Well, It Was Time For Skeuomorphism To Die
September 19, 2013 9:51 AM Subscribe

What should you know about the newly released iOS 7: How to find Spotlight search (aka swipe right to search), a few tricks you should know, 12 new and hidden settings, a ridiculously thorough review, an exhaustive list of the new features and reasons why should and shouldn't update right now.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (233 comments total) 55 users marked this as a favorite

HOT TIP: If you have an iPhone 4, I would suggest against upgrading. I did and everything is slower just above the threshold of perception to be annoying.
posted by griphus at 9:57 AM on September 19, 2013 [15 favorites]

New lease on life or death sentence? iOS 7 on the iPhone 4
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:57 AM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

El Reg has a nice little 3-page walkthrough that I found useful. Upgrading tonight when I'm on WiFi.
posted by sidereal at 9:57 AM on September 19, 2013

A bit sluggish on the iPad 2, but pretty snappy on the 4s. The new Control Center (swipe up from the bottom of the screen) is a lot more functional than what was there before. Great idea to use the flash as a flashlight. It's definitely growing on me.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:58 AM on September 19, 2013

Some of the icons now look rather one dimensional and cartoonish. But I look forward to the multitasking. I understand there's less need to shut off apps now to save battery life, which is good because the old way to shut off apps was easier. I hate the pass code. Microsoft is making the same mistake for Windows 8. Went into Settings and I have now obliterated the pass codes. Another pain is this Face Time app that they have automatically installed on the first page, bumping an icon into a new empty page. A.) I'm never going to use it and just like Newstand, I can't eliminate it. B.) reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore.
posted by Ber at 10:01 AM on September 19, 2013

If you want to clean up, you can move Newsstand to a folder, which I don't think was doable before.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:03 AM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]

Great idea to use the flash as a flashlight.

It shocks me that it took this long for this concept to get baked into a major mobile OS. Apps that do the same thing are common as dirt in the various markets, one gets bundled with most manufacturers' customized Android versions and the functionality is part and parcel of every homebrewed Android distro I've installed. The big players move slowly.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:03 AM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

Thanks for the iPhone 4 warning. I was in no rush to upgrade anyway, but it's good to know that this release doesn't just look cloying, but will run like treacle on my barely three year old phone.

Less candy colouring, less pointless swooping, more neat stuff, please. Dudes, I turned off Aero in Windows 7 for a reason, you know.

(iOS 8 will, of course, get all sniffy about swooping animations. SO tired.)
posted by maudlin at 10:04 AM on September 19, 2013

I've been using iOS 7 on my phone for a while now, and it's great.

On the iPad, well...
posted by entropicamericana at 10:04 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm updating right now. I was going to hold off and wait for other people to run into bugs, but then it hit me that my elderly iPhone-crazy in-laws are inevitably going to update theirs any day now and there's no way I'll be able to handle the family tech support calls if I haven't had the experience.

Siiiiiigh.
posted by COBRA! at 10:04 AM on September 19, 2013

B.) reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore.

WHAAAAAAT
posted by sidereal at 10:05 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

HOT TIP: If you have an iPhone 4, I would suggest against upgrading.

Also, prepare to factory-restore the thing at least twice, if my experience is any indication.

Ten. Fucking. Hours. From "Okay, I guess I'll get the new OS" to "Oh, good, I can make a phone call again."
posted by Etrigan at 10:06 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Holding back on upgrading till I've an idea how well it works on the 4S, but having played with it on 5 it's pretty great - tidier, more modern, some obvious missing features added. It all feels like solid physical responses, like the first iPhone, so with losing the Skeumorphics they've lost nothing.

I complain about Apple and Apple-love from time to time, but I genuinely think they've got an excellent OS here. Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade and finally deal with podcasts being moved out of iTunes...
posted by Artw at 10:06 AM on September 19, 2013

All the palpable transitions (from off to on, zooming in to an app, zooming out of an app, etc) are pretty cool...

The first time you seem them.
posted by 2bucksplus at 10:06 AM on September 19, 2013 [8 favorites]

B.) reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore.

What the tapdancing fuckittty fuck? REALLY?
posted by maudlin at 10:06 AM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

I was going to hold off and wait for other people to run into bugs...

I gave it literally twelve hours. Knowing the Apple community, if there was somethinghideously broken with the OS, it would've definitely popped up in that time.

Ten. Fucking. Hours. From "Okay, I guess I'll get the new OS" to "Oh, good, I can make a phone call again."

Yeah, I did the update overnight and I think it took from 11 PM to about 5 AM for no reason I can explain.

Also the iPhone 4 sluggishness is not, like, MY PHONE BROKE levels of bad. Unfortunately, there's no fucking way to downgrade (yet, and when their will be it will probably require jailbreaking) so it's a gamble.
posted by griphus at 10:08 AM on September 19, 2013

Also, prepare to factory-restore the thing at least twice, if my experience is any indication.

Ten. Fucking. Hours. From "Okay, I guess I'll get the new OS" to "Oh, good, I can make a phone call again."

It took me about 45 minutes to download and install yesterday on a 4s. Needs 3.1 gigs of free space to install though.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:09 AM on September 19, 2013

Looks like I'm going to have to upgrade and finally deal with podcasts being moved out of iTunes...

If you listen to a lot of podcasts, spring for Downcast. It's probably the app I have been most happy with for the longest length of time.
posted by griphus at 10:09 AM on September 19, 2013 [13 favorites]

Also the iPhone 4 sluggishness is not, like, MY PHONE BROKE levels of bad.

Your blood values of Concerta may vary.
posted by maudlin at 10:09 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

griphus: "HOT TIP: If you have an iPhone 4, I would suggest against upgrading. I did and everything is slower just above the threshold of perception to be annoying."

It's actually sort of glorious that my device -- a 4th gen iPod Touch -- is going to be frozen on 6.x. Never again will I have to bite my nails through OS upgrades; never again will I have to agree to let iTunes update itself.

On the other hand, it means I'm forever stuck with the current version of Safari, which is just-barely-functional enough to make it worth using over much easier to use alternatives that for the last year or so seem to have grown so large they don't fit in the minimal iPod memory any more and crash to the desktop every fifteen minutes.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 10:11 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

B.) reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore.

Done. But when I sync with iTunes, will it still put all the Apps I just removed from the phone back on it?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:13 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

If you listen to a lot of podcasts, spring for Downcast.

I've tried to use the Podcasts app three times since upgrading last night and twice it's totally locked up. If nothing else, Downcast is worth it as a backup option. It doesn't feel too slow on my non-S iPhone 4, but I wish I'd held off like I did with the last two major upgrades. Just not in love with the look or the changes. It's not deadly and I'll get over it (plus the changes to the lock screen are nice), but the problem with a complete and total UI overhaul is everything but the native apps now look very strange. And I assume half of the non-native apps will post an update to provide an iOS 7 icon without considering the people who can't upgrade so their icons will look ugly on the old versions in the future.
posted by yerfatma at 10:14 AM on September 19, 2013

Another pain is this Face Time app that they have automatically installed on the first page

Doesn't everyone have an "Apple Crud" folder they drag that stuff into to be forgotten forever?
posted by yerfatma at 10:15 AM on September 19, 2013 [22 favorites]

And I assume half of the non-native apps will post an update to provide an iOS 7 icon without considering the people who can't upgrade so their icons will look ugly on the old versions in the future.

Actually, there's something about the concept of a terribly mis-matchy iPhone that delights me. It might go very well with my little Mongoose Frankenbike (front and rear V brakes different colours, two different styles of grip shifters.)
posted by maudlin at 10:17 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

From the "exhaustive list" link in the FPP:

"Can close multiple apps simultaneously by swiping with multiple fingers."

UPDATE IS NOW TOTALLY WORTH IT

(Ok maybe hyperbole but damn that is a Necessary Feature.)
posted by griphus at 10:18 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Doesn't everyone have an "Apple Crud" folder they drag that stuff into to be forgotten forever

Yes, and I named mine with a a clever portmanteau of "Apple" and "Crap" that no one has ever thought of before!

It's actually sort of glorious that my device -- a 4th gen iPod Touch -- is going to be frozen on 6.x.

My iPad 1 is stuck on iOS 5.x, forever I suppose, what do I win?
posted by sidereal at 10:19 AM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

I upgraded my 4s and I'm so annoyed by all the unrestrained and unoutlined white space it took a full night of sleep before I was able to acknowledge the niftier features.

Not a fan of the white space and candy coating look, basically. Looks like they fed a bunch of Ikea-raised kindergarteners some aquavit and told them to knock themselves out.
posted by angeline at 10:22 AM on September 19, 2013 [15 favorites]

If you listen to a lot of podcasts, spring for Downcast. It's probably the app I have been most happy with for the longest length of time.

Downcast was a popular recommendation in an AskMe, and I was a little doubtful, but I love it so much. It's light years better than having your podcasts in iTunes or in the default app.
posted by gladly at 10:23 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm a big fan of how it looks on the iPhone 5. Except for man Siri. Do not want. Siri still can't understand a word I say, anyway.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:24 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Don't have an iDevice but we just got the annual company email of "please don't download the new iOS on corporate WIFI or IT will come and stomp on your phone".
posted by octothorpe at 10:26 AM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

It should also be noted that anyone with a jailbroken iSomething (or waiting around for a jb for 6.1.3 or 6.1.4) should probably hold off for a bit.
posted by NolanRyanHatesMatches at 10:26 AM on September 19, 2013

Yesterday I both updated my work iPhone 4S to iOS 7 and traded in my personal iPhone 4 for a Galaxy S4, which I promptly rooted and flashed with Clockwork Recovery and CyanogenMod.

