iOS 7
I should just tell you that after seeing a
video of the new iOS 7, the audience at the Keynote gave a standing ovation.
That should be enough information. However, I feel obliged to share with you
all the exciting new things about the mobile device operating system, a system
I will add that has been completely redesigned.
This new design is really quite
spectacular, and I can’t help be realize the similarities between it and our
new design – the transparent layer over a blurred background, the ultra-thin
type, bright colors, etc. They were going for simplicity; we were going for
beauty. The background now moves along with the phone, separate from whatever
you are viewing on the forefront. The animations are very engaging – for
instance when the hail or lightening is bouncing off the screen. There isn’t
even a bar for the slide to unlock. It’s just… the words. It all starts with
the new Control Center. This lets you control the weather you’re viewing, your
music, AirPlay, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Do Not Disturb, etc. There’s even a
flashlight function for when you’re stumbling around with your phone in the
middle of the night. Similar to the prior multitasking view, it’s available
with a swipe up. Multitasking has changed as well. It now performs the updates
on apps before you launch by learning at what times you usually launch your
favorites. And it will try to do it at a time when it won’t drain your battery.
Instead of seeing the icons in the multitasking view, you can now see a preview
of those apps as well.
This
lets you control the weather you’re viewing, your music, AirPlay, Bluetooth,
Wi-Fi, Do Not Disturb, etc
The Notification Center has also received
improvements. It now features a Today view that will let you know everything
you need to know about the current day, including traffic and weather. Like the
Phone app, it will let you see All and Missed for any alerts that haven’t been
taken care of in the last twenty-four hours.
The camera app now includes a “square”
format, along with still, video, and panorama, supposedly for those Instagram
shots. There are now filters included with the app – again similar to
Instagram. In your Photo app, they are now organized by Collections, Moments, and
Years with Smart Groupings. All the pictures from one trip will be in a
Collection, but each of the places you visit on the trip will be Moments
included in that Collection.
And now for the moment that made everyone
giggle. We can now AirDrop… everything. We’re no longer confined to just
AirPlay. Everything can be AirDropped to a friend with an iPhone sitting near
you. This can be photos, videos, even contacts. This can be done via Wi-Fi or
Bluetooth. They mentioned at the end of explaining all this that there’s no
need to do anything silly like bumping phones. Gee, I can’t imagine what they
are referring to!
In the updated Safari app, everything is
“smart” to allow you more content when you want it. You won’t see the search
field until you scroll up to see it. And to go back and forth through pages you
can simply swipe instead of clicking arrows. The tabs don’t look like what we
think of as tabs anymore. They now look like newspapers sitting in a rack.
Siri is being revised. She has a new voice,
and can even be a he if you prefer. It’s been redesigned so that it will fade
into whatever you are viewing at the time you decide you need a question
answered. Questions are answered faster and with more sources, including Bing,
Wikipedia, and Twitter. It will also handle additional tasks, like returning
phone calls and playing voicemail.
iTunes Radio
This is what we have all been referring to
as iRadio. We just assumed it would be named similarly to iTunes. iTunes Radio
is the one all now innovation that Apple announced this week. iTunes Radio is
much like Pandora. It streams radio stations and personalizes the music
selections via your taste. You let it know which songs you like while it
streams a station for you, and it begins to cater all the music to your taste.
Along with being able to tell it to play more songs like the currant track or
never again play the song, you can also control the balance between playing
well-known hits and discovering new songs. Siri can help you identify songs,
and she takes requests too!
iTunes
Radio is the one all now innovation that Apple announced this week
A great added bonus is that if you already
subscribe to iTunes Match, you’ll get iTunes Radio ad-free. That’s a nice
surprise to those of us who are already doing out the yearly fee for iTunes
Match. And of course, this will be in iCloud, so you’ll get your history and
stations you set up on all of your devices.
The only bad part to all this innovation is
that none of it is ready right now. We have to wait until fall for most of it.
I would rather have it without glitches and perfect just the way they conceived
it, so it’s okay, but it doesn’t make it any easier to wait. We’ll have to wait
until then to find out if they really will make us feel delight, surprise,
love, and connection.
A
great added bonus is that if you already subscribe to iTunes Match, you’ll get
iTunes Radio ad-free. That’s a nice surprise to those of us who are already
doing out the yearly fee for iTunes Match
We’ll all be waiting, and while we do, the
rumors are going to keep up for the devices. We didn’t hear anything about new
iPhones, cheap or otherwise, or iPads, and there wasn’t an iWatch mentioned at
all. Assumable they are coming out in the fall with the release of iOS 7. When
we hear anything we’ll be sure to let all readers know. And stay tuned in the
coming weeks to find out more details about the Macs and software detailed
today or read more about them at apple.com.
