Thursday, 19 September 2013

News: iOS 7

So, iOS 7 has finally come and if you have an iPhone 4 and up, an iPod Touch 5 or an iPad 2 and up (as well as iPad Mini) you can download it. In this blog post I am going to show you some of the new features as well as give a comparison to iOS 6.

iOS 7
The first thing you may realise when you try to download iOS 7 in the first few days after launch, is that it will take a really, really long time. Mine bounced between 1 hour and 20 hours a lot and I had to try again a couple of times, just due to the sheer amount of people trying to download it. But stay with it as it is well worth it in my opinion.

Downloading iOS 7:
  1. Go to Settings - General - Software update. 
  2. If your iDevice is compatible, then it will show up iOS 7 on the screen. 
  3. Select download and agree to the terms and conditions. 
  4. Your download will run in the backround so you can continue to use your phone whilst downloading. 
  5. After it is downloaded a message will pop up saying the update will start in ten seconds or you can click to start it up straight away. It will then install which will make your phone restart a few times and then will turn off. 
  6. Turn on to be greeted with the iOS 7 welcome screen and start setting up the new features.
Or you can download through iTunes (make sure it is up to date). Connect your iDevice up to iTunes on your computer and click on the connected device. Then click check for updates and wait for it to download. Read from instruction 5 onwards.


Start Screen


Hello screen
New Features: from Apple
Here is the complete list of all the new features to grace your new phone.
New design
Redesigned interface updates the entire system and every built-in app
Subtle motion and animation; layers and translucency provide depth
Elegant new colour palette and refined typography 
Updated system sounds and ringtones

Control Centre
Quick access to commonly used controls and apps with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen
Turn on and off Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb; adjust screen brightness; access media controls; turn on AirPlay and AirDrop
Quickly access torch, timer, calculator, camera and music controls

Notification Centre improvements
New Today view gives you an overview of your day, including weather, calendar and stocks 
Notifications dismissed on one device dismiss across all your devices

Multitasking improvements
Preview screens of open apps when you switch between them
Permits any app to keep content up to date in the background

Camera improvements
Swipe through different camera modes — video, still photo, square aspect and panorama
Real-time photo filters with iPhone 4S or later, and iPod touch (5th generation)

Photos improvements
Automatically organises your photos and videos based on time and location into Moments
iCloud Photo Sharing supports multiple contributors and videos, plus a new Activity view
Add photo filter effects
Flickr and Vimeo support
AirDrop
Quickly and easily share content with people nearby
Securely encrypted transfers with no network or setup required
Supported on iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini and iPod touch (5th generation), and requires an iCloud account

Safari improvements
New iPhone tab view that lets you easily switch between open web pages 
Unified smart search field for both search terms and web addresses
Shared Links shows web pages shared by people you follow on Twitter

iTunes Radio
Streaming radio service
Pick from over 250 featured and genre-focused stations
Start your own station from your favourite artist or song

Siri improvements
New, more natural-sounding male and female voices for US English, French and German
Integrated Wikipedia, Twitter search and Bing web search results
Change settings, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and brightness
Supported on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad with Retina display, iPad mini and iPod touch (5th generation)

App Store improvements
See apps relevant to your current location with Popular Near Me
Discover age-appropriate apps in the Kids category
Keep your apps up to date automatically

Find My iPhone Activation Lock
Turning off Find My iPhone, erasing your device, reactivation and signing out of iCloud requires your Apple ID password 
A custom message can be displayed on your device even after a remote erase

iTunes Store improvements
Preview and buy songs you've heard on iTunes Radio while inside the iTunes Store
Add to, and shop from, your iTunes Wish List
Scan code with camera to redeem iTunes Gift Cards

Music improvements
Play music purchases from iCloud 
Rotate your iPhone or iPod touch to browse your music with the Album Wall

Videos improvements
Play film and TV programme purchases from iCloud 
View similar films and TV programmes from Related

Maps improvements
Turn-by-turn walking directions
Automatic night mode 
Bookmarks shared across devices via iCloud

Mail improvements
New Smart Mailboxes, including Unread, Attachments, All Drafts and To or CC
Improved search
View PDF annotations

FaceTime audio calling
Block unwanted Phone, Messages and FaceTime callers
Support for sending long MMS messages
Pull down on any Home screen to reveal Spotlight search
Scan to acquire Passbook passes
New ringtones, alarms, alerts and system sounds
Definitions of a selected word for additional languages: Italian, Korean and Dutch
Inclinometer in the Compass app
Wi-Fi HotSpot 2.0 support
Some devises have a bug that causes all messages unable to be sent

