No, this isn't true this time. I have been using iOS 7 on iPhone 5 for a day now, and I have mixed feelings. I have always trusted Apple to 'get it right' and be delighted with thought-out details and just no-frills great UX.
I know it's Beta, but it honestly looks and feels like Android with a bit of lag here and there, some stuttering animations, confusing unlock and answer call screens, too thin fonts for my taste, icons and iconography aren't that great either (opinion), completely unnecessary eye-candy with animated parallax background which doesn't even work very well, etc.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that bad, but 'leaps and bounds better', I say no. I'm sure they'll redefine the design for final product though.
I've been playing with iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 for a day now as well.
It's utterly fantastic. What is surprising is how much all the apps have changed - all the functionality was seemingly ripped apart and put back together.
It's definitely rough. This is a beta, not a Google "let's call it beta even though it's actually finished". A real beta. With plenty of bugs; occasional crashes. Lots of graphics glitches esp. when using 3rd party apps. Seems to use tons of battery.
If you don't understand what a beta is, better don't install this. Beta means buggy.
But as far as the UI is concerned, it's fantastic. It's beyond that - it feels as if a great weight has been lifted from iOS and I can feel the blood, sweat, and tears, as well as enthusiasm and sheer euphoria, of the people putting this together in an insane timeframe. 7 months!
Sure there's inconsistencies in the design - those will get fixed over time, probably before the GM; there's so many glitches - I expect some will remain past GM. There's some weirdness that'll only get fixed next year.
But all in all, this is one fantastic update. This is Apple at its best. If you can't see that, I feel sorry for you, but I also feel confident that you will see it in hindsight, next year, when everyone will talk about how Apple re-invented itself yet again with iOS7.
Samsung meanwhile is already hard at work copying all those features, expect them to pop up in Android within the next 6 months. Parallax background will be first.
Samsung meanwhile is already hard at work copying all those features,
expect them to pop up in Android within the next 6 months.
Parallax background will be first.
It is quite ironic you would say that, since parallax backgrounds were available for all Android devices in app form before Apple demoed them.
But the cynic in me will not be surprised to read more stories about how Apple revolutionized and invented multitasking, flat UIs, quick settings and file sharing on mobile.
Apologies for not closely following the thousands of different UX improvements / add-ons / tweaks available for Android. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in Cydia as well.
But that's not the point. The point is Samsung will copy it. Just wait, I am pretty confident here ;) I mean they could just buy that existing app but something tells me that they won't... past behavior and all that...
Frankly I don't think Apple is taking any design clues from anywhere. They don't care what Android is doing - they do their own thing. And with iOS 7, they have revolutionized iOS. That's a fact.
Apologies for not closely following the thousands of different UX improvements / add-ons / tweaks available for Android.
You should apologize, though clearly you're being sarcastic. If you're going to claim that Samsung is copying what Apple has done, you'd better know what Samsung, stock Android, and probably at least a couple other flavors, have already done.
The point is Samsung will copy it.
Copy what, exactly? The look and feel of iOS 7 (at least from a few initial screenshots; I haven't tried it myself yet) looks how Android has looked for over a year and a half now.
Certainly the UX of iOS 7 is (presumably) still distinct from Android, but that doesn't seem to be what you're talking about.
They don't care what Android is doing - they do their own thing.
You clearly -- by your own admission -- aren't qualified to make this statement. Multitasking on iOS is a watered-down, shittier version of multitasking on Android. Notifications on iOS were basically ripped from Android. You may claim that Apple never saw what Android was doing and happened to come up with similar solutions, but that seems a bit naive to me.
And I frankly don't think that Samsung is taking any design clues from anywhere. They don't care what Apple is doing - they do their own thing. And with the next Touchwiz, they will revolutionize Touchwiz UX. That's a fact /s
But seriously, the amount of snark (and hypocrisy imo) in your comment was too much to take.
>>And I frankly don't think that Samsung is taking any design clues from anywhere. They don't care what Apple is doing
Uhh... the whole idea with the present generation of smartphone (software) comes from the iPhone. That (and applying it to create pads people were willing to pay for) was new.
Everyone should be able to agree on that, at least.
> Uhh... the whole idea with the present generation of smartphone (software) comes from the iPhone.
Oh come on. It's an evolution of what was there before; Palm OS was already very clearly moving in that direction. There is very little that is conceptually new in the first iPhone.
The execution was superb, and everyone certainly got shaken awake by the fact that that level of quality was even possible... but the core ideas were already there.