The iPhone 4 would have been intolerably slow with iOS 7, and was getting long in the tooth with iOS 6.1. The 4S is noticeably slower with iOS 7 than with 6.1; too soon to comment on battery life.

The Galaxy S4 running a near-stock image based on Jelly Bean is a dream; with all of the Verizon and Samsung bloatware it would have been impossible to navigate and was about as locked down as iOS.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 10:26 AM on September 19, 2013

I'll go on record as being totally OK with skeumorphism, and that I think it's something that can be done right. Never had any issue with how iOS6 looked. I have my doubts that I'm going to find the appearance of iOS7 either an upgrade or a downgrade on the appearance of iOS6, it'll just be different.
posted by Hoopo at 10:27 AM on September 19, 2013 [10 favorites]

iOS 7 does not like the Grateful Dead.

In the Music app, the "by Artist" view now shows all songs by that artist inline, organized by album. There is, as far as I can tell, no way to view a list that includes only the titles of the albums.

Showing all the songs inline may work fine for a band that only released 3 or 4 or maybe even 10 albums. But it fails utterly when you have 70 concerts (read as "albums") by the same band.
posted by alms at 10:27 AM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]

My students this morning were complaining about how kiddie iOS 7 looks (chat is especially unpopular), by looking at their phone I think it looks okay. It is hideous on an iPad, though. Hopefully an update will fix all the empty space because the functionality is nice. The new camera app is really nice.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 10:27 AM on September 19, 2013

On the other hand, Youth lighting up Twitter, Facebook, Instagram about iOS 7 is amusing.
posted by alms at 10:28 AM on September 19, 2013

Meanwhile, with my tethering still not working in 6.1.3 and no ability to jailbreak at the moment, I am holding out a few more weeks for a way to get pdanet back, because I know it works. If no jailbreak solution arrives to let me use my own hardware, I am getting an Android phone and never buying another Apple product. If it just worked I wouldn't care, but evidently their need to protect carriers from you using them in unauthorized ways means some of us can't even use them in the authorized ones, and nobody seems to care. Because hey, shiny new thing!
posted by Sequence at 10:28 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Inspector.Gadget: "The Galaxy S4 running a near-stock image based on Jelly Bean is a dream; with all of the Verizon and Samsung bloatware it would have been impossible to navigate and was about as locked down as iOS."

I agree that I'm not a fan of the bloatware, but even the unrooted Verizon-infected firmware that ships by default on the phone is fairly "open" compared to iOS. You can do quite a bit without root these days...
posted by schmod at 10:33 AM on September 19, 2013

Looks like battery life is an issue for older phones.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:33 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

If you want to clean up, you can move Newsstand to a folder, which I don't think was doable before.

As an Android user... the idea that THIS is a thing.... mind-blowing.
posted by Cosine at 10:33 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

iOS 7 does not like the Grateful Dead

Hell, I'm still waiting for iTunes to recognize an album called Exile on Main Street and furnish the artwork for it. They're so far behind Windows Media Player on album artwork it's ridiculous.
posted by Ber at 10:34 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore.

Is this an iOS 7 thing? I'm still on iOS 5 (because my 3GS is, like, eighty in phone years by now) and I was just able to do it with the new version of iTunes. Bizarre (but not unexpected, from Apple) that they would remove this feature only for newer phones.
posted by neckro23 at 10:34 AM on September 19, 2013

I'm a big fan of how it looks on the iPhone 5. Except for man Siri. Do not want. Siri still can't understand a word I say, anyway.

Yeah, but you can finally correct the way she pronounces names!
posted by entropicamericana at 10:34 AM on September 19, 2013

iOS 7 does not like the Grateful Dead

That's a feature, not a bug.
posted by entropicamericana at 10:34 AM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

As an Android user... the idea that THIS is a thing.... mind-blowing.

I wish I could be shocked by that (and it is dumb as hell that that was a thing), but compared to, say, HTC locking an entire homescreen for their stupid Facebook feed, it's not that big of a deal. Every company is sure they know what their users want better than the users do.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:37 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just upgraded my 4S yesterday, and my beef may be somewhat rare..
I prefer to have an icon-free home screen, so I moved them to the second and third screens in iOS 6 (and in my Android days). When I try doing that in iOS 7, it just downsizes to two screens total. Gimme back my blank screen! Plus, having this feature would be especially cool now that the lock/home screen images move gyroscopically.
posted by obscurator at 10:37 AM on September 19, 2013

As an Android user... the idea that THIS is a thing.... mind-blowing.

I used to hear about adware/spyware that the carriers and phone makers would install on Android, which people couldn't get rid of. Have the Verizons and Motorolas et al. finally stopped doing this? Honest question, I'm curious.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:38 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

As an Android user... the idea that THIS is a thing.... mind-blowing.

I wish I could be shocked by that (and it is dumb as hell that that was a thing), but compared to, say, HTC locking an entire homescreen for their stupid Facebook feed thing, it's not that big of a deal. Every company is sure they know what their users want better than the users do.

The ease, opportunty and rewards of getting around that on HTC or any other Android Mistake Maker compared to an iPhone and Apple...

Cyanogen FTW!

Seriously, it's MY phone and I will do what I WANT with it.
posted by Cosine at 10:39 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just want to say that I'm generally happy with the upgrade on my 5 but I HATE THE MUSIC PLAYER. I have a lot of music and I play it a lot and for large libraries it just sucks balls. Scrolling through every song in every album is super frustrating, especially when you have like 30 David Bowie albums and finding one takes forever. It's essentially un-useable for large collections.

The control buttons for the player don't work from the lock screen, either. It registers the press graphically but just doesn't forward, reverse, or pause. The headphone control works in the same screen though. Boggling.

I also dislike the general ability to customize. Don't like the thin red text/line Duran Duran album cover look of the player? SOL. Sorry buddy.
posted by jimmythefish at 10:41 AM on September 19, 2013

The old iOS 6 now looks utterly prehistoric now - just ridiculous... I saw that iOS newstand little shelf thing and you think, wtf? Who did that?
posted by colie at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

My mail app now shows 500 and something unread emails and I can't figure out how to clear it. I don't like having those little red numbers!

Neither Gmail nor Exchange on my desktop shows any unread emails.
posted by bondcliff at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2013

So annoyed with iOS 7 right now. There's just a lot of smallish things that feel so off to me.

• Siri's inflections now feel wrong more often than not. She used to sound quote natural.

• the layout of the timer in the clock app is just bad.

• the new control dials (when selecting something from a drop down, say, or selecting time in the click app) make me shudder. They're given perspective with no referrerent.

• the transitions slow me down. I'm especially annoyed with the slow fade upon waking and the icons flying in. Just turn the damn thing on!

• HATE the new calendar app. You used to select a day in month view and it would maintain the view and show a small list of events on that day. Now it slides up a day view and shows you only that week. The previous interface was super useful for scheduling because I could hop around between days throughout the month to find a free afternoon for lunch, say. Now I have to keep switching back to the month view, losing the context each time I select a day. G R A R

• not into white as the background for Photos. Black shows photos off better I think.

• Really not into text buttons. The way long text pushes centered header text over (you can see this in Photos if you have at least 1000 photos). The lack of division between header buttons and content (see Notes app). It puts a higher cognitive load on the user in trying to figure out what's what on the screen.

:(
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

I haven't used iOS in years.

Do you still have to have icons from all installed apps on your home screens? (Or in folders that are on your home screen?)
posted by dobbs at 10:42 AM on September 19, 2013

iOS 7, when Apple finally got tired of Android stealing from it and decided just to steal Android's entire look and feel.
posted by xmutex at 10:43 AM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

My mail app shows 2,921 unread messages and it's always something stupid like that. I only get about 25 a day but I think it's 15 years of them or something. Learn to love the red badges.
posted by colie at 10:43 AM on September 19, 2013

the transitions slow me down.

Oh god yes. But can you turn that off, or make them faster? If you can I can't find it.
posted by jimmythefish at 10:44 AM on September 19, 2013

Learn to love the red badges.

Fuck that. The red badges are like Whack-a-Mole. MUST CLEAR THEM ALL!
posted by bondcliff at 10:44 AM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

As an Android user... the idea that THIS is a thing.... mind-blowing.

Really easy to work around. So it doesn't go in a folder? You can just slide it over to another page if you don't want to see it. My "Newsstand" icon is on it's own on a third swipe away from the main screen.

I'd probably delete it though if I could, I don't need it at all.
posted by Hoopo at 10:44 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

crap. dont have enough space for #ios7. wtf should i delete
posted by griphus at 10:45 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Seriously, it's MY phone and I will do what I WANT with it.

It's ok to skip the thread, you don't have to be THAT guy.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:47 AM on September 19, 2013 [20 favorites]

Yup. Apple officially has nothing for me anymore. iPad 1. @ 5.x. iPod Touch 3rd gen @ 5.1.1 (grudgingly). mid-2009 17" maxed-out macbook pro @ 10.6, mid-2010 maxed-out mac pro @ 10.6. 10.7, 10.8, and 10.9 hold no appeal, and actually have misfeatures I don't want.[1]

Apple has "good decades" and "bad decades", rather like even and odd numbered Star Trek movies, and I've just decided to batten down and wait this bad decade out until Apple (or someone else) starts making products that I want again. [2]

[1] between all the recent UI fuckery and Cloud-Everything-Always!, the only way Apple could get me to update the OS is with either more resiliant filesystem code (ZFS or better), or kernel hot-patching (which they won't do, since they decided "just restore apps to their previous state after reboot" was some kind of "solution" to this problem... for a server/workstation class machine.)

