Hands On: Apple iOS 7 For A Day

As everyone knows, Apple released iOS 7 to developers after the WWDC keynote. As an Apple purist, I was certainly excited about the prospect of what I considered a great restart to the phone OS that started it all.

A few stats: I installed iOS 7 on my AT&T iPhone 4S as a “new phone,” making a clean sweep. All my friends using iOS 7 are using it on iPhone 5, so I was interested to see how it would work on the slightly older model. I consider myself a power user of iPhone, on it constantly for work and personal use, accessing the spectrum of social apps, photography apps, Safari, and messaging.

From the announcement, I’ll admit that most of the features are sort of “duh” moments: things that should have already existed from what is considered the leader in user interface. That aside, let me say it: iOS 7 doesn’t let you down.

User Interface

Smooth. That’s the best way I can put it. Everything is where I’d put it. Some people have issue with the font choice (Helvetica Neue Ultra Light), but I personally enjoy it. The buttons make sense, the new swipe motions are intuitive, and the phone seems to be doing some of the work for me instead of older iOS versions where I had to think about what to tap to make it work.

This isn’t a reskin of iOS. It’s rethought, reworked, and reimagined from the ground up. The openness and clarity of the UI speaks volumes to Jony Ive’s hand in the process.

User Experience

The experience is everything Apple has suggested. Possibly more. Finding the new little gems has been fun. This is an excitement level akin to that of Mac OS 9 transitioning to Mac OS X— a new way of thinking and approaching. There are more gesture controls and less “tap here” buttons. More focus on words and tighter icons than bulky buttons. As per usual for Apple of the past decade-plus, the focus is on not having to think about what to do and giving you the ability to do things quickly and intuitively.

Photos

This app is excellent, and rather smart. Using the EXIF data and location, it knew where my photos were taken down to the venue and not just the city. So, the photos I have from the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta are automatically collected into a Moment called “Georgia Aquarium” and my trip to the beach labeled as “Murrells Inlet.” It even labeled some Moments as Home. This change to the app is great, making the interface much more user friendly.

Apps

All apps I use work as normal. Some have a little hangup, but I contribute that mostly to them not being optimized for iOS 7. I expect that by the time the OS hits the shelves (so to speak), apps like Facebook and Instagram will be updated to match. However, every app I use has run smoothly and correctly.

Parallax

I love this. It’s an awesome feature that was again a sort of duh moment, but I’m glad it’s there. And I can’t tell you how pretty using a panoramic photo is — extreme parallax! Small animations like this in iOS 7 are welcome additions that make the OS experience even more enjoyable, and like Apple said, create a stronger context for use.

Battery Life

I didn’t notice much of a battery difference. It could be the battery drained a little more than usual, but I was also playing with the phone a lot more. I’d estimate about the same battery use overall.

The Bad

The beta version of this software is a bit glitchy, but not by much. Surprisingly little (a few soft crashes and some slight hangups). When the full version hits, I’m certain it will be extremely stable.

The Point?

All in all, Apple’s iOS 7 is everything Tim Cook and Jony Ive promised it will be. I suspect come this fall when it’s released to the public, it will be even more.