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Planet Worldwide
iOS 7 is the seventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system designed by Apple Inc as the successor to iOS 6. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, 2013, and was released on September 18, 2013. iOS 7 includes a redesigned user interface and numerous functionality changes. The design of iOS 7's new elements was led by Jony Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President of Design.As of December 2013, iOS 7 has been installed on 78% of supported devices.
History
The launch of iOS 6 in September 2012 was controversial due to licensing conflicts that resulted in the Google Maps application being replaced with Apple's own mapping software. Upon launch, users who had upgraded reported several errors regarding the service's accuracy and completeness, leading CEO Tim Cook to publicly apologize and suggest iOS 6 users use other mapping applications available in the App Store. Consequently, on October 29, 2012, Scott Forstall was dismissed as Senior Vice President (SVP) of iOS and his responsibilities divided among Jony Ive, who became the company-wide SVP for Human Interface, Craig Federighi, whose role as SVP for Mac Software Engineering was expanded to include iOS, Eddy Cue, who gained leadership for Maps and Siri under his duties as SVP for Internet Software and Services, and Bob Mansfield, who returned from his recent retirement to become SVP for Technologies.Forstall's departure was attributed to his refusal to sign a letter admitting to responsibility for errors in the Maps service and contrast with other executives over design choices.
Ive is considered to be a proponent of minimalistic design compared to Forstall and former CEO Steve Jobs, who supported skeuomorphic design.In September 2012, Fast Company published a feature on the skeuomorphism controversy within Apple, citing designer complaints over the faux-leather in iCal—designed to imitate seating in Jobs' personal airliner—and Jobs' support of casino-like elements within Game Center in iOS 4.1.Almost immediately after Ive's appointment, speculation started that Ive would seek to remove skeuomorphic elements within the operating system.
On June 10, 2013, iOS 7 Beta 1 was announced and released to registered developers in the iOS Developer Program after the WWDC keynote speech,supporting the iPhone 4 onwards, and iPod Touch (5th generation). iOS 7 Beta 2 was released to developers on June 24, 2013, adding support for the iPad 2 onwards, and the iPad Mini. iOS 7 Beta 3 was released on July 8, 2013.
Up until iOS 7's fourth beta, Apple followed a biweekly release pattern, but iOS 7 Beta 4 broke this pattern by being released on July 29, 2013—three weeks after its precedent beta, instead of the usual two. Speculation suggests iOS 7 Beta 4 was delayed by one week because of the hacking attempt towards Apple's developer servers that took place only four days before its expected release date. The last beta, iOS 7 Beta 6, was released on August 15, 2013, bringing fixes to iTunes in the Cloud, as well as speed and stability improvements.
On September 10, 2013, at their iPhone event, Apple announced that iOS 7 would be publicly released on September 18, 2013, for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, also releasing the iOS 7 Golden Master to registered developers shortly afterwards, in order for them to complete final software testing before its full public release.
An update to the operating system was released for the iPhone 5S model after reports that the iPhone 5S would prompt for a password instead of accepting the fingerprint of the user. An update was also made available for the 5C model.
On October 22, 2013 Apple released an update that introduced new animations to the home screen when a user selects the reduced motion option in the accessibility settings. These new animations are to solve problems of people feeling motion sickness when using iOS 7.
Design
iOS 7 was unveiled during the opening keynote of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10, 2013. Billed as the "biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone," the most noticeable change was an overhaul of the user interface. In a promotional video shown during the keynote, Ive described the update as "bringing order to complexity," highlighting features such as refined typography, new icons, translucency, layering, physics, and gyroscope-driven parallaxing as some of the major changes to the design.The design iOS 7 noticeably depart from skeuomorphic elements such as green felt in Game Center, wood in Newsstand, and leather in Calendar, in favor of flat graphic design with a multi-plane 2.5D structure.
The icons for iOS 7 were reportedly designed by Apple's marketing team, with them being told to design the apps around the color palette of the icons; straying from the usual design methodology of iOS.It was also noted that Apple's website displayed different icons for several iOS 7 apps for a period of time, leading to speculation that the icons were already in the process of being changed as the design continues to develop.
Features
AirDrop
iOS 7 integrates Apple's wireless sharing feature AirDrop for the iPhone 5 onward, iPod Touch (5th generation) onward, iPad (4th generation) onward, and iPad Mini 1st generation onward.
App Store
The App Store provides more search options by age range and introduces a new section called Near Me, which allows the user to find out which apps are popular in their area. The App Store also supports automatic app updates. Prior to iOS 7, the user had to initiate the update process.
Camera
The new camera interface supports the three previous photo modes (video, photo, and panoramic photo) as well as a new square photo mode. iOS 7 also offers live photo filter previewing with nine filters to choose from.
Control Center
The Control Center display is available by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. It provides access to settings such as airplane mode and brightness, media controls, AirPlay and AirDrop, and shortcuts to several apps including a built-in flashlight, clock, calculator, and camera. Other functions offered are the ability to turn on or off Bluetooth, and Do Not Disturb; lock the screen’s orientation; play, pause, or skip a song, and see what is playing; connect to AirPlay-enabled devices; and quickly access the clock, calculator, and camera apps. Users also have access to AirDrop, previously only available on Macs and newly added in iOS 7, as a method of transferring files between iOS devices.
Music and iTunes Radio
Along with user interface changes, the Music app also integrates Apple's iTunes Radio service, which is a free, ad-supported service available to all iTunes users, featuring Siri integration on iOS. Users are able to skip tracks, customize stations, and purchase the station's songs from the iTunes Store.Users can also search through their history of previous songs.The number of track skips are limited like Pandora Radio's service. iTunes Match subscribers will be able to use an ad-free version of the service.The service has pre-loaded stations, including a playlist of trending songs on Twitter. The service also generates a radio station based on input like a single artist with songs by them and others similar. The service's selection is expected to learn the user's preferences from input whether the user likes or dislikes the track.
Currently, iTunes Radio is only available in the US or who have a U.S Apple ID. Apple has announced plans to offer the service in other countries at a later date.The service will only be available for iTunes, iOS, and Apple TV platforms.
Multitasking
iOS 7 builds on the limited multitasking introduced in iOS 4 and provides full multitasking for all apps. The multitasking layer also provides for background updating of apps, and previews of all running apps. The new Multitasking dock in iOS now shows a screenshot of the whole app rather than just the icon.
iOS in the Car
iOS in the Car, due for release in 2014, uses Siri integration in selected car models to offer eyes-free and hands-free satellite navigation, phone, music and iMessage integration through the car's screen.Beta 1 and 2 of iOS 7.1 have indicated that iOS in the Car could be made public in the final version of the 7.1 update in January/February.
Other updates
There are seven "dynamic" wallpapers included in the operating system (iPhone 4 does not receive these wallpapers