[2] I may actually have become 'too old for this shit' and finally turned into everyone's parents.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 10:48 AM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]

I really like it so far. The swipe-up to access important stuff is really great. I'm still waiting for passbook to be useful.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:48 AM on September 19, 2013

Skeuomorphism is dead. We have killed it.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 10:50 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

crap. dont have enough space for #ios7. wtf should i delete

I jettisoned my entire music library, re-curated it and put it back when the upgrade was done.

It was kind of annoying though - I mean it left all the space freed up for the upgrade available when it was finished with the upgrade. I am no programmer, though; I'm sure there was a reason it needed space to upgrade that it didn't need when it was done. I just don't know that reason.
posted by angeline at 10:50 AM on September 19, 2013

wemayfreeze: "So annoyed with iOS 7 right now. There's just a lot of smallish things that feel so off to me. "

SloppyUI: A tumblr full of screenshots of UI elements in iOS 7 that don't make sense.

I'm sure most of these things will be fixed, but iOS 7 really feels sloppy for an Apple release. I'm surprised that it passed usability testing, and that the small quirks managed to slip between the cracks.

I actually quite like the whole look and feel (as I guess I should, since I'm also a big fan of Android Holo), but the lack of contrast or partitioning bugs the hell out of me.

Also not a fan of the icons at all. You can slap a grid on top of anything, and squint hard enough so that the lines match up. Apple's implementation and execution of the icon grid was sloppy and arbitrary (and that color palate... WTF). I kind of wish that Apple went the route of Windows Phone, and encouraged simple one or two-color diagrammatic icons.
posted by schmod at 10:51 AM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

angeline: it likely needed somewhere to store all the to-be-installed files prior to installing them. After installing, it was able to delete those files and ta-da, space still available.
posted by ish__ at 10:52 AM on September 19, 2013

I upgraded my (recent if not latest generation) ipad last night. No upgrade issues. I need to find a boring wallpaper. Overall, the visual change is jarring but having important things a swipe away is *great*. I dislike safari's new "i will show you just the hostname of this url" bullshit.

My phone is an iphone 4, so I am hanging on with ios6, particularly until I figure out if I want to upgrade to the new 5[s,c]. The government already has my fingerprints, so, whatever.
posted by rmd1023 at 10:53 AM on September 19, 2013

Traded in my iPhone 4 for a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 yesterday and COULD NOT BE HAPPIER. All of the annoying things about Apple devices are like 10x more annoying in hindsight now that I have actual control over my phone environment. Seriously considering getting rid of my iPad 2 as well, since the Note is so tablety and awesome.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:54 AM on September 19, 2013

I upgraded my 4 last night and ... yeah, it's a little slow-ish, but frankly not that bad. But then again, I'm not a super-heavy user, and 6 was already sluggish enough, in many situations. Of course, I probably wouldn't have upgraded so soon except that I'm planning to retire the handset in the pretty near future anyhow (the camera is sort of full of sand). Figured I ought to see if I really hate iOS 7 and want to switch to an Android handset.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:54 AM on September 19, 2013

Over in Android-land, Cyanogen raised $7 million yesterday, and are aiming to produce an Android distribution that anybody can install.

Maybe I'm just biased as an Android user, but this is potentially a bigger deal than iOS 7 is. Getting a commercially-backed 3rd-party OS on the market is going to be a very good thing for everyone.
posted by schmod at 10:55 AM on September 19, 2013 [6 favorites]

(i do still have a bit of hate for apple for naming their operating system "ios" because there was a fairly large company out there who was already using that name for their software and whose gear I use so it causes a fair bit of namespace collision for me.)
posted by rmd1023 at 10:55 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

angeline: it likely needed somewhere to store all the to-be-installed files prior to installing them. After installing, it was able to delete those files and ta-da, space still available.

Ah. Makes sense. It still annoyed me but then most things do these days. Kids, lawn, off, etc.
posted by angeline at 10:56 AM on September 19, 2013

Runs OK on my iPhone 4, but the transitions do slow it down noticeably. I couldn't get iTunes to download the update at all for the longest time, until I figured out that I needed at least 3.5GB of free space.

It runs better on my iPad 2--parallax effect works, which is kind of neat to see. The lower resolution of the iPad 2 screen makes all the OS text look like ass, though.

Still no weather app on the iPad, although you can get location-based weather updates on the Notification screen.
posted by emelenjr at 10:56 AM on September 19, 2013

Aw, man, they fucked with iTunes again? I haven't been able to understand why they have made any of the changes they have to iTunes in the better part of a decade now. None of them have been improvements; I thought they had it more or less right back in the early 2000s.
posted by Hoopo at 10:58 AM on September 19, 2013 [14 favorites]

The new level (tucked in with the new compass) is fun to play with.
Overall I really like OS7. I like the new swipe up and swipe down screens, and that pressing the button twice doesn't bring up the search screen, which I never used anyway. And how the music player, under 'artists' now puts a photo next to the name; seems to still be adding new ones.
posted by Flashman at 10:59 AM on September 19, 2013

(the camera is sort of full of sand)

Yeah, I'm glad they removed that feature. I heard now that they're not going with skeuomorphism anymore, the camera in the 5s will just be full of loose voxels (the 5c gets pixels.)
posted by griphus at 10:59 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Watching people complain about new Apple releases is a popcorn occasion for me. Sweet, sweet misery.

I installed the developer previews back in June and pretty much love it, occasional weird bug aside. (For some reason, if you type brackets into a textfield iOS 7 assumes you want to capitalize your next letter, which makes writing with HTML tags a complete pain.) The three-dimensionality of the design is super neat and intuitive, so much so that when I had to reinstall iOS 6 on my iPad the changes frustrated me to no end. I'm excited what UI designers do with this: there's a lot of opportunity here that the big designers will do plenty with, I'm sure.

Still hoping that Android finds a decent UI person soon—my experiences of working with my grandfather on his Nexus tablet brought me back to pre-Windows XP levels of computer rage.
posted by Rory Marinich at 11:00 AM on September 19, 2013

>crap. dont have enough space for #ios7. wtf should i delete

>I jettisoned my entire music library, re-curated it and put it back when the upgrade was done.

Installing through iTunes avoids the need for 3 Gigs free on the phone.

I'm running iOS 7 on my 8 gig iPhone 4, and it's... ok. There is a slight pause before executing some touches, but overall I'd say the trade-off for the cleaner interface and other features is worth it. Might not be for everyone. It might get annoying over time (assuming updates don't speed things up a bit) but I'll never find out because I should have a 5s on the way soon.

I notice than some apps are updated to mimic the flat-7 look. Interestingly, the latest iteration of Apple own iPhoto app still features the photo-albums-on-shelves look.
posted by The Deej at 11:01 AM on September 19, 2013

If you want to clean up, you can move Newsstand to a folder

Yes, but can I move the NYTimes app out of the Newstand and onto the desktop where I'd like it to be? I don't think so. I believe magazines and newspapers are still banished to the interior of the Newstand folder.
posted by alms at 11:02 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have a 4s, did teh download and install and it went smoothly.
Speed wise there is a little hiccup/jerk every now and then, but generally it runs fine.
I do enjoy some of the new UI features already.
Changes is always weird, and iTunes does get stranger and less friendly every upgrade, but overall it's a win.

But then, I love purple kool aid, so it might be best to ignore this post.
posted by cccorlew at 11:04 AM on September 19, 2013

I'll go on record as being totally OK with skeumorphism, and that I think it's something that can be done right.

I agree that Apple did it as well as could likely be done, but it's like training wheels on a bike. An interface that looks like an older one is comprehensible, but still limited by the metaphor. Innovation and new interactions are limited by that constraint. The phone can't really, fully be istself, not at the same time it has to pretend to be something else.

This is a great step forward for phones in general, and I'm glad iOS has finally taken it. To abandon the old metaphors means that new ones can now evolve.
posted by bonehead at 11:05 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Over in Android-land, Cyanogen raised $7 million yesterday, and are aiming to produce an Android distribution that anybody can install.

I was debating doing a post about that when this showed up. The promise of a deal with hardware manufacturers raises all kinds of questions about what CyanogenMod (both the software and the business) will look like in a year or two.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:05 AM on September 19, 2013

If the animations in iOS 7 bother you, they can be turned off via Settings>General>Accessibly>Reduce Motion. You also adjust the contrast and font weight in the Accessibility.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:07 AM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

5, started it up and got the update done in a little less than an hour over wifi.

On preview: expanding on Brandon Blatcher's post.

Also, for those concerned about difficult to read text or want to dump the parallax effect, there are settings for those:

Go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility .
Second block of settings includes:

type size
type bolding (will restart phone if set on)
increase contrast
reduce motion (which stops the parallax effect)
on/off labels

posted by ZeusHumms at 11:09 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

If the animations in iOS 7 bother you, they can be turned off via Settings>General>Accessibly>Reduce Motion.

That only applies to the parallax animations on iPhones 5 (or 4s?) and later. There's no way to turn off the app opening/closing/switching animations as far as I can tell. Which is weird because you can do that easily in OSX.
posted by griphus at 11:09 AM on September 19, 2013

Yeah I just did the reduce animation thing and it only turns off the stupid parallax effect (which is suspiciously much worse in use than it appeared to be in the demo).
posted by jimmythefish at 11:12 AM on September 19, 2013

There's no way to turn off the app opening/closing/switching animations as far as I can tell.

