tap on the screen.

~~~
erso
Setting animation speed is also available for jailbroken iOS devices, if
anyone's interested. The Cydia app is called FakeClockUp. I like setting it to
1.4x.

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r00fus
Is there a recent jailbreak? I googled and am getting lots of paid options,
but not sure I trust those...

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erso
I've used only evasi0n on iOS 6.

