The iOS 7 Review
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2013 1:25 AM ESTSettings
The changes in Settings.app are primarily visual at a high level. The application icon is perhaps the most curious change, since it looks like a sprocket for a bicycle or the gears inside a watch now, but I digress. This new UI pretty much just has visual style that matches the rest of iOS 7, and doesn’t really fundamentally change organizational structure very much. Settings are still grouped together in a couple of logical little bunches, with a bunch of third party application-specific settings options at the very bottom.
There’s obviously the addition of control center inside settings, and do not disturb comes outside of notifications. There are also the appropriate toggles for the today view under notification center. Under general and accessibility there are new options for the dynamic font size functionality, and a new toggle for disabling noise cancelation which proved somewhat controversial on the iPhone 5 (this setting also carries over to the 5s but not the 5c which I suspect lacks earpiece noise cancelation).
Safari
iOS 7 brings mobile safari version 7, which gets a huge set of functional changes and improvements to the JavaScript engine. Safari has been around for a while without many big changes to the interface, so this is big one.
There’s now a unibar at the top of the page for both URLs and search terms, this is a long overdue and welcome change that makes a ton of sense. Safari also now preloads the first result in the list while you’re typing, which has the side effect of making loading feel much faster regardless of what device you’re coming from.
The unibar also looks through bookmarks that are either synced through iCloud or exist on the iDevice and exposes those as options. It’s a bit confusing though since there are both the bookmarks under that appropriate menu, and bookmarks from the bookmarks bar that appear when you tap on the unibar on an empty tab before you start typing. I didn’t realize I even had some of those bookmarks still around until iOS 7 swung around and exposed them.
The new mobile safari gets the same transparent overlays and sense of depth that the rest of the OS conveys, the pages render below most of the UI and there’s a bit of hinting from elements that peek through. A big change is that the bottom menu now also slides away as you scroll down a page, expanding the viewport accordingly. The top bar gets smaller but retains the domain of the page being visited. Tweaks like these do help the iPhone feel bigger than it used to feel.
In addition you can now have more than 8 pages open at the same time, and safari seems a lot better at keeping tabs around and not reloading their contents every time you switch between them. The tab switching interface is also a lot better, with a card-like metaphor that allows for tabs to be quickly closed by just swiping them off the left of the display. The only slightly unnerving issue here is that the tabs aren’t antialiased during the animation and for a slight moment or two after it stops, then suddenly the edges no longer have jaggies. It’s a disconcerting subtle thing I can’t stop seeing every time I change tabs in the new mobile safari.
If the signal dots are my least favorite part of iOS, then the changes made in mobile safari and the addition of control center are my favorite.
Benchmarks
Apple usually makes improvements to its JavaScript engine (Nitro) whenever it can, and the iOS 7 mobile safari release is no exception. There’s a 15 percent difference in sunspider and browsermark, and a larger one closer to 50 percent in kraken and google octane, webxprt sees a 30 percent jump. This is comparing two iPhone 5 models running iOS 6.1.4 and the iOS 7.0 GM. HTML5 score increases as well with the addition of a few new features, and WebKit moves from 536.26 to 537.51.1.
| iOS 6.1.4 | iOS 7 GM | |
| Sunspider 1.0 (ms) | 836.6 | 721.1 |
| Browsermark 2.0 (score) | 2587 | 2998 |
| Kraken 1.1 (ms) | 20388.0 | 14050.6 |
| Google Octane (score) | 1706 | 2856 |
| WebXprt (score) | 176 | 231 |
| HTML5test.com (score) | 386+9 | 399+9 |
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Guspaz - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Agreed. Some of the animations are fine, others are way too slow. It generally needs tweaking.You can get away with some animation, because there's a certain human reaction time involved, but you've got to fit your animations inside of that time, so that you're not delaying the human. iOS7 fails in that regard in a bunch of places, but it's not hard to fix. I bet iOS 7.1 will make a bunch of tweaks in that regard.
mchart - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Still no live tiles or gadgets to feed you information.So you still need to go into an app for everything. Photo gallery, running tasks, flashlight, weather, alarm, reminders/calendar, shortcuts like shazam, navigate home, quick dials, and so on...
And the multitasking hasn't improved at all. They could at least do what Blackberry did and copy WebOS' card-style tasks interface...
This is the same damn OS all over again with a new font. It's getting ridiculous. No wonder their stock got downgraded by four agencies. Apple makes this ridiculously awesome hardware running an OS from 2007.
Flashlight, weather, alarm, reminders/calendar and quick dials to missed notifications are available from the notification or quick settings pop up.
Navigate home? That's what the 'Home' button (One of two buttons on the phone) is for.
Running tasks? This is iOS. Needing to see a full blown task manager isn't needed. Suspended/running in the background tasks show up by double clicking the home button though.
Yes, to view photos you must go into the photo app, or access it from the Camera app. I'm not sure how an additional widget would help here. It would still be the same number of clicks/user gestures away.
A lot of your critique makes it appear as though you have limited time with iOS, if any. Most of what you want is already there or irrelevant to how workflow occurs in the GUI.
KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
You were obviously trying to respond to Samus' post, but your response is still mostly correct. Aside from things like giving weather data via the weather icon (it is asinine that Clock is the only "live" icon), Samus' criticisms don't stand. Its a lot of nitpicking over nothing of any importance.jamawass - Friday, September 20, 2013 - link
Regards multitasking can you play streaming audio from Safari and switch to another task without it stopping? Or play a video stream in the background now?Tyler_Durden_83 - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Not a single mention of this kills your credibility: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/66751019/12355...beysl - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Yawn, boring!Android "copies" stuff from iOS, iOS "copies" stuff from Android. And windoes Phone was "flat" before iOS. And Nokia and others had "not so stupid" phones before the iPhone. Old story, noone cares.
I know, Jobs once said good artist copy, great artist steal and later wanted to start a NUCULAR war against Android. Get over it. Good troll anyway.
This is how it works and will work in the future. And the best thing is, that it is good for the consumer!
Tyler_Durden_83 - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Except that Apple cares, and had the guts to sue Samsung for a "rectangular shaped phone with a big glass touch screen in most of the front part" instead of trying to regain the market share that Samsung was gaining by actually releasing better products than the competition.rgmonkey - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Quit trolling. The screenshot you posted is a horrible comparison. It's like comparing a Volkswagen to a Porsche. They both have wheels and a motor. Oh look, they both have headlights and a windshield wiper. Design is subjective. Everything has been done before. It's whoever delivers the best user experience. The consumer wins as they get to select which platform works best for them. If you are going to critique, then don't oversimplify the issue like most so-called news sites. Talk about actual proof points and have a meaningful debate.Tyler_Durden_83 - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Except that comparing two cars and saying that they are similar cause they both have wheels is retarded, as it would be saying that two phones are similar cause they both are rectangularly shaped (something on which Apple based a lawsuit, nevertheless).This is kinda different than saying they both have windshields or a battery: http://cdn.cultofandroid.com/wp-content/uploads/20...
rgmonkey - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Wow. That is your response? So what specifically about this article that bothers you so much?