iOS 7 Released!

[Eug]

Hmm.. I turned it on and don't see a difference. Still get annoyingly animations and see no change in speed. What is this suppose to do?

It kills the background parallax animation, which is hard to see in the first place sometimes if you're not looking for it.. I betcha a lot of people don't even know it's there.

P.S. The option is not there on our iPhone 4. I guess they turned parallax animation off by default, which is a good thing for the iPhone 4, because it doesn't need the extra CPU/GPU hit. It's an option on my iPad 2, but I've left the Reduce Motion setting off, so that I still get the parallax animation in the background. I kinda like it actually, and it isn't a noticeable hit to performance or battery life.

This does nothing for the more obvious animations like the icons flying in etc.

In addition, on the iPhone 4 the "increase contrast" option is also not available IIRC, as it is also on by default, and cannot be switched off. It changes the iOS 7 translucency and removes the background blurring which has the added effect of making some screens more easily readable IMO. I might use this option on the iPad 2, not to save compute cycles, but to improve readability. However, it's OK with the regular setting so I haven't changed it yet.

Ars did a review on it, here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/new-lease-on-life-or-death-sentence-ios-7-on-the-iphone-4/

iPhone 4S:

iPhone 4:

Notice in the bottom iPhone 4 pic, there is more contrast, and the transparency is a simple transparency with the icons in the background not blurred like they are in the other pic for the 4S.

Note I don't agree with the article's conclusion, which is to say that iOS 7 isn't good on the iPhone 4 compared to iOS 6. One table there is a table of app launch times, and it makes the iPhone 4 seem awful on iOS 7, but that simply isn't the case with most real world usage habits. Those launch times may be accurate for cold boots, but once loaded app switching can be quite fast. It's not as if we launch and kill every app completely after every usage. If you're a light to moderate user, it's fine.

 

[glugglug]

The screenshots up on ars technica had me LMAO. It's like Apple is trying to copy Metro, but make it even worse!

 

[Eug]

I only have had a cursory look at Windows' Metro, but it seems Apple did take some design cues and did create a laundry list of needed feature additions from various OSes (ie. Windows Phone 8 and Android Jelly Bean) for their new iOS 7.

That said, I think Apple's is the best implemented and also the best looking, even though I do think there is still significant room for improvement. Hopefully some of those improvements will happen during the life of iOS 7 as point updates.

 

[lothar]

I wonder if Quebert will change his mind on iOS 7 and upgrade. :whiste:

 

[Crono]

I only have had a cursory look at Windows' Metro, but it seems Apple did take some design cues and did create a laundry list of needed feature additions from various OSes (ie. Windows Phone 8 and Android Jelly Bean) for their new iOS 7.

That said, I think Apple's is the best implemented and also the best looking, even though I do think there is still significant room for improvement. Hopefully some of those improvements will happen during the life of iOS 7 as point updates.

Windows Phone is a lot easier and cleaner to use. You would think Apple would make their text easier to read and with larger icons, considering that their displays are still on the smaller side. WP8's transition animations are far less cumbersome, and the live tiles are more useful than parallax or the other subtle physics effects Apple has chosen for iOS (they do look cool, though).

WP8 might have a colorful interface, but iOS 7 looks like it will hurt my eyes more from strain unless you change a lot of the default settings.

I think they went sort of in the right direction, but overdid the animations and transparencies in addition to the easter egg theme. Luckily at least you can change the wallpaper and make it more readable.

iOS:

WP8:

 

[maevinj]

I think the 4S will probably be my last iPhone for some time. Having seen iOS7, I'm reluctant to move to the 5S now.

I will probably give WP8.1 a try and see what MSFT/Nokia have to offer.

My thoughts exactly. I was hyping myself for a 5s, but after upgrading my 4s I'm kinda meh. Also my 4s seems sluggish on 7. I really wish I could roll back.
I'm hoping the nokia 1520 comes out soon so I can get rid this phone now.

 

[Eug]

Well, I actually really dislike the Windows Phone live tiles. Maybe they'd grow on me if I actually had a Lumia to use for a few months, but on my superficial look they just seemed cluttered to me.

I also really don't like Metro on the desktop.

But, to each his (or her) own.

I'm getting up at 3 am EST to try to order a gold 5S.

 

[PricklyPete]

Updated on my 5 and enjoying it so far. ITunes Radio has replaced Pandora already.

 

[Eug]

In addition, on the iPhone 4 the "increase contrast" option is also not available IIRC, as it is also on by default, and cannot be switched off. It changes the iOS 7 translucency and removes the background blurring which has the added effect of making some screens more easily readable IMO. I might use this option on the iPad 2, not to save compute cycles, but to improve readability. However, it's OK with the regular setting so I haven't changed it yet.

Ars did a review on it, here:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/new-lease-on-life-or-death-sentence-ios-7-on-the-iphone-4/

iPhone 4S:

iPhone 4:

Notice in the bottom iPhone 4 pic, there is more contrast, and the transparency is a simple transparency with the icons in the background not blurred like they are in the other pic for the 4S.

I didn't remember this quite correctly. On the iPhone 4, the option for "increase contrast" is in fact still there in the accessibility settings.

However, the default is to have simple transparency with no blurring. If you turn on "increased contrast", the transparency is completely gone. It's just a regular opaque window, to save CPU/GPU cycles.

I have turned it on, on my wife's iPhone 4 now.

 

[Sid59]

ipad 3 here ... it's very .. colorful

 

[Ns1]

Feels a little sluggish on my 4s. New features are cool though.

 

[Joe1987]

Installed on 5th gen iPod Touch, it's very colorful, but I love the changes, and it's pretty brisk.

I use my iPT at work to stream Pandora (going to be iTunes Radio now) to a BT speaker.

