By Alex Brooks iOS 7 preview (from left to right) iTunes Radio, Multitasking interface, Home screen, Control Centre, Safari Tabs
It’s been the talk of the town for some months now. With the departure of Scott Forstall last year the rumours pointed towards a major new direction for iOS—led by none other than industrial design God and revered designer of the Jobs era, Jony Ive. The rumours weren’t specific, but they were eyebrow raising. They pointed towards a whole new interface, a “flat” skeuomorphic free interface but the question on everybody’s mind, “How far would Apple go?”

So Flat
Today we have our answer and it’s somewhat shocking. iOS 7 presents a major departure from any version of iOS that has come before it. So much that I suspect for the average consumer that will run this update in September, they will be shocked and confused. But Apple had little choice, as outlined by myself and Gruber, times have changed since 2007 when the original iPhone took the very same stage that iOS 7 did today. Apple had been pushed into a corner by ever innovating Windows Phone and Android, by company’s that care less than Apple does about the effect on the end user and therefore is often more willing to push the boundary. Today Apple pushed hard; some may argue, too far.
iOS 7 preview (from left to right) Lock Screen, Home Screen, Control Centre | Image courtesy of Apple
The new interface is packed full of clean fonts, colourful icons and gesture ripe interfaces. The motives are simple when compared to the scene in 2007. Higher resolution and more vibrant displays can cater to more colours and thinner, sharper fonts. Typography can be used to complement interfaces like never before. In 2013 we’re used to touch interfaces, we’re used to gestures and we’ve departed from buttons, clickable areas and boundaries of interfaces. iOS 7 packs in endlessly scrolling interfaces, UI elements that fade away upon interacting with the content and buttons that float in a translucent area above the content. It’s all so 2013.
Features Too
Thankfully iOS 7 is more than just an overhaul of the UI, Apple also took some time out of today’s two hour keynote to show off a mere ten headline features of the new OS. Some of them are eye catching such as the long overdue Control Centre that slides up from the bottom of the display. Packed into this confusing interface is all the access an iPhone user would want, from quick access to WiFi, Do Not Disturb, all the way to a quick access flash light (Sorry flashlight apps).
There’s not much innovative about Control Centre though, it’s been a no brainer since iOS 3. Notification Centre has taken a more iterative route, accessible from the Lock Screen it’s now easy to see a lot of Notifications at once. Also just a swipe way from Notification Centre is the new Today feature showing a run down of the day ahead including the weather, traffic and meetings. Is that enough to compete with Google Now?
On the other end of the scale, there are some innovations. Apple continues to dismiss the idea of NFC and has brought AirDrop from OS X onto iOS, allowing easy sharing of files with people around you. In fact going around the room tapping phones was actively encouraged as being silly, AirDrop is the future of iOS file sharing.
Apple has also been listening to those law enforcement agencies and has strengthened Find my iPhone with Activation Lock. This feature prevents Find my iPhone being turned off without entering the Apple ID and can even prevent erasing of data or reactivation of the device.
There’s also some nice improvements in iOS 7, including an update to Siri giving it far more power (“Turn on Bluetooth”) and a new voice, Notification sync will clear notifications across iOS and OS X devices, and FaceTime audio is a fancy way of saying Voice over IP calling (sorry carriers).
My favourite new feature is the redesigned Photos app which should make that Camera Roll a bit easier to navigate. iOS 7 will group photos into Moments, so by place and time, making navigation far simpler. And let’s face it the iPhone now packs over five years of photos and it’s only growing quicker and quicker.
The Not So Good
It’s clear that Apple has had its work cut out. Redesigning an entire OS from the ground up is no easy task and it’s going to be a painful transition for hundreds of thousands of apps. Clearly it was too much work for Apple too, you’ll note that during the whole 40 minute demo of iOS 7 that not a single iPad was seen—good luck finding one of the Apple website too.
Then there’s the really not so good. I had a niggling feeling it would happen but this grand overhaul of the interface has distracted from the real meat of the matter. iOS is beginning to drag and it clearly comes down to the Jobs-era philosophy that Apple designs the look and feel of the device, not the consumer. On one hand it means that I can’t integrate Fantastical as well as the built-in Calendar, it’s icon will be unable to show the current date for example. But even worse it appears that even Apple’s own apps are still stubborn, static icons.
iOS Today view in Notification Center and Missed View | Image courtesy of Apple
Putting access to Today and Notification Centre in the Lock Screen is not how I want to see what’s going on in my social sphere, or how I want to quickly catchup up on news without having to unlock and open an app. It’s a different world out there on Android and Windows Phone, I’m not saying it’s better but it sure looks brighter.
iOS 7 will grow on all of us over the coming months. I will offer a more in depth look as and when I’ve played with it but on the surface iOS 7 is a beautiful renovation of the oldest mobile OS on the market. But I remain unconvinced that Apple has packed enough into this update for some to stick around.
iOS 7
As is the norm, iOS 7 is available now for developers to begin prepping their apps and for Apple to continue testing and refining. Apple says iOS 7 will be available in the fall for consumers, that historically means late September, accompanied by new iPhones and iPads.
Refreshingly iOS 7 is slated as working with the iPhone 4 and up, iPad 2 and up and iPod touch 5th generation and up but there was no mention of how severely some features would be scaled back for those lower end devices.

Source: World of Apple