I leave the subject, since I assume you'd argue the same thing about the iPad, even though others had tried to build xPads for many years without anyone wanting the results... :-)
I disagree. This seems to me like something that wouldn't have happened under the supervision of Jobs. I feel like the redesign of their UI hasn't gone far enough, that there attempt to copy other trends is different than what apple has done before.
I believe that with this update, apple has put the final nail in the coffin to remove the stigma of "it's apple, so it's better."
>I feel like the redesign of their UI hasn't gone far enough
In 7 months (after Ive got in charge)? Let's see any team in the world do better in the same time. Not to mention that if they had gone further, people would also complaint ("oh, this is not the iOS we knew and love at all anymore").
People talk about Windows Phone similarities. It took Microsoft 4-5 years AFTER the iPhone was introduced to copy all the basics (that all modern smartphones copied anyway) and get something out there compelling enough to consider buying (and it's not like many people did buy it, anyway).
In contrast, this redesign took Apple only 7-8 months. Along with new features and lots of behaviour changes in the UI.
This is essentially version 1 of the new UI. It will be polished further in iOS 8.
>that there attempt to copy other trends is different than what apple has done before.
Didn't Apple adopt the Delicious Library skeuomorphic real-life look around 6 years back? Including snatching the Delicious Library graphic designer from the company he worked in?
How do we know this is about "copying other trends" instead of what Ive would have liked to do all along, if he was in charge for the UI?
This wasn't supposed to be read as a bash against apple or the iphone, just an observation.
When the original design was done, the world was a very different place where apple was very clearly ahead.
With this UI it seems to me that the differences between ios android and windows phone are pretty minor. I used to tell people that you'd get an easier experience with apple, and a better experience with the right android phone. More recently, I've found myself telling people that it really doesn't matter as they are all awesome phones, but if you could get an iphone at the same price as others, it's probably worth it to you. Now it seems like that last clause isn't true anymore, at least not to me.
>This wasn't supposed to be read as a bash against apple or the iphone, just an observation. When the original design was done, the world was a very different place where apple was very clearly ahead. With this UI it seems to me that the differences between ios android and windows phone are pretty minor.
Well, as Jobs said, the iPhone was ahead of the industry by about 5 years. Those 5 years have passed.
Did anyone think the competitors would never catch up? It's not like Windows for the desktop is like XP anymore. It has also seen much more refinement and maturity, and could be compared far more favourably to OS X.
That said, Apple / iOS retains the benefits of the 5 year head-start: iOS is more coherent and mature, the whole ecosystem is bigger (from apps, to accounts on file, to third party peripherals, etc), etc etc.
Exactly. Also, as they are becoming more similar to Android, it won't take much for users to actually switch to it. I am sure Google is happy to see this development.
I don't think it's Android's busy, ... unique interface that keeps Apple owners from switching. It's the hundreds of dollars in apps they've invested in that won't transfer.
I don't know that that's true, I think it's general consensus that an android phone is not as good as an iPhone. I'd wager that this update removes a lot of that divide and gives people a reason to look at the alternative.
This is just speculation, I haven't run the iOS 7 developer preview yet.
>I know it's Beta, but it honestly looks and feels like Android with a bit of lag here and there.
This sort of lag has been a common artifact throughout the iPhone's history. Crashing apps, lag, and outright unresponsiveness are daily occurrences on my iPhone 5. It's honestly gotten to the point where, if I didn't have an astronomical amount of money tied up in their ecosystem, I'd switch to a Nexus 4 tonight.
Umm it is beta, ios 6 was painful to use until about beta4. Even then the GA release had all that removed.
I'll bet the entire os has debug symbols and other things turned on that never reach production.
That said, the jerky animations are annoying in use. But its mostly spit and polish things nothing overly broken. I did set this up on a 4s with a new install and not restore (i'm not putting a beta on my main phone).
I have one that I would be happy to trade for your iPhone 5. While the nexus is a great device, it has tons of lags, and hangs. Android seems to be an amalgamation of rough edges - and I love google! For goodness sake, to add a telephone number to a contact you need to select 'add field' and then select the field type before you can enter the value. Okay, I'll stop with my rant, but seriously, I would live to trade. The screen and FF of the nexus are perfect IMHO.
At least you are in agreement that all of those devices are buggy! I for some reason just can't stand the rough edges, and am still waiting for a smartphone that I want - and I've been waiting for a long time.
Having said that I do use a Blackberry (but not really out of choice,) and it also drives me nuts!
