In many ways, Apple is a victim of its own success. The mass market and consumers of Apple products look forward to every WWDC. In the past, Apple has released products at the conference that have changed our lives, such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Therefore, when WWDC rolled around at the beginning of June, the same high expectations were there.
Ever since the release of the first iPad, Apple has come short of meeting the expectations of the mass market and its consumers. Although these incremental updates are spectacular in many ways, they fall short of the expectations that shareholders, investors and even the general public have of Apple’s innovation abilities due to its prior success.
While these updates enhance the user experience, once the initial fervor dies down, this new update most likely won’t move the Apple stock and enable the company to blow out its numbers like it once did. Regardless, iOS 7 truly is a great operating system upgrade and is Apple’s most significant smartphone operating system update since iOS 3, with a redesign, updates to settings, iTunes Radio, enhancements to existing apps and more.
Dipesh Mukerji, senior director of Product Strategy & Marketing at Kony, Inc., discusses his top seven features in the upcoming iOS 7 release.
Click through for more on seven hot features in the new Apple iOS 7 operating system due this fall, as identified by Kony.
Apple has gone away from the scheumorphic design of previous iOS versions. The design is far simpler, yet it is sleeker and more transparent. There are transparent backgrounds that can be seen clearly behind the app icons and there is less 3D happening with icons themselves. Although this does follow the flatter design of some of Apple’s competitors (i.e., Windows Phone 8), it does make the user experience more sharp and crisp. This redesign is very cool and certainly makes the UI and UX stand out more.
This is a swipe feature that already exists on most Android phone operating systems, but it is almost a necessity to have on phones these days. The user is able to quickly access the lighting, Wi-Fi, sound, airplane mode, Bluetooth, other open apps, phone function, notifications, etc. With one quick swipe, you can easily become the “IT administrator” of your phone.
Apps that you are using can now update in the background when you have favorable conditions. For instance, apps that you use frequently can update when you are connected in Wi-Fi mode as opposed to being in carrier coverage. This translates to automatic app updates, but you have the control of when and how they update. You can also quickly access the multiple apps that you may have running in the background.
This is Apple’s answer to Pandora, Google’s Play Music, and Spotify. Apple needed to do this to stay in the competition, as well as meet the expectations and demands of its user base. iTunes Radio is a free music service that uses ads to generate revenue, but users who pay $25 annually can avoid the ads. iTunes Radio learns from the listening habits of the user through their purchases and listening history, and users can create their own radio stations as well. Siri voice commands can also be used to control the service.
This is Apple’s answer to Samsung’s Android OS, which makes users bump phones to share information. Apple is instead allowing users to share files, music, movies and anything else on the phone with other Apple users through AirDrop.
Safari has completely expanded its screen space. The browser page is wider, longer and utilizes every pixel of space. The tabs are also redesigned and are now shown as vertical columns of images. Safari now integrates with the iCloud Keychain, and therefore stores your usernames and passwords on the cloud.
Apple has given the camera app a new UI and more features that make it mimic Instagram. Users can now take square photos, change the format and add image adjustments. There are also now four options for photo taking (square, panoramic, video and photo) and additional built-in filters. The speed of capturing images has also been made faster and sleeker. Lastly, the shutter animation has been adjusted to be a short lasting blur.