iOS 7

[Bullgrit]

I just watched the iOS 7 video, and it makes me feel like a grumpy old man. The first half of the 7 minute video explains all the aesthetic updates -- all stuff I don't care one little bit about changing. The second half of the video explains how they've updated all the parts of the software that I've intentionally turned off -- I don't want the phone tracking my location, I don't care to share crap with other people, I don't use the cloud.

Now, if there is something broken about the old OS, I want the correction. But I don't care at all about the new, improved prettiness. Heck, the wallpaper/background of my phone is just black -- no picture.

A couple of quotes from the video:
"the most significant changes to the user interface"
"defining an important new direction, and in many ways, a new beginning"

These kinds of quotes always push me back.

The last time I updated my iPhone OS, I was annoyed. My and my wife's phone memories got wiped with the update. We lost contacts, settings, bookmarks, pictures, music, everything. Very, very bad.

A long time back, I upgrade iTunes on my home computer, and the result was a completely different creature. Suddenly I couldn't do some things I liked how they worked. Now it's aggravating to do what I had gotten used to doing easily. Hell, because of the change, I even stopped using iTunes on my computer at all. Easier even to purchase songs through my phone rather than on my computer.

With most every other kind of update in something, you can try it, and if you don't like it you can go back. But not with software. I wish software fixes were offered without having to take the whole upgrade/update.

Bullgrit

 

[Zombie_Babies]

I haven't loaded 7 on my 4s yet and have no intentions of doing so. Works fine as-is. I'm also in the tech field so I do believe I'm an anomaly. Anyhoo, I agree with ya on all counts.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

My girlfriend updated her iPhone's OS. It now does the same stuff my Galaxy 3 does.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm less concerned with the OS than I am with a known bug in the Notes app that has just recently started biting me in the ass: some notes dissapear and show up in a folder on my iMac. No rhyme or reason to it. I haven't lost any data, but it is a PITA.

 

[Deset Gled]

My toddler does not approve of the iOS7 update, so I don't approve of it. I always thought that one of the biggest selling points of iOS was that it was so simple and intuitive even a toddler could use it, so the kid's vote is kind of a big deal.

And, no, I'm not talking about the simple issue of re-finding things or getting used to new graphics. There are some minor but very real changes that make the new OS less user friendly. Here's one great link that details (much better than I could) why the date picker is worse than it used to be: http://blog.ittybittyapps.com/blog/2013/09/20/lifting-the-lid-on-ios-7s-uipicker/ One of my kid's main gripes is in the video player: you used to be able to pull up the chapter selection on the side while the video still played on the main part of the screen. Now, pulling up the chapter selection completely hides the playing video, but doesn't pause it.

Yes, these are very little, niggling things. But this little stuff has always been Apple's strongest selling point; I can customize my Android phone to behave exactly the way I want with some work, but the iPhone is strong right out of the box. I predict that the next iOS update will be cleaning up a lot of these small things.

 

[jonesy]

Yes, these are very little, niggling things.

They may be niggling, but they are not little. Those are the details that make or break a user interface. This one time I was trying to buy a new phone in a store and I ended up getting frustrated over a detail that seemed small, but really wasn't. Every damn phone there had a calendar where you could not tell whether any particular days had notes inside them without going into each day and checking. Argh. Made the entire month-view unusable. And the clerk was trying to convince me that I could just set an alarm for each note automatically. So not helpful with the way I use a calendar.

 

[Morrus]

Meh. I've had it for a while (I'm a developer). It's fine. I find it hard to have an opinion about ios6 vs. ios7. It works just fine; so did ios6. A few extra features which are nice.

The last time I updated my iPhone OS, I was annoyed. My and my wife's phone memories got wiped with the update. We lost contacts, settings, bookmarks, pictures, music, everything. Very, very bad.

Dunno how that happened. Sorry to hear it, but that's not how iOS works - you just restore from iCloud. Even on a brand new phone; sets it up exactly like your old one. Sounds like you were victim to an unfortunate circumstance of some kind.

 

[Janx]

Meh. I've had it for a while (I'm a developer). It's fine. I find it hard to have an opinion about ios6 vs. ios7. It works just fine; so did ios6. A few extra features which are nice.