I'd have thought that the number one priority for most of these UI developers would be to make something that was intuitive and very usable. Getting the phone part of the phone nice would be a good start.
Adding contacts, viewing call logs, checking balance, turning on and off answerphones etc.
Being able to read the display in sunlight. Being able to use it as a clock, and it be readable. Not having the thing beep at 4am to tell you that it's running out of battery etc.
There's loads of directions these UIs could go in. And they could be completely different to one another, but share some underlying principles. Like intuitive computer game interfaces, that you pretty much pick up immediately.
What I have been most impressed with is watching babies/toddlers play with iPhones. Which suggests the interface is pretty good. Though there have been cases of kids racking up huge account costs. But how about an easy way to child lock the damn thing, or make this harder.
And how about a phone that doesn't crack when you drop it. I watched someone destroy his Galaxy S the other morning, and he wasn't that pleased about it.
You clearly have never used a pre-ICS Android device. A "flagship" Motorola Dext/Cliq/Droid felt like a chinese toy phone next to an iPod/iPhone runing iOS 1.
Eh, quite the opposite actually. Even pre-ICS Android made me feel like I could actually do something with the OS. I could completely change the way it looked by simply downloading a new homescreen from the store. iOS feels like being locked in jail, in comparison.
What phone are you using? How much system memory do you have left? There's a lot of reasons for lag beyond just a new OS. Some of those things could be exacerbated by the new OS, but for another datapoint, I'm running an iPhone 5 with 3.1/16GB used and I'm not experiencing any lag. The animations are a delight.
I am, however, not a fan of some of the graphical choices they made. A few subtleties like a thin 1px inset color on the NavBar text would do wonders for UI and contrast - but I'm not hired by them to make those decisions.
Which is funny after seeing Apple bash fragmentation at the WWDC. Apple has their own version of fragmentation, newer OS versions don't work on older devices.
I, and everyone I know has had a flawless upgrade experience. There have been a couple of exceptions -- the iPhone 3G (not 3GS) suffered with some point releases, but it was a horrifically underpowered device anyway.
When we talk about fragmentation (as developers), we mean API/display size fragmentation. My iPhone 4 doesn't have Siri, but developers can safely use iOS 6 APIs, knowing I can upgrade.
THe iPhone 5 and the 4" display was a step backwards in that regards, but still, you can safely target iOS 5+ and reach about 95% of active, current app-buying iOS users, or target iOS 6+ and reach 90%. But you can't do that with Android (yet) - targeting 4.0+ would lose you a lot of sales.
This will be fixed in the Android market in the next couple of years though, but until then, iOS users/developers/lovers can rightfully boast about "less fragmentation".
It's fascinating how completely different people's experiences with the same thing can be.
I've been using it on my phone and I love it. I always had to jailbreak my phone, but I don't feel like I need to with iOS 7. Though I wish they'd add Quick Reply and then I'd be set.
But, so far, for me, it's been very fluid and smooth.
Drains battery like crazy though. I went to bed 100%, woke up at 3% six hours later.
Have you had a chance to beta-test any of the previous iOS releases? It is possible that other iOS releases had lag issues that were fixed before the release to the general public.
No, I haven't tried beta releases before. I'm sure they'll get rid of all minor annoyances such as bit of lag or weird layout reflows. It was reported that they are working on the new design behind schedule, so I think this release was made in a bit of hurry.
Exactly. You should have seen the Leopard nightlies. The top bar translucency was off for a while and it was basically non-functional. The dock would crash regularly, etc.
The lion beta was a nightmare as well. I have never seen an os with that many kernel panics (definitely not custom driver related), lag and just random flakiness. And safari was just in a league of its own - although I do miss the tabs on top.
I have been testing the beta on my iPhone 4S and the animations do indeed seem sluggish compared to iOS 6, but I don't doubt that Apple is aware of this and is working on to restore snappiness in the next few months.
It's beta 1. What do you really expect? The lag is because the code just isn't done, let alone optimized. I'm using it on an iPhone 5, and it doesn't feel like any Android I've ever used, and I was in the Android world from 1.5 on a Sprint HTC Hero through the Nexus 7. This feels like the first seed of every beta - there are problems, and they will be addressed.
I know it's Beta, but it honestly looks and feels like Android with a bit of lag here and there, some stuttering animations, confusing unlock and answer call screens, too thin fonts for my taste, icons and iconography aren't that great either (opinion), completely unnecessary eye-candy with animated parallax background which doesn't even work very well, etc.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that bad, but 'leaps and bounds better', I say no. I'm sure they'll redefine the design for final product though.