Version: iOS 7 Beta 3
Last updated: 9th July 2013
As the industry moves towards an era of mobility, smartphones and mobile apps are leading the way with tablets buffing up the mobility strategy. Smartphones aren’t a new thing, they have been around for so many years! I have in the past used a Palm Pilot way back in college days!
Anyhow, being in a techie company there are some advantages. One of them is that you would have colleagues who jump the wagon on certain new technologies and I have been able to get a chance to play with them. Some embarked on the new Microsoft Surface Pro which I think is a game changer for Microsoft, it is sleek and nice but I would love to hear more feedback about it after 6 months of heavy usage of the item.
Another advantage I did have been to see some folks install the latest iOS 7 beta versions on their iPhones. Technically, at this point it is currently in iOS 7 Beta 2, it is still a beta version and I expect over the weeks, more and more features will be released with it as well as all the bugs will be fixed.
Frankly, the look of the new OS really did impress me. So much so that my senior manager who saw my presentation slides yesterday said that it looked very “iOS looking”. I guess the design did leave me a strong impression on how I even design my slides. Gone are the shadows and the bevel and even borders!
Likes:
- New design (it is about time they changed the look!). I always felt the existing design is outdated (me and about a million other people)
- The new To-Do/Reminder app, it is finally a lot more functional but features aren’t really there yet. Still people will stick to their 3rd party apps (I use Wunderlist on my iOS devices and my PC as well)
- New dynamic wallpapers. Honestly, Apple is way behind on this especially when compared to Android. Currently this bit is still a little buggy as sometimes my wallpaper just disappears and I have just a black screen.
- Calender. I love the new look of it and how it functions. I can definitely get rid of fantastical once iOS 7 is available for the masses. Finally in Beta 3 they have included back the small dots to appear in the calendar days to indicate that there is an event on that day.
- Multitasking – I like how the spring-board appears now but again, it isn’t something new that the other mobile OS have not done.
- Control Center – Finally it is here, I wonder what took Apple this long to implement it within iOS. Basically, control center is one of the features which many people always wanted, a simple area to access all the necessary settings you might turn on and off quite frequently such as your bluetooth, wifi and plane mode. Wonder why it took them so long to implement this feature.
- Torchlight – Wheeeeee, easy to start it and operate it
- Folders – I like it that you can have more apps in folders. And in order to access them, you will have more pages within the folder to access them.
Dislikes:
- No new game changers. I see iOS7 as a new mask in which the iPhone is putting on. No new technologies announced, yet.
- Animations, as you select folders and as you move between apps, there are some new animations which does need to get a bit of used to. Personally I prefer a quick motion rather than the fancy animations.
- Maps – As I said, this is all just a mask. The map data is still useless for Malaysia. And no, I do not live next to Mines Wonderland in Bandar Utama
- I dislike the logos above mainly because I feel that the circle is too close to the overall border. If it was a tad bit smaller, it might just make some better sense. Just my two cents. Another app icon which I don’t like is the new voice memos.
- Battery life at the moment still sucked as I think several apps or functions are draining the battery.
Okay, the maps bit isn’t really a problem since I am praying that once iOS 7 is fully released we can see a better Map app.
Wishes:
- Better maps data for Malaysia with 3D flyover data (wishful thinking)
- Efficient use of battery power so I don’t have to charge my iPhone 3 times a day
- Able to access the iBooks store to get the latest books (Apple is forcing me to download my epub from other sources :P)
Since it is still in Beta mode, I am sure the operating system will be well polished by the time it is available to the public. Will be updating this a bit more as I find more time to bug my friends to use their iPhones.