There's good, there's annoying with iOS7. I have a 5, and I've had iThing since the 3g.

I upgraded the evening it came out (well, it came out in the day, I upgraded after work, it was dark).

The first problem was the new UI was so danged bright, I could barely read it (remember, it was dark in the house). it wasn't just a function of the brightness knob, the UI relies on white background, with thin/light colored text for most everything. This is shocking in a dark room.

next is the lack of UI buttons. It's just text on a white background, which MIGHT do something. There's a reason the button was invented as UI element. It stands out, so I can see it to click on it. trying to turn off my alarm this morning at 6:30 AM in the dark was excitingly difficult (I don't normally get up that early). It was hard to see what to press with sleep blurry eyes. in iOS6, this was clearly a swipey button, which even if I couldn't read, was obvious what to do.

Plus they changed the dang sounds. So now the marimba sound that I'm used to for timers and alarms is something different and quieter. Which made it harder to realize what that strange noise was this morning that was trying to wake me up.

The default background of white for the home screen was so glaring with the bright icons, I had to change my background (which had been standard black for 5 years) from the new White to something grey with holes in it.

I also have to rethink what the icons mean for the main apps, since they all changed. I always struggled to find the Photos icon so I can show people some pics of my dog. Now I have no clue what the heck to click to find them. I realize that it says "Photos" under the icon, but my brain snaps to objects before words, so the words don't come in for a few seconds when I am rushing to find something.

Most of iOS7 was to reskin the appearance to remove the stink of the guy they fired who loved skeuomorphism. While I suspect that guy went overboard on some of that, there were some solid reasons to make certain things look like their real world functional analogue. the basic goal here seems to be to copy Microsoft Windows Mobile for style reference.

Task manager is harder to kill apps. I used to double-click the Home button, then hold my finger on an app until they squiggled, then clicked the X. Kinda lame, but it worked. Now, you're supposed to drag and fling the app. I can't get that to work. So I have a zillions apps running since I upgraded last week, because I can't figure out the new behavior that would probably be easier, if I could do it right.

Now for the good:

They added Call Blocking. Which means the brains in my phone which sees the phone number can hide calls from me, rather than paying AT&T to block numbers for me. This means that I can totally block the collection agencies calling for the guy who had my # over five years ago when I got my 3g, since AT&T won't do anything about it unless I pay them to block their mistake of handing me a hot number that hadn't been out of commission long enough. I was getting calls from the guy's sister the day after i got my phone as if he'd just changed numbers and didn't tell her. 90 day retirement for deactivated numbers my ass.

the up-swipey quick access thing. Now you can take a pic, turn on the flashlight, play some music, turn on the Do Not Disturb in fewer steps. That's actually pretty handy.

the down-swipey Status thing. Now you can see the weather/temperature, day's events. Though I'm also stuck wasting space on the stock market, which I could care less about. Seeing FB status updates or top 5 new email titles would be handier.

The auto-update of apps. I'm always 20 updates behind when I opened my iPhone. So the fact that it just does it is handy. It's not like I was paying attention before to what App update was horribly broken that I should skip. I was going to install them all anyway. So now it deals with that automatically. Nice.


Overall, I like the functionality improvements. I do not like the appearance changes. I am not a fan of the style, and it actually causes me problems as I get older and can't read skinny text on white background on a small screen.

If you have a 5 or newer device (basically anything in the current gen before the 5s came out), I'd upgrade. You might as well get used to the new OS and your current hardware can handle it. If you are on old gear (iPad 2, 4s, etc) then stay away, there's nothing to gain but pain.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'm in no rush to update. Everyone I've talked to thus far who has has regretted it. My iPhone does what I need it to;p call-block is about the only feature that seems worthwhile, and it's not like that's something I need to do regularly.

Heck, I only updated to iOS 6 because some of the apps updated to a point that they were non-functional on iOS 5. iOS 6 got me nothing of value ...

 

[Morrus]

Heck, I only updated to iOS 6 because some of the apps updated to a point that they were non-functional on iOS 5.

That'll happen again in a month or so.