After using iOS 7 a few days, here are some likes and dislikes. Nothing too cerebral, just my surface observations:
Likes:
- New “Physics” – bubble animations on the Messages app, zoom on App opens, depth of field and animated pano on lock screens and on background.
- New Utility Panel (drag up from the bottom) – includes buttons for Airplane Mode, Wifi, BlueTooth, Do Not Disturb, and Orientation Lock; Built-in Flashlight (goodbye, app category) App, and buttons for Alarm, Calculator, and Camera. Slick.
- Ability to have App groupings of unlimited size.
- Multitasking screen
Dislikes:
- Alert Panel (Pull down from the top gesture) Redesign. I can’t quite say why it’s not appealing to me. Maybe because I don’t think the descriptors at the top (Today, All, Missed) really describe what you find underneath. I mean, do I really need a separate tab for appointments I missed? Isn’t that what a smart device is supposed to prevent?
- Bugginess of the Beta – Yes, it is developer-only beta code. It crashes a lot at this stage. Biggest dislike.
- Stuff I Used to Know How to Do That I Had to Re-Learn – Spotlight search no longer has its own screen; instead, if you drag down on any Springboard screen (screen with apps), you get a Spotlight Search input. Took me a while to intuit that. Also, running apps are no longer killed by pressing the icon until they wiggle and you “x” them out – you now scroll through the multi-tasker and “flick” them up and off the screen, ala Palm Pre WebOS. Do I dislike these behaviors because they are different, or because I had to relearn them? Dunno. But they’re on my dislike list all the same.
Ambivalent Abouts:
- New icons
- Transparencies
- Flat look
In short, iOS 7 is a work in progress. And works like it. Reserving further judgement until I walk around a bit more with the OS.