Which may be a problem, 'cause it's making me slightly dizzy, all that zooming around.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:13 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes, but can I move the NYTimes app out of the Newstand and onto the desktop where I'd like it to be? I don't think so. I believe magazines and newspapers are still banished to the interior of the Newstand folder.

Sure, but if you use folders, it's just opening up an app from within a folder. One more tap is frustrating, but I end up going to the NYT web site anyway.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:14 AM on September 19, 2013

An interface that looks like an older one is comprehensible, but still limited by the metaphor

It's possible I just don't know how far-reaching the change is; I haven't installed iOS7 yet and pretty much thought iOS6's skeumorphic components were basically just a superficial skin.
posted by Hoopo at 11:14 AM on September 19, 2013

Excuse please, for the ignorant, what exactly is "the stupid parallax effect"?

I turned it off and everything seems the same.
posted by bondcliff at 11:15 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

All of the annoying things about Apple devices are like 10x more annoying in hindsight now that I have actual control over my phone environment.

I am dead, 100% serious, when I ask ... like what? I feel like I'm getting tech-deficient in my young-old age because I'm pretty well-satisfied with my iPhone. There's very little I'd want to do with my handheld device that I can't do ... and it "just works."

(I swear I'm not being fighty ... but I'm the only person I know who uses iOS, and even the evangelist-types don't really have a compelling Android use case for me. Which is fine--maybe the Apple ecosystem just works for me and not them. But I'm curious.)
posted by uncleozzy at 11:16 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Turn it back on and while you're at the Home page, tilt your phone a bit.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:16 AM on September 19, 2013

Parallax effect took me a while to notice, but if you hold the phone in front of you and then tilt it left or right, your wallpaper will move around. It's one of those things that makes me think "that's kinda neat" for about 30 seconds & then I turned it off.
posted by zempf at 11:17 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Gonna wait until all the inevitable glitches have been fixed before I even think of downloading this. After two and a bit decades of computer usage I'm definitely starting to feel like a bit of an old fogey at the grand old age of 31. I never auto update anything, and I always keep the previous version in case the new version decides to get rid of a feature I use every day (this never used to happen until about 5 years ago). I always turn off animations and transitions so it doesn't feel like I'm waiting for something to happen. And I use all 3 main desktop OSs regularly, but on Linux, I'm a GNOME Classic man. Pipe and slippers time I think. Hey kids, did I ever tell you about Blitz Basic? Kids? Come back! Listen to your old man!
posted by kersplunk at 11:18 AM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

Don't like something in iOS 7?

Apple feedback web page: iPhone

Apple feedback web page: iPad

Apple feedback web page: iPod Touch

posted by alms at 11:18 AM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

It's a version of parallax scrolling which gives the illusion of depth by having things on a 2D image move at different rates in different planes of depth. I don't think the icons move, but the background moves in sync with the tilting of the phone, so it looks like the icons float.
posted by griphus at 11:19 AM on September 19, 2013

I am dead, 100% serious, when I ask ... like what?

Well, the most obvious one is icons for every app installed do not have to appear on the home screens. They're in an app drawer and then you just leave the most used items on your home screens. So, I have maybe 200 apps installed or whatever, but my main use ones are maybe 35.

Therefore my phone only has two screens (which I can cycle through flipping either way) and access to everything easily. When I want to get to a less useful app, I open the app drawer where they're found alphabetically.

Further, using a third party launcher, I can tell icons to launch different apps depending if I tap or swipe. Same with folders. That allows me to do things like, in my note app have the icon launch the app which then lets me make a new note but if I swipe that icon, it opens the app and automatically goes into a pre-selected note that I can then add to. Or, if I wished, the swipe could open a different app altogether.

As someone who switched from iOS to Android, I'm like you. I *thought* that iOS worked logically. But when I switched I suddenly became aware of all the things I was doing as workarounds (throwing unused apps in folders or putting them on far screens so I wouldn't have to scroll through them) as easily handled with an intelligent OS.
posted by dobbs at 11:24 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

I like the new calendar, and wish the desktop calendar in OSX looked as clean.
posted by jquinby at 11:25 AM on September 19, 2013

Oh, and note that I don't HAVE to have just two home screens. I can have as many as I like.
posted by dobbs at 11:25 AM on September 19, 2013

Therefore my phone only has two screens (which I can cycle through flipping either way) and access to everything easily. When I want to get to a less useful app, I open the app drawer where they're found alphabetically.

You have almost always been able to do this with iOS
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:25 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Well, the most obvious one is icons for every app installed do not have to appear on the home screens. They're in an app drawer and then you just leave the most used items on your home screens.

I don't get it--most of my iPhone apps are grouped in folders
posted by Hoopo at 11:26 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

You have almost always been able to do this with iOS

Really? When I used it, which was 3GS, you couldn't. And if so, why are people up-thread talking about creating an "Apple Crap" folder and throwing apps into it to get them out of the way.

I don't get it--most of my iPhone apps are grouped in folders

But where are those folders? Are they on your home screen?

That's the way it used to work. And, as I said, I switched a while ago. Maybe that got rid of that but the upthread comments made me think not.
posted by dobbs at 11:29 AM on September 19, 2013

Yes, the folders are on your home screen.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:30 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

On Skewmorphism, Ive feels the change was freeing: "When we sat down last November (to work on iOS 7), we understood that people had already become comfortable with touching glass, they didn't need physical buttons, they understood the benefits," says Ive. "So there was an incredible liberty in not having to reference the physical world so literally. We were trying to create an environment that was less specific. It got design out of the way."
posted by bonehead at 11:31 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

The weirdest thing I like about Android over iOS is the ability to have an icon in two or more places at once. So I can have, on my phone, a cluster of book and PDF-related icons on a far left screen, and then a Kindle shortcut on my main screen as well. I can have a bunch of shortcuts to different web apps -- Tumblr, Reddit, etc. -- off on another screen and another shortcut to Tumblr on my main screen. And so on.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 11:31 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore

Yes you can, I just did it last night. (iOS 7, iphone 4S, newest brand-new iTunes on an iMac)
posted by dnash at 11:31 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

But where are those folders? Are they on your home screen?

They can be, or you can move them to the next screen. I don't even know what the limit of screens is on an iPhone TBH. But I honestly can't imagine why having an apps folder on my home screen is an inconvenience anyway, so I guess we're not really on the same page to begin with here.
posted by Hoopo at 11:32 AM on September 19, 2013

Turn it back on and while you're at the Home page, tilt your phone a bit.

Hey, that's actually kind of cool. Explains why it broke my Pac Man maze wallpaper though.
posted by bondcliff at 11:32 AM on September 19, 2013

I wouldn't be able to handle switching to iOS just because I like the functionality you get from widgets so much. Open the entire music player to start listening to a song instead of hitting the "play" button at the top of my screen? What am I, a caveman?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:38 AM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

Safari on iOS 7 and HTML5: problems, changes and new APIs

I wasn't even going to seriously look at iOS7 for a few months, if for no other reason than that I find opposing color gradients ugly, but now there's a new version of a significant web browser in the world and of course it's breaking things.
posted by weston at 11:47 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

My phone only has two screens, and when I want to get to a less useful app, I open the folder where they're found where I put them.

I don't think that the Android system is worse, but I don't see how it's any better.

But there's a fixed number of icons that will fit on the screen. I don't know how many it is, but lets say it's 20. So if you have more than 20 regularly used apps, you have to add an additional screen just to hold the folders of apps you don't use often. And you have to scroll through those screens to get from say, screen 4 to screen 1 (or scroll back through 3 and 2).

But I honestly can't imagine why having an apps folder on my home screen is an inconvenience anyway, so I guess we're not really on the same page to begin with here.

Yes, that's what my initial post was attempting to address. When I used iOS I did not see it as a problem either. But when I switched, I became aware of the things I took for granted as working such-and-such way--that they weren't the most logical.

The same with notifications--which I understand Apple has recently copied from Android. When I had iOS it seemed logical that when I got a text a popup appeared. How the hell else would I know I got a message?! Well, there is another way and Apple has now realized it and changed it. Forcing you to keep an icon on your desktop (or in various folders on your desktop) is similar.

Though yes, I understand how you don't see it that way. But the poster asked for an example of something that seems logical but when you switched you realized it wasn't, so I provided one.

For me, Apple was my first smart phone (for many people, presumably) and their way of handling things seemed logical because they were offering solutions to problems I'd never had before (What happens to icons for apps you download? How do I know I have a text message? etc.) And since those solutions are the first I'd encountered they seemed logical. But really the only reason I thought that is because I hadn't experienced any other.

Yes, there are apps for iOS that aren't available for Android, and that sucks (though it's getting better). But to my knowledge there's nothing the iPhone can do outside of its apps that I can't do on Android--but there is tons of wonderful things I can do on Android that I can't do on iOS. And those missing apps? There's almost always another app that does the same thing.
posted by dobbs at 11:47 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

launch different apps depending if I tap or swipe

This is interesting, but ... I don't really know how or if I'd use it. Also the 200-apps-use-35 thing is entirely outside my realm. I have maybe 25 or 30 apps installed, of which I regularly use maybe 5 or 6? Which maybe is why the iPhone just sort of works for me: it does the very few things I want it to do pretty well. Which isn't to say that an Android device wouldn't do the same things about as well, I suppose.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:51 AM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Open the entire music player to start listening to a song instead of hitting the "play" button at the top of my screen? What am I, a caveman?