Accessibility features
Individuals with limited physical motor skills can now control their device using Switch Control
Customise closed caption style
Handwriting input support in VoiceOver
Maths input support using Nemeth Braille in VoiceOver
Select from multiple premium voices for speak selection and VoiceOver 
Support for Made for iPhone Hearing Aids and stereo audio for iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation)

Enterprise features
Manage which apps and accounts are used to open documents and attachments
Per-app VPN
App Store licence management
Enterprise single sign-on
Remote configuration of managed apps
Automatic data protection for third-party apps
Exchange Notes syncing
Install custom fonts
New management queries and restrictions

Education features
Mobile device management for Apple TV
Request AirPlay Mirroring from a student device to Apple TV
Pre-configure AirPlay destinations and AirPrint printers
Streamlined MDM enrolment
Ability to restrict changes to accounts
Web content filtering
Authorised apps can initiate single app mode
Configure accessibility settings for single app mode
Features for China
Tencent Weibo integration
Chinese-English bilingual dictionary
Improved handwriting input with improved accuracy, stroke order independence and support for simultaneous multiple character input
Bug fixes
Some features may not be available in all countries or all areas

With over 200 new features (some big and some small) this update has a lot. However, this comes at a price as you have to have 2.9 GB available on your iDevice before the update. Depending on which iDevice you use, this update will take different amounts of storage.

Here are some of the best new features: note- I have an iPhone 4 so won't have Siri etc.
Cleaner Icons

Control Centre
Spotlight Search
Notification Centre
Multitasking
Weather



App Store



Reminders
New folder icon with multiple pages
As you can see there are some massive changes to the interface of the device, with a cleaner feel to it. The new multitasking and notification centre is good to and gives you more customizability. One problem though is that apps not made by Apple feel out of place with the cleaner layout and some applications like GameCentre just don't look right.

Comparison:
Here is a comparison between iOS 7 (iPhone 4) and iOS 6 (iPod Touch 4) with some of the apps and the interface.



iOS 6
iOS 7
iOS 6
iOS 7
iOS 6
iOS 7

iOS 6
iOS 7

iOS 6
iOS 7



iOS 6
iOS 7

iOS 6
iOS 7


As you can see, iOS 7 is a much cleaner interface and while iOS 6 was good in some aspects like multiple wallpapers supplied by Apple, I think iOS 7 is better overall.

Thanks for reading, Satamer.
P.S if you have any queries or disagree with me then contact us through the About Us page or comment.
Update: there is now a small update which fixes some bugs with the lock screen and keyboards among others.

Update: 7.1 contains improvements and bug fixes: from Apple:

CarPlay
iOS experience designed for the car
Simply connect your iPhone to a CarPlay-enabled vehicle
Supports Phone, Music, Maps, Messages and third-party audio apps
Control with Siri and the car's touchscreen, knobs and buttons

Siri
Manually control when Siri listens by holding down the Home button while you speak and releasing it when you're done as an alternative to letting Siri automatically notice when you stop talking
New, more natural-sounding male and female voices for Mandarin Chinese, UK English, Australian English and Japanese

iTunes Radio
Search field above Featured Stations to easily create stations based on your favourite artist or song
Buy albums with the tap of a button from Now Playing
Subscribe to iTunes Match on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to enjoy iTunes Radio ad-free

Calendar
Option to display events in month view
Country-specific holidays automatically added for many countries

Accessibility
Bold font option now includes the keyboard, calculator and many icon glyphs
Reduce Motion option now includes Weather, Messages and multitasking UI animations
New options to display button shapes, darken app colours and reduce white point
New Camera setting to automatically enable HDR for iPhone 5s
iCloud Keychain support in additional countries
FaceTime call notifications are automatically cleared when you answer a call on another device
Fixes a bug that could occasionally cause a Home screen crash
Improves Touch ID fingerprint recognition
Improved performance for iPhone 4
Fixes display of Mail unread badge for numbers greater than 10,000

Continued user interface refinements

You have to have 1.6 GB available on your iDevice before the update. Depending on which iDevice you use, this update will take different amounts of storage.

Update 1.7.1:
More bug fixes and performance improvements. I missed the actual patch notes so if anyone else knows them then please comment.

Update 1.7.2:
Improves iBeacon connectivity and stability
Fixes a bug with data transfer for some 3rd party accessories, including bar code scanners.
Corrects an issue with data protection class of Mail attachments

You have to have 1.0 GB available on your iDevice before the update. Depending on which iDevice you use, this update will take different amounts of storage.


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