The iOS 7 Review
by Brian Klug & Saumitra Bhagwat on September 19, 2013 1:25 AM ESTLike any major design change, iOS 7 definitely takes getting used to. My initial reaction to a lot of iOS 7 was honestly more surprise and aversion than I thought it would be, but over time the changes have grown on me. I like to think that we're pretty open to change, especially as enthusiasts, but it's a natural human response to want things to be familiar and closer to what came before. Considerable time spent running the beta and watching parts of the platform change over time in response to feedback from developers and other third parties makes me optimistic that the new iOS 7 UI will continue to change and evolve the same way previous versions did.
The flip side is that I can't shake the feeling that some of the iOS 7 design is reactionary. Pundits lambasted Apple with iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 release for being pretty much the same OS with minor tweaks and very few stylistic changes. Those vocal members wanted dramatic change in visual appearance just for the sake of having it, and like the idiom goes, be careful what you wish for because sometimes it actually does come true. No matter how you sugar coat it, iOS 7 is a dramatic departure from the visual style that came before.
I like the use of translucency and transparency, and the new eye candy and visual effects in iOS 7 did initially solicit a bit of the same "wow" reaction that I had the first time looking at iOS on the original iPhone. The use of parallax and the translucency really does convey a sense of depth and order without being as garish as drop shadows or the shiny faux-3d buttons of yesterday's iOS.
The downside is that after a few weeks of it, some animations are really just a lot more gratuitous than they need to be – after the thousandth time watching the tiles fly in or application zoom out into the multitasking interface you want it to just happen instantly. I have no doubt that iOS will go the route of OS X and Windows Phone and gradually increase the speed of these animations to make the platform feel faster. They're also bound to have a power penalty at some point.
I guess that's the ironic part – the flagship devices don't drop frames during the transitions, they just feel long. I can speak to iOS 7 performance which is good on the iPhone 4S and above and newest generation of iPads, performance however on the iPhone 4 and iPad 3 leaves a lot to be desired. The iPhone 4 stutters through all of its animations, has sparse use of transparency, and generally feels like it's on its last legs. The iPad 3 unfortunately is much of the same – sparse transparency, occasional stuttery parts throughout, although a lot more usable than the iPhone 4. I guess I'm just surprised to see the iPad 3 get to that point of feeling slow so fast.
Although a lot of iOS 7 is visual, the functional changes and new features that are standouts really do make a difference. Control center is a long overdue functional improvement that makes controlling a subset of commonly used settings very fast. There's still more Apple could do here to smooth over a few more friction points, but it's a welcome addition. Notification center also feels a lot more well thought out, with logical separation of information that's useful and notifications themselves, even if there's still no "clear all" button.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
144 Comments
View All Comments
kwrzesien - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
I still don't see a way to trigger the passcode lock, am I missing some special key combination?Let's say I have a (secure) passcode set, but leave the timeout window at one or two hours. Once I'm unlocked but I know I am going to put it down / leave it in a locker / leave it on my charger at home where my kids will try to swipe it - how do I trigger the passcode lock without going through a power down cycle?
solipsism - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
I guess it would be nice to set it immediately without having to drill into Settings to do it but in lieu of that you should set the Passcode lock to something less than the 1 or 4 hours options.Impulses - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
They should implement other conditions than a simple timer... i.e. Disable the security lock or set it on a longer timer when connected to home Wifi or car Bluetooth (or any BT really since it means it's near other devices you own and are presently using) etc.; user configurable of course. Been doing that on Android thru third party apps, which they had it natively too.solipsism - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
I'd like to see that but I wonder if Touch ID will negate most of that sense you will be able to blindly handle the device to unlock it almost instantly.Bakes - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
You can set the auto-lock and passcode lock delays separately. If you set the passcode lock to immediately you can just push the physical lock/power button and the passcode will need to be entered to access the phone again. You could still leave the auto-lock delay long to keep the phone from locking itself too soon. Does this help or have I missed you point?kwrzesien - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Well that is a different way of approaching it, but I'm not sure it makes it better. I tap the power button a lot to immediately turn the screen off and now I would have to rely on auto-lock for that which is 1-5 minutes.For a while I had auto-lock off and passcode at 4 hours. I want it to stay on unless I trigger it to turn off - am I a micro-managing control freak? (maybe, I enjoy Diablo and SC2 so that may explain something. btw how great would a Diablo port be to iOS!!!)
I'm just bummed that with all this new power in the control center that there isn't a "lock now" button.
uhuznaa - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
The longest timeout you can set for the passcode becoming active after pressing the sleep button is five minutes.LCurtisB - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
Actually, there are a few changes to the weather app - you can scroll left/right on the hourly forecast (and it adds things like the sunset time), and if you tap the large temperature on the top, it switches to show you Humidity, Wind, Chance o precipitation, and "feels like temperature" (for windchill/humidex).Impulses - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
" I feel like the old Apple would've waited until the design was perfect before letting it out, while the new Apple is acutely aware of the competition that exists and is fine shipping and updating along the way. "The old Apple also shipped a smartphone that while revolutionary it also lacked a lot of basic things that even dumb phones had at the time (copy/paste, MMS...), so let's not romanticize it. Jobs was always an advocate of doing things in a way he considered correct or not at all tho... If anything I think the unnecessarily long animations are closer to being something the old Apple might've gotten right. This thing screams performance, why bother with all that jazz...
Impulses - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - link
And by this thing I meant the 5s obviously, but it's not like the animations are helping mask anything on older devices... Just seems ill conceived.