In iOS 7, you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen and hit play. In pre-iOS 7, you would double-tap the home button and hit play.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:54 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

C'mon, skeuomorphism was just savvy marketing by Jobs. The cash cows for Apple aren't hipsters, they're grandparents who like the wooden magazine rack and the leather detailing on the virtual daytimer.
posted by benzenedream at 11:55 AM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

To me, the killer flaw in ios was the lack of the drop-down notifications/settings, and they've fixed that. But I absolutely hated having to change bluetooth/screen brigthness/etc. settings on ios through their nested menu system. Very glad to see that changed. However, I still don't think I'll switch back from android for m phone until they allow widgets on the homescreens. Having a full or half-screen sized widget for my calendar and e-mail that's always open and updated is so quick and useful that it makes me angry not to have it on ios.
posted by skewed at 11:56 AM on September 19, 2013

Forcing you to keep an icon on your desktop (or in various folders on your desktop) is similar.

It's at this point I should probably note that this is how I do things on a PC anyway--I have shortcuts on my desktop. It's just how I use a computer or device I guess; didn't even realize it was a weird, unusual or illogical way to use them. I'm one of these "why would I want to go around rooting through folders to find what I want?" types.
posted by Hoopo at 11:56 AM on September 19, 2013

I'm sure there will be some argument why fake felt and wood is verboten, but fake frosted glass and detailed renderings of thunderstorms in the Weather app are perfectly consistent.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:59 AM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

Having a full or half-screen sized widget for my calendar and e-mail that's always open and updated is so quick and useful that it makes me angry not to have it on ios.

For iOS 5+ devices, swipe down from the top of the screen to open the Notification Center, which contains widgets for calendar, email, weather, and other data from third-party apps that register with the Notification Center.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:00 PM on September 19, 2013

not into white as the background for Photos. Black shows photos off better I think.

Tapping a photo will toggle between a white and black background.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:05 PM on September 19, 2013

• HATE the new calendar app. You used to select a day in month view and it would maintain the view and show a small list of events on that day. Now it slides up a day view and shows you only that week. The previous interface was super useful for scheduling because I could hop around between days throughout the month to find a free afternoon for lunch, say. Now I have to keep switching back to the month view, losing the context each time I select a day. G R A R

Holy smokes do I ever agree. To the point where I am in the market for a calendar app that mimics the old calendar experience. I will pay up to 3 dollars! Anyone got a recommendation? I also need to be able to sync with my wife's calendar.
posted by joelhunt at 12:07 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

The new Safari interface is unappealing. And who added Disney and ESPN to my bookmarks? Bleh.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 12:09 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Can you disable automatic updating on a per-app basis? It's just that there was this one version of an app that had a bug that prevented ads from appearing and I've been holding it at that version ever since.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:09 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

On the calendar app, I discovered that pressing the magnifying lens icon triggers a switch to something similar to the old "list" view.
posted by emelenjr at 12:09 PM on September 19, 2013

Jony Ive on the design of iOS 7 and the move away from skeuomorphism: "When we sat down last November (to work on iOS 7), we understood that people had already become comfortable with touching glass, they didn't need physical buttons, they understood the benefits," says Ive. "So there was an incredible liberty in not having to reference the physical world so literally. We were trying to create an environment that was less specific. It got design out of the way."
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:17 PM on September 19, 2013

It's not perfect, and that doesn't surprise me because it seems to be a starting point, but I can't imagine going back to iOS6 just after a day. The ability to change the font size eliminates the one reason I ever thought I needed a bigger screen. And it's really purty.

the transitions slow me down. I'm especially annoyed with the slow fade upon waking and the icons flying in. Just turn the damn thing on

Same here. Turning the screen on use to be instant, now it's a full second. Yeah, not much, but why have it? For the sake of animation? At least let me turn it off.

HATE the new calendar app.

Yep, I can't imagine having to use it. Then again, I've used 3rd party calendars for a while now, so not a big problem for me. But I always like to give new versions of the stock apps a chance, and... nope.

I swear I'm not being fighty ... but I'm the only person I know who uses iOS, and even the evangelist-types don't really have a compelling Android use case for me. Which is fine--maybe the Apple ecosystem just works for me and not them. But I'm curious.)

I've used android devices and while there are a few things I admire, and hopefully move on to the iPhone, I've never seen anything that made me want to switch, that trumped the reasons I prefer the iPHone. Like you, the generalized statements (It's my phone) make no difference to me. Show me something you can do, that is important to me enough to really want, and I'll switch. It hasn't happened yet. And no, the ability to deleted an app instead of hiding it isn't even close to good enough.
posted by justgary at 12:24 PM on September 19, 2013

I have an iPhone 4 and the new OS is working fine on mine--in fact, it seems to have opened up some spare space and sped the previously laggy-as-hell thing up a bit. Am I the single iPhone 4 person who isn't cringing? Yet?
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:27 PM on September 19, 2013

That sounds an awful lot like what you're saying Android can do with the app drawer, with the added bonus that they're not necessarily alphabetical if you don't want them to be.

Not that you're saying otherwise, but just a point of clarification in case anybody's unfamiliar, but you can do folders in Android too.
posted by kmz at 12:30 PM on September 19, 2013

Am I the single iPhone 4 person who isn't cringing? Yet?

Nope.
posted by The Deej at 12:34 PM on September 19, 2013

All my ringtones and alarm sounds have been replaced by track from Music for Airports.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:39 PM on September 19, 2013 [7 favorites]

Guys

Guys

Guys

There's an awesome new 5" Blackberry.

It has BB10.2

Guys

Guys

Hey Guys
posted by CynicalKnight at 12:42 PM on September 19, 2013 [12 favorites]

On Passbook: I used it for train tickets travelling in Spain last month and it's terrific. Follow one link from an email and the ticket shows up in the app, and when the time comes a link pops up on your lock screen. flawless.

Having returned to the Uk - every. fecking. transport company. Refuses to use passbook and makes me download their own shitty single-purpose app, if e-tickets are even a possibility. So frustrating!
posted by ominous_paws at 12:45 PM on September 19, 2013

I installed it on my 4S last night after watching my husband use the beta for two months. It's got a few rough edges, but I like it so far. Obviously I haven't checked battery life.

The parallax wallpaper thing has my wallpaper (coordinated with my Gelaskin protector) messed up, but that's a small complaint.
posted by immlass at 12:54 PM on September 19, 2013

The new ringtones are nice too, although I wish they'd make one that just sounds like a phone ringing. I've settled on Hillside.
posted by Flashman at 12:54 PM on September 19, 2013

joelhunt: Holy smokes do I ever agree. To the point where I am in the market for a calendar app that mimics the old calendar experience. I will pay up to 3 dollars! Anyone got a recommendation?

I use Agenda Calendar 4 ($1.99). It has a similar view that the iOS 6 and earlier calendar had (month on top, list of the selected day's event below), as well as a list view and 6-month view. When the developer released version 4 I had been using 3 for a long time, and wasn't taken with the new design, but now that iOS 7 is out, I like how it fits in with the new aesthetic.

It uses iOS's calendars, so if you can currently share your calendar with your wife (over iCloud, say), then you'll have no problems doing it with Agenda.
posted by good in a vacuum at 12:55 PM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

I use Agenda Calendar 4

That's what I've used for a while now, and one of the reasons I stuck with it is because I knew it would look great with iOS7.
posted by justgary at 1:01 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Agenda Calendar 4 it is. Thanks!
posted by joelhunt at 1:07 PM on September 19, 2013

Updated painlessly
posted by sidereal at 1:09 PM on September 19, 2013

Mostly I'm happy with iOS7 so far. I dislike the aforementioned fade-illumination on the lock screen and the zoom-in to home screen. Unnecessary animation.

First nitpick: I can no longer scale my wallpaper to my liking. Wallpaper used to be limited by the width of the photo. Now it's limited by the height of the photo, which means my photo of my son now has clock digits across his face. There is no way to scale the photo like I used to, where the clock ends up above the edge of the photo.

Second nitpick: Folders. What was the logic of making folders show fewer items than before? Now I get a little stupid gray window in the middle of the screen with wasted space above and below, and it only shows 9 items. WTF?

Everything else feels fairly fresh and smooth.
posted by Fleebnork at 1:13 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

But I want to show Agenda Calendar in my Today view under the Notification Center, not lumped in with everything else!

I assume that at some point dynamic wallpaper will actually do something other than have bubbles. It looks to me like it's not really out of beta yet.

I have an android tablet and the one thing I really miss on my iphone is widgets. Being able to glance at my home screen and see a list of my most recent emails, or a ticker with the weather (without having to pull down anything), etc, is nice. The Notification Center is ok, but not the same thing.

I'm not at all bothered by the slight palette change or the flatter, less shiny look.
posted by Karmakaze at 1:15 PM on September 19, 2013

angeline: "I'm sure there was a reason it needed space to upgrade that it didn't need when it was done."

That was the NSA reading your email.
posted by chavenet at 1:21 PM on September 19, 2013

I have now deleted Apple, Disney, ESPN, and Yahoo! from my "Favourites" menu at least twice. Fuckers keep coming back, I think I might be playing whack-a-mole against cloud sync.

Doesn't everyone have an "Apple Crud" folder they drag that stuff into to be forgotten forever?