PSA, the Bose Soundlink Mini is flipping awesome, I can't believe the sound from such a tiny speaker. (& I always equated Bose with Monster, but it sounds really good).

 

[Crono]

AnandTech iOS 7 review is up:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7343/the-ios-7-review

They are very positive on it overall.

 

[QueBert]

I wonder if Quebert will change his mind on iOS 7 and upgrade. :whiste:

Looks ugly as hell, I like the new features though, I'll probably upgrade if it gets jail broken and there's a Winterboard theme that makes it look like the original iOS again. But if that doesn't happen, there's not a chance in hell I'll be installing it. I thought Android had an ugly ass UI, but Apple just won the ugly ass internet award.

 

[ViRGE]

Looks ugly as hell, I like the new features though

Agreed. Though there's no real choice on upgrading - you have to upgrade to get security updates - so while I'm dragging my feet for the moment I'll have to do it sooner or later.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

The settings panel is downright fugly

 

[podspi]

Even live wallpapers isn't an Android-first feature, it was introduced (maybe not first, but it was the biggest OS release with it) with DreamScene on Vista.

Slightly OT, but live wallpapers are much older than Vista!

I used to have lots of java apps on my desktop, small games etc.

 

[Crono]

Slightly OT, but live wallpapers are much older than Vista!

I used to have lots of java apps on my desktop, small games etc.

I remember Active Desktop, but that was more web content on your desktop than anything else. DreamScene was purely animated wallpaper, much like the feature on Android and now iOS.

Microsoft introduced it as a feature in Vista Ultimate, but didn't include it on subsequent versions of Windows because of tbe performance hit and possibly other reasons. It realy didn't add much except eyecandy, tbough I think you can still get the effect with other applications today.

 

[PricklyPete]

The look is slowly growing on me. The new features were immediately a hit in my book.

 

[Spoooon]

Feels a little sluggish on my 4s. New features are cool though.

Sluggish on my 4. I told my wife to hold off (who has a 4S) until I could see what other 4S users reported.

Is there any way to disable some stuff to improve performance? Glad it's just my work phone.

 

[Eug]

Sluggish on my 4. I told my wife to hold off (who has a 4S) until I could see what other 4S users reported.

Is there any way to disable some stuff to improve performance? Glad it's just my work phone.

You can go into the Accessibility settings and turn on "Increase Contrast" and what (one thing) that does is turns off transparency.

On a 4S you can also turn on "Reduce Motion" which turns off animated parallax. (It's already turned off on the iPhone 4.)

However, given my results with the 4 and the iPad 2, while I would agree that some may want to consider holding off for the update for the 4 until they've tested it, overall I find it quite reasonable on the 4, and wouldn't worry at all about iOS 7 on the 4S.

BTW, I posted a video I made of iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 in the other thread here.

 

[Spoooon]

You can go into the Accessibility settings and turn on "Increase Contrast" and what (one thing) that does is turns off transparency.

On a 4S you can also turn on "Reduce Motion" which turns off animated parallax. (It's already turned off on the iPhone 4.)

However, given my results with the 4 and the iPad 2, while I would agree that some may want to consider holding off for the update for the 4 until they've tested it, overall I find it quite reasonable on the 4, and wouldn't worry at all about iOS 7 on the 4S.

BTW, I posted a video I made of iOS 7 on the iPhone 4 in the other thread here.

That made a huge difference. Some of the stuff is still slightly sluggish, but not necessarily deal breakers.

My wife is way pickier than me.

 

[hemi79]

Just upgraded to iOS7 on my iPhone 5. I will stop thinking really hard as to why the iPhone 5s has "really" upgraded their chip. iOS7 on my iPhone 5 is slow. I like it, and I won't completely judge it until I have fully tried it. But, I can see this upgrade as the last one for any iphone before the 5s (including the 5c). Their next iOS will make use of the 64bit and the more powerfull A7 for sure. They're probably halfway through the design already. lol! Im stuck with the iPhone 5 for 22 more months. :-/ , but its all good. It a nice phone.

 

[Eug]

Just upgraded to iOS7 on my iPhone 5. I will stop thinking really hard as to why the iPhone 5s has "really" upgraded their chip. iOS7 on my iPhone 5 is slow. I like it, and I won't completely judge it until I have fully tried it. But, I can see this upgrade as the last one for any iphone before the 5s (including the 5c). Their next iOS will make use of the 64bit and the more powerfull A7 for sure. They're probably halfway through the design already. lol! Im stuck with the iPhone 5 for 22 more months. :-/ , but its all good. It a nice phone.

I think iOS 8 could keep the 4S, and will be quite OK on the iPhone 5 and 5C.
The iPhone 4S will definitely be dropped for iOS 9 though.

By iOS 10 though, both the iPhone 5 and 5C will get dropped. I suspect iOS 10 will require 64-bit.

 

[hemi79]

I think iOS 8 could keep the 4S, and will be quite OK on the iPhone 5 and 5C.
The iPhone 4S will definitely be dropped for iOS 9 though.

By iOS 10 though, both the iPhone 5 and 5C will get dropped. I suspect iOS 10 will require 64-bit.

You're probably right and pretty sure you know more about it than me. My only thought would be that if upgrades between now and iOS10 take as long as upgrades between iphone4s to 5s, well then I just think it would be tooo long. For me the sluggishness of iOS 7 on my iphone 5 is just borderline. If I were at the counter choosing and comparing the phones and OS's I don't think I would put in the money for it. I mean this is great cause its Free! lol! Before my iphone5 I was stuck with a droid that had the cancer screen (it was a replacement cause my 4s was crushed) and boy did I suffer. So I'm still getting over the Droid experience. Still I definitely like the new tones that come with iOS7!