Apple unveils flatter, cleaner iOS 7
By Erick Mack
iTunes Radio is more or less a Pandora clone
The world of Apple's iOS 7 is flat. The maker of the iPhone, iPad
and iPod revealed the latest update to its mobile operating system at
its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) today with a raft of new
features and a new, flatter, cleaner look that CEO Tim Cook declared
"the biggest change to iOS 7 since the (launch of) the iPhone."
Apple's vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi,
demonstrated many of the new iOS 7 features on stage before thousands of
developers and press, and highlighted the new style that is noticeably
more black and white and drops the skeumorphic, 3D feel of older
versions of iOS.
Beginning with a new unlock screen, iOS 7 sports a fresher look, and
the device home screen shows off a new "parallax" effect that responds
to how the user moves the phone.
The single most notable feature of iOS 7 is iTunes Radio, which is
essentially a Pandora clone, but comes with the added advantage of
integrating with iTunes and iCloud. The streaming service comes in a
free ad-supported version or without ads for iTunes Match subscribers.
Apple's Eddy Cue demonstrated the new streaming radio service, which
comes with a number of preset stations but also allows for the creation
of new stations in much the same way as similar offerings from Pandora,
Google and Spotify.
Ovum analyst Jan Dawson says iTunes Radio was more about playing catch-up than innovation:
"What would be really disruptive is a service that allowed you to
call up specific songs on demand as you can with Spotify, but that would
likely have disrupted Apple's existing iTunes business, and the music
industry as a whole, too much."
More new features
One novel new addition to iOS in this iteration is the
always-accessible Control Center, which allows for easy access and
control of a number of the device settings and a few other thoughtful
features like a flashlight.
The new control center
Multitasking and sharing throughout iOS also got an upgrade,
particularly in Air Drop, which allows sharing directly, via social
networks and other channels to other Air Drop users connected via WiFi.
"No need to run around the room bumping your phone," joked Federighi
in a clear jab at the near-field communication "bump" sharing feature
used by Samsung and other Android phone makers.
Other updates to Mail, Safari and Photos seem to serve to catch up
with features already popular on Android and other platforms like
swiping away messages, adding notifications to the unlock screen and
removing the previous limit on open browser tabs.
The new Safari on iOS 7 can handle unlimited tabs
Another popular feature receiving a long overdue update is Siri,
which comes with the choice of a male voice in iOS 7 and broader data
banks to provide more and better answers to requests.
iOS 7 on the road
Siri will also be joining iOS 7 behind the wheel next year. Cue
offered a sneak peek at coming deep iOS integration for cars. A number
of major carmakers will begin to roll out models starting in 2014 in
which iOS will be right at home on the screen mounted within the dash,
according to Cue.
In essence the iOS interface migrates to the in-car screen, and can
be controlled via the screen or by using Siri when your eyes need to be
on the road.
The small (but still cool) stuff
Federighi also mentioned a number of minor upgrades that won't turn many heads, but also offer some new key functionality.
Audio only calls via FaceTime on a WiFi connection will become
possible in iOS 7, as will virtual private network access on a per app
basis.
Notifications on one iOS device will sync with other iOS devices to
prevent having to manage the same notices on all your devices, and a new
activation lock provides a new theft deterrent by denying access to
data and control of stolen devices.
"Many of the new features Apple added to iOS 7 are fixes to problems
rather than dramatic or clever new ideas," says Dawson. "Notifications,
Siri, and Multitasking enhancements and the introduction of Control
Center all deal with deficiencies rather than providing surprising new
features no-one would have thought of."
While there was no fantastic "one more thing" at WWDC today, in the
style of Steve Jobs, Tim Cook and the rest of the Apple crew are likely
hoping the completely re-stylized iOS 7 will be enough to satiate the
masses until the introduction of some new mobile Apple hardware later
this year.