I felt pretty smug when I realized I could name mine "Apple Core"
posted by ook at 1:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [4 favorites]

Yes, there are apps for iOS that aren't available for Android, and that sucks (though it's getting better). But to my knowledge there's nothing the iPhone can do outside of its apps that I can't do on Android--but there is tons of wonderful things I can do on Android that I can't do on iOS.

Here's one: play a sound after a touch on the screen with sub-50ms latency, with the exception of one two year old model (the Galaxy Nexus, which suffers from a still confounding ~40ms latency last I checked). This basically makes non-toy music apps impossible. You'll find plenty of talks from Android engineers whining about why it's such a hard problem for them, though, which is funny, because it's like someone complaining about how hard it is to get out of this giant hole that they dug themselves into. It's things like these that make me never want to look at an Android phone again. When it comes down to being able to change the highlight color with a third party launcher versus being able to actually, you know, do the things that I want to do smoothly, there's just not much to debate there for me.
posted by invitapriore at 1:45 PM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

Only bit that really bothers me is the ability to swipe and delete text messages has gone bye-bye apparently. This gets annoying when our servers send me one text for every single share that loses connectivity if some intellectual fireball reboots the file server.
posted by Mooski at 1:49 PM on September 19, 2013

Mooski - You can still delete them. You have to swipe to the left instead of the right. I stumbled across this earlier today.
posted by BrianJ at 1:51 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Shared Links in Safari is pretty sweet (open Bookmarks, then hit the @ icon). Shows tweets from your followers which include a link. No need to open Twitter.
posted by schoolgirl report at 1:53 PM on September 19, 2013

Some day we need to have a thread about the new Craftsman hammer so people who prefer Stanley hammers can come in and tell us how awful Craftman hammers are and the Craftsman people can take pity on those poor, clueless Stanley hammer fans and then we'll all see how silly it is to fight over each other's tool preferences.

No one's fighting. uncleozzy asked, sincerely, what some of the differences/benefits are.

launch different apps depending if I tap or swipe

This is interesting, but ... I don't really know how or if I'd use it.

An example could be your camera icon. Tap it to open the camera app; swipe it to take a picture without opening the camera or making any sound. So essentially you've taken a picture but never left your home screen and no one's aware you've done it. Very fast and discreet (but obviously without the ability to apply filters or change settings).

Another example might be your ebook app. Tap to open the app with access to all your books; swipe to open and go to the last read page of whatever book you're currently reading; or swipe it to go to the ebook store.

Another: tap the phone icon to open the app; swipe it to call your most called contact.

Etc.

Android has a shitload of features that you won't use. It has a shitload of features I don't use. But it also has many, many that I do, and it's nice to have the option and decide for yourself -- and if you don't use them, they're not there in your face taking up real estate--they're invisible.

Anyway, I'll leave the thread as it feels kind of weird to discuss it; in my experience the benefits of either OS can best be experienced by using them.
posted by dobbs at 1:55 PM on September 19, 2013 [3 favorites]

BrianJ, you have made my day. May the next few hours of your life be bliss punctuated by regular interruptions of rapture.
posted by Mooski at 1:56 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Doesn't everyone have an "Apple Crud" folder they drag that stuff into to be forgotten forever?

I felt pretty smug when I realized I could name mine "Apple Core".

I named mine "Scrapple". It just sums up my feelings on so many beautifully varied levels.
posted by angeline at 1:58 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Wen I swipe the camera icon, it either does nothing or goes to the next screen. Am I missing something?
posted by SillyShepherd at 2:20 PM on September 19, 2013

You have to be using a third-party launcher that allows for swipe actions. I'd be interested to know which one he's talking about, because one-tap camera functionality sounds like a good deal.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:31 PM on September 19, 2013

I feel like I have stepped into a Braun design studio ca. late 1960's-mid 1970's.
(And I like it)
posted by needled at 2:35 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's one: play a sound after a touch on the screen with sub-50ms latency

Oh, that's sort of a dealbreaker, yeah. How is it possible that Android doesn't do that?
posted by uncleozzy at 2:49 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Discovered my first major "What?! NO NO NO NO NO! BAD APPLE!" change in the new operating system. It's no longer easy in the Music/iPod app to go to Genre and then click the shuffle play all option. In fact, it's not even possible.

The only fix I have seen pop up so far is to tell Siri to shuffle or something to that regard. I don't like Siri. I don't use Siri. Boo this change.
posted by Atreides at 2:49 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Another sneaky thing in the Music app, is that it appears it has a default setting of "list all music." What that means is that if you have music in the iCloud (i.e., bought from iTunes at some point), it gets listed and if you're not paying attention, you can tap the music to play, and it automatically starts streaming the music...thus, if one isn't paying attention, you can start using up some fun amounts of data. You have to go to settings to fix this.
posted by Atreides at 2:51 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

uncleozzy: "Oh, that's sort of a dealbreaker, yeah. How is it possible that Android doesn't do that?"

It's an artifact of architectural decisions they made early on with regards to things like sample buffer size, with the difficulties of dealing with a wildly diverse hardware base sprinkled on top. Here's a pretty technical presentation from Google I/O where they go into what the problems are and what they're trying to do to fix them, but I'm not hopeful. Those two guys may give a shit about the problem, but Google doesn't.
posted by invitapriore at 2:59 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's no longer easy in the Music/iPod app to go to Genre and then click the shuffle play all option. In fact, it's not even possible.

This isn't just a problem with Apple, and it drives me up the god-damned wall. Job One for a music player is to pull up a single song and play it. Right after that should be the capability to pull up a collection of tracks and then play them, but every single music player out there seems to leave off the "and then play them" part. I can search for all the classical songs on my phone, or all the ones that have the word "platypus" in them, but unless they're all by the same artist or on the same album, I can't just hit "play" on that set of results. I have to go through the rigamarole of creating a new playlist file even though the list is right freaking there. It's enough to make me want to remember how to code.

Sorry, pet peeve.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:05 PM on September 19, 2013 [12 favorites]

How to find Spotlight search

From any Home screen page of your iPhone or iPad, drag your finger down anywhere on the Home screen.

No. This is a horrible description. You must drag your finger down from anywhere inside the icons area. Not from the bar at the top, not the row of icons at the bottom.

This puzzled me for a while, I kept reading the same incorrect description on several different websites, I tried it over and over and got the Notification Center. I only discovered the correct operation by accident.
posted by charlie don't surf at 3:43 PM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

I can search for all the classical songs on my phone, or all the ones that have the word "platypus" in them, but unless they're all by the same artist or on the same album, I can't just hit "play" on that set of results. I have to go through the rigamarole of creating a new playlist file even though the list is right freaking there. It's enough to make me want to remember how to code.

Play Punk Rock music.

Siri: Here's your Punk Rock music (shuffled)...
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:01 PM on September 19, 2013

Folders. What was the logic of making folders show fewer items than before?

In iOS6, folder thumbnails were a 3x3 grid with the first 9 items of the folder, but when you opened the folder, surprise!, There's 12 icons! And they're in completely different places than they are in the thumbnail! That drove me crazy. Now opening a folder is just zooming in on it, which maintains visual continuity, and is super elegant*. I'm sure this is their rationale.

I don't think they could have done this with 4x3 folders; that would make the icons in the thumbnails too small. Maybe there's some clever way to resolve that but I don't know what it is.

I hated having to make two "games" folders, so I'm really glad they added multiple pages within folders. They absolutely could have done this without making the first page smaller, but once they decided to shrink it to 3x3, they didn't really have a choice - many people upgrading already have more than nine items in their folders.

On the whole I prefer the folder behavior of iOS7, though it could be better still.

That said, aside from the thumbnails having icons in the wrong places, I really did love the iOS6 folder opening/shutting animations. With a nice textured background, everything felt really solidly anchored to the screen. And I find it's harder to come up with a good iOS7 wallpaper. The app labels don't have a drop shadow so you have to keep the contrast low, and now the folders and launch bar double down on your wallpaper's color, instead of toning it down like they used to.

I am pretty unhappy about the Music app's Artist view - when do I want to have to scroll past 75 songs to play an album? Never! I'm a little concerned that Apple is trying to deprecate the notion of an album altogether. To heck with a la carte track purchasing, I say! Albums is where it's at.

Also I'm wracked with grief that the Mail app got rid of the perfectly fluid "pull to refresh" animation. God, I loved that animation so much! I'm sure I'll pine for it for years to come.
posted by aubilenon at 4:05 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Having call blocking is like Christmas.
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:25 PM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

I'll probably upgrade my phone and iPad once a jailbreak is available. Being able to easily turn on/off WiFi, Bluetooth, Airplane Mode, and to adjust brightness using SBSettings would be hard to live without, for one thing.

The lack of a comparable media player to VLC (which can play anything you throw at it and is only available via jailbreak since Apple removed it from their store) is the main thing holding me back, though. Converting a >1Gb movie file to one of the few formats the permitted media players will work with is too much of a hassle.

I have a feeling we may be waiting quite a while for a jailbreak, unfortunately.
posted by Thoughtcrime at 4:35 PM on September 19, 2013

Play Punk Rock music.

Siri: Here's your Punk Rock music (shuffled)...

So Siri has more power over the Music app than you do? Weird.

(Also, pet peeve part deux? Android could do that three years ago. "Play X" was part of the suite of voice commands supported in version 2.3 - maybe earlier than that, for all I know. But somewhere along the line Google decided we didn't need it.)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:37 PM on September 19, 2013

VLC is back.
posted by sineater at 4:38 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Thoughtcrime: everything you mentioned you use SBSettings for is available in the new Control Center (swipe up from bottom of screen).

VLC, can't help ya there tho
posted by ish__ at 4:39 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Objectively speaking, though, iOS 7 stinks. It is nothing like interwar Vienna. Nothing.
posted by No-sword at 4:53 PM on September 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

Fun: the dynamic wallpaper seems to react to gravity. Try tilting the screen and watch the bubbles float and sink
posted by The Hyacinth Girl at 5:11 PM on September 19, 2013

What I discovered this morning: if you're having problems with the Podcast app crashing immediately, download it again from the iTunes store and sync. It should work fine after that.
posted by zardoz at 5:19 PM on September 19, 2013

So the Podcast app is still a piece of shit in iOS7? Glad they kept some things the same.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:39 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm on a 3rd gen iPad, and changing the wallpaper takes a really long time. It takes about 5 seconds after picking one to see the preview, and about 15 seconds to get back to Settings after confirming the new wallpaper. This seems... broken.
posted by hellphish at 5:56 PM on September 19, 2013

Podcasts app: I listen to podcasts all the time while I walk, and I like them in specific order in playlists that are fine-tuned to my walk (yeah, I know), possibly with music mixed in.

I tried the Podcasts app and hated it, tried Downcast, but then I found out that if you deleted the stupid Pocasts app in iOS 6.x, all the podcasts came home to the Music player app the way they're supposed to. No problem mixing podcasts, music, whatever.

Any news about this on iOS 7? Or has the podcast app improved enough to get by?

(Waiting for the early hordes to shake out the rough spots for me - maybe I'll wait for 7.0.1 before I update.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 6:05 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm still waiting for the ability to swipe left or right in the mail app to get to the next (or previous) message.
posted by Gronk at 6:25 PM on September 19, 2013

Having call blocking is like Christmas.

Say what now? How?
posted by rollbiz at 6:25 PM on September 19, 2013

I like Control Centre (it's about time iOS got it), but I wish you could choose which functions get toggles. I use Airplane Mode maybe once or twice a year, but use Personal Hotspot almost weekly (and want it off when I'm not using it).
posted by good in a vacuum at 6:26 PM on September 19, 2013

Seriously HATE the new look. Makes my iPod look like a Fisher-Price toy.
posted by get off of my cloud at 6:36 PM on September 19, 2013

The two main annoyances I'm having with 7 on a 4S are the stupid animations that just. slow. everything. down. needlessly and the fact that 7 appears to have a vendetta against my battery. I put my phone on airplane mode overnight with just the clock app running and lost 25% of battery in that time. I then lost another 15% of battery on a 15 minute bus ride into the city.
posted by barnacles at 6:46 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

One of the things that really bugs me is the 1 second or so latency that happens when you hit the Home button. Take the same device in iOS 5/6 hit the home button and it's basically instant. Upgrade that device to iOS 7 then boom, lag city. I guess UX style wasn't the only thing inspired by Android =p
posted by khappucino at 6:48 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

That home button delay was one of the first things I noticed too, khappucino, on my iPhone 5. It almost seems intentional; if it was only the iPhone 4 that had the delay, for example, I might chalk it up to slower hardware, but on a 5 it seems odd.

Hopefully they tweak the animation and transition speeds in a point release soon.
posted by good in a vacuum at 7:00 PM on September 19, 2013

OMG Safari used to limit you to 8 tabs. Now I've got like 25 open, there doesn't seem to be a fixed limit.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:03 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

For whatever reason, the battery life is vastly improved on my 4S. Seems about 25% better (at least based on a single day of use). Also love that they got rid of the limit on folder size, so after consolidating four Games folders and hiding Newsstand/Mail/etc into a single AppleApps folder, I'm down to just two screens of apps rather than four. And call blocking will definitely be nice ("No bill collectors - this isn't Jessica Navia and she hasn't had this number for five years").

Only real complaint is the slight slowdown of all the zooming in and out. It's not a huge deal, but still annoying.
posted by fishmasta at 7:22 PM on September 19, 2013

what the hell. I haven't read through this whole thread so sorry if it's explained above. How do you do "find on page"? There used to be a little search thingy to the right of the URL in Safari and it's gone. Waaaahh. How am I supposed to see if anyone has answered this question already?

Also, about a zillion comments ago, people were asking how to clear unread messages in mail. If you click edit at the top right, at the bottom right "Mark all" will appear and you can click that and then "read." I had about 4290 unread and was not happy until I found that.
posted by artychoke at 7:24 PM on September 19, 2013

hellphish, I'm having the same issue. Seems that the wallpaper functionality is broken.
posted by photoslob at 7:25 PM on September 19, 2013

what the hell. I haven't read through this whole thread so sorry if it's explained above. How do you do "find on page"? There used to be a little search thingy to the right of the URL in Safari and it's gone. Waaaahh. How am I supposed to see if anyone has answered this question already?

It's all unified. Put it in the main box and it'll show up as the last option below Google search.
posted by Talez at 7:33 PM on September 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I spoke one tab too soon. 25 tabs in Safari seems to be the limit.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:46 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Thank you Talez!
posted by artychoke at 7:48 PM on September 19, 2013

It looks like I am going to have to upgrade my phone from a 4 to a 5, as Apple picked up the swipe up to close app feature that webOS had for Palm Pre... I'm pretty pleased (I loaded 7 onto my iPad Retina).
posted by JoeXIII007 at 8:52 PM on September 19, 2013

Application Switcher - a double tap on the home button - is so, so much improved. Really loving it on my iPad 2 while waiting for the update that lets you ditch the transition effect.
posted by porn in the woods at 9:03 PM on September 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

As all the mobile OSes converge on just being WebOS, I feel bad for Palm, and find myself wondering what HP got out of buying them.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:18 PM on September 19, 2013

I don't mind swapping Cover Flow for the art-only grid replaced it (pinch-to-zoom on the grid is a nice touch) but I definitely mind that the new grid is now sorted by the name of the album instead of the name of the artist and that there seems to be no way to change it. What possible rationale is there for changing that??

(All I've ever wanted from the Music app is a cover art-centered view sorted by artist + release date. Had it working in iOS 3 or 4 with some tag hacking but then they changed the database layout and I haven't been able to recreate it since. And every new iOS release seems to get farther away from it.)
posted by Lazlo Nibble at 9:29 PM on September 19, 2013

My only impassable bug is that the Videos app does not show the names of my videos. It shows a black block, which presumably is supposed to be a preview screen. I installed VLC but so far it doesn't seem to have a way to access those videos.

I did have a bug where Dropbox files would not load at all. I just emptied the whole folder and reloaded all the files. It works now. Probably all the file share links I posted on MeFi are now broken.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:38 PM on September 19, 2013

I like that they got rid of skeumorphism, but the thing where you have to slide to select the camera mode is still skeumorphic (and stupid), without any graphical indication that it is.
posted by empath at 11:12 PM on September 19, 2013

I installed VLC but so far it doesn't seem to have a way to access those videos.

VLC can't access videos from the Videos app, because apps are sandboxed and VLC lives in its own sandbox, separate from Videos. Open up iTunes and you can put videos into VLC's sandbox through App File Sharing settings.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:01 AM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

As all the mobile OSes converge on just being WebOS ...

I sure would love a gesture area and notification light, though. Flimsy slider, not so much. I am very pleased that the animations are smooth though.

but the thing where you have to slide to select the camera mode is still skeumorphic (and stupid)

How do you figure? Not the stupid part but the skeuomorphism. What real world thing is sliding the picture to change between modes harkening back to?
posted by aubilenon at 12:15 AM on September 20, 2013

I have a theory that Apple likes to mess up at least one app every so often to persuade people to spend money on the App Store.

Mess up podcasts -> Buy Downcast
Mess up maps -> Buy* Google Maps
Mess up calendar -> Buy Fantastical

* ok so it's free. I didn't say my theory is very good.
posted by milkb0at at 12:36 AM on September 20, 2013

aubilenon - there's an LED flash for alerts under accessibility and hearing.
posted by artychoke at 4:56 AM on September 20, 2013

Swiping in Mail last night, I managed to hide/ delete/ destroy/ embarrass my "Inbox" folder and I can't get it back. So that's fun.
posted by yerfatma at 5:28 AM on September 20, 2013

B.) reordering your icons has to be done manually, you can't do it via iTunes anymore.

So, this turns out to be patently untrue. Ber, why did you post that?
posted by sidereal at 5:53 AM on September 20, 2013

yerfatma -- it's suboptimal, but when I do weird crap like that, I delete the account and reinstall it.
posted by Etrigan at 6:08 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's a pretty technical presentation from Google I/O where they go into what the problems are and what they're trying to do to fix them

That's really a shame. I mean, I don't do a lot of realtime audio on iOS, but I do, sometimes, and I wouldn't want to give it up. It's just mind-boggling that such a common use case--people are using tablets for live performance!--isn't even really on Google's radar.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:00 AM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hey anybody gotta wallpaper choice that sorta diminishes the ugliness of the icons? I have red dynamic, and it looks like that scene in Cujo where kids were barfing up red cereal
posted by angrycat at 7:10 AM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

There are a couple of astronomy related wallpapers that come with iOS 7 that are lovely.

Otherwise, there's always pixelgirlspresents, for all your mobile and desktop wallpaper needs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:32 AM on September 20, 2013 [4 favorites]

I keep running into a bug in Mail on my iPhone 4. The cursor sometimes doesn't appear when I reply to a message. If I tap the screen to put the cursor where I want it to be, it apparently does move there, but there's no visual indication at all.
posted by emelenjr at 7:58 AM on September 20, 2013

I love it on my 4S. The transitions are gorgeous, the new keyboard is gorgeous, the new wallpapers are gorgeous, the new weather app is gorgeous (and I don't have to press anything to see the day's weather by hour) and I love how I can increase the dynamic text size to be ridiculously large.

The battery percentage seems to actually update based on the percentage of battery, instead of being sort of staggered and unreliable like in iOS 6. That could just be me though.

I think it's relaxing how there aren't numbers all over app icons as often, and how the Safari UI doesn't count how many tabs you have open. The Safari UI is really fun - less stuff gets in the way when I want to browse, and I love how scrolling down after toggling the menu stuff makes the menu stuff go away, but not scrolling up. The menu stuff shows up when you scroll to either the very bottom or very top of a given web page, and that also rules.

Really, the only thing I don't like about iOS 7 is the Settings icon because it reminds me of South Park, and the one-wordness of the Newsstand app.
posted by oceanjesse at 9:47 AM on September 20, 2013

There's a Rickroll hiding in Apple's iOS 7 support
posted by homunculus at 12:48 PM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Senator asks if FBI can get iPhone 5S fingerprint data via Patriot Act
posted by homunculus at 12:52 PM on September 20, 2013

Taking a page from Sergey Brin, Jim Lynch thinks iOS is for little girls.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:56 PM on September 20, 2013

There's a Rickroll hiding in Apple's iOS 7 support

The best part of that article is: "The Rickroll is one of the oldest pranks on the Internet."

Also, the Fifth Avenue Apple Store is one of the oldest buildings in Manhattan.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:00 PM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

I changed Siri into a man, then informed it that I had turned it into a man, and Siri said, And I quote, I don't like those arbitrary designations Angrycat, so I apologized to it.
posted by angrycat at 2:21 PM on September 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

Admittedly, I'm speaking as a chick, here, but... If you think a smartphone OS's color palette is emasculating, I think you've got a pretty uncertain handle on your masculinity. Just pretend the bright yellow or bright green or vivid red colors are butch color swatches from a manly sports team or something.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:24 PM on September 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

yeah but this goth chick is unhappy.
posted by angrycat at 3:44 PM on September 20, 2013

20 parallax iOS 7 wallpapers
21 more parallax iOS 7 wallpapers
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:51 PM on September 20, 2013

I am pretty unhappy about the Music app's Artist view - when do I want to have to scroll past 75 songs to play an album? Never!

Even better: it turns out you can't just "play an album" from the Artist view anyway, because it treats each Artist entry as a single long playlist of everything by them on your device. There's no way to, say, flip through your Beatles collection and just play Rubber Soul. You have to start the album from the grid view or the Albums list if you want the player to stop after the last track.

After a couple of days of this I'm kind of amazed at just how much cognitive friction it adds to have everything sorted by title in the grid view. I used to just whip through everything in Cover Flow and stop to narrow it down when I saw something by the artist I was looking for. Can't do that anymore.
posted by Lazlo Nibble at 5:20 PM on September 20, 2013

Most useful trick so far: go to Accessibility Settings. Turn on Bold Text. This makes a huge difference on Retina displays, although I hear it is not recommended for non-retina devices as it actually makes the font slightly worse.

Also today Apple released the one product missing from their lineup, the product I desire most: an iPhone 5 dock. I bought it instantly, only $29 (Lightning cable not included). The original iPhone came with a dock. It was a marvel of subtle design. It was just heavy enough so you could pick up the phone and the dock would let go. I hope the new dock is just as good. I might have to buy two of them, so I can have one dock on my desk, another by my bed.

There were only two other serious alternatives before this. You could buy a cheap $20 dock on eBay, designed to look like the original Apple dock, but manufactured by a sketchy Chinese factory with unauthorized Lightning chips (and no audio out). Or you could buy the ElevationDock for $79 (Lightning cable not included) with no audio out.

The new Apple dock has an audio out port, a feature not found in any other dock, at least, not an audio port through the Lightning connector. The Belkin dock has a lame mini stereo plug sticking out, so you have to thread your phone onto two connectors to dock it. And it looks ugly.

Despite the griping about the switch to Lightning (which also obsoleted my lovely Tuneflex Aux car kit) I endorse the switch. I had many problems with the old connector. It was prone to getting clogged with dirt and even pocket lint. I got used to carrying it in my left pocket, which I kept completely empty at all times just to preserve the phone from dirt and scratches. But it still got pocket lint in the connector, which would prevent it from connecting to the cable. Some people criticized the Lightning connector and said that said Apple could have just gone with Mini-USB, but it is is also prone to collecting dirt.

Now the only product I wish Apple would re-release is the iPhone Bluetooth Headset. But maybe an improved version. The design was beautiful, but performance was a bit poor as it had a range of about 2 feet before the signal degraded and became noisy. I still have mine, but the battery is long since dead.
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:40 PM on September 20, 2013

Zira, what is parallax about those wallpapers? They don't even seem to be the right size, the ones I looked at were about half the 1040x1526 rez they claim to require for the iPhone 5 retina display.

I will contribute a "parallax" wallpaper at 1040x1526. It's a nice shot of fireworks, it should load as wallpaper without cropping, just zoom out to max in the wallpaper preferences. I tried it, it works full screen without cropping and seems to show pretty good parallax.

I used this shot for years as my original iPhone wallpaper, I made a new version at highest possible resolution. It looks pretty good IMHO because it has dark areas behind the time and slide to unlock message, so it's clearly legible. And plus it's a pretty good fireworks photo. Let me know what you think of it, and how well it works on your iPhone.

Note: this photo copyright (c) 2007, no commercial use without prior express permission. Licensed for personal non-commercial use only.
posted by charlie don't surf at 6:35 PM on September 20, 2013

Yep, thought somebody would try this.
posted by maudlin at 6:51 PM on September 20, 2013

LOL the comments are classic:

Great, now a thief is gonna steal my cat too, along with the iPhone.

So we can have our cat as a security device and not worry about losing our thumbs to a thief.

The article has one serious point I hadn't considered, that the palm of his hand worked too. So it seems like any body part will work, if you interact with the sensor consistently. So this would work for severely disabled people. While not everyone has fingers, everyone has skin, and thus the ability to work the sensor. I bet it could scan your lip.

Anyway, that reminds me of when the iPad first came out, I read an article with a faked email exchange between Ballmer and Gates. One of them says holy shit did you see that Youtube video of a little 1 year old kid using an iPad? Then the other asks if he saw the video of a dog using an iPad, oh we are screwed.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:24 PM on September 20, 2013

Okay $2 later and my Music problems are more than solved. I'll have to use it a little more before I can vouch for e.g., stability, but so far Panamp seems pretty good.
posted by aubilenon at 1:17 AM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

The people at TechCrunch just WORRY a lot, don't they?

The iPhone 5s’s Touch ID fingerprint security system can be unlocked with your finger even if you’re asleep. That means a jealous lover could hold your phone to your thumb while you slumber and read all your texts, call logs, emails, and more.

But they seem to have eased up by the next para:

Apple confirms that a dead thumb won’t work. Chloroforming the victim might, but international spies will have no luck cutting off a Prime Minister’s thumb to access their secure files / selfies.

posted by maudlin at 7:09 AM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

I installed it on my iPhone 5 and it seems mostly superficial, also holy default privacy settings! I do like that there's more windows in Safari though
posted by Hoopo at 9:06 AM on September 21, 2013

Lock Your New iPhone with Nipples (Apparently!)
posted by homunculus at 9:38 AM on September 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Curious Case of the 103-Year-Old Car Phone
posted by homunculus at 10:34 AM on September 21, 2013

All I want is to be able to add an event in Calendar's list view. And for it to stay in the list view.The way things used to be. Is that so much to ask?
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:25 PM on September 21, 2013

Anyone Can Bypass Your iOS 7 Lockscreen to See (and Share!) Your Photos
posted by homunculus at 2:41 PM on September 21, 2013

Who figured that out? Dang.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:41 PM on September 21, 2013

Anyone Can Bypass Your iOS 7 Lockscreen to See (and Share!) Your Photos

I've tried this on my 4s and iPad 2, and I can't replicate it. I'm wondering if this a real thing and I'm doing it wrong, or if it just affects other models.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:40 PM on September 21, 2013

Apparently you can also make non-emergency calls from the Emergency Call menu by hammering the "call" button until it gives in.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:11 PM on September 21, 2013

TUAW's complete guide to iOS 7: How-tos, first impressions and more
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:04 PM on September 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Lock Your New iPhone with Nipples (Apparently!)

I actually wondered about that. Not surprising, but good to have it confirmed.
posted by alms at 8:56 PM on September 21, 2013

Chaos Computer Club breaks Apple TouchID
posted by homunculus at 12:37 PM on September 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a rude non-awakening this morning when the alarm I'd set on my iPhone failed to wake me up. Apparently, the first time you set an alarm, the default is NO SOUND (once you choose a sound, that will be used as the default for the next alarm). That is a really terrible decision - there needs to be some indicator that HEY YOU HAVE NOT PICKED A SOUND YOU WILL BE LATE FOR WORK.

It's now set to the Classic, very annoying "Alarm" tone.
posted by desjardins at 7:24 PM on September 24, 2013

Apple releases iOS 7.02 to fix lockscreen passcode bug

That was quick.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:58 AM on September 26, 2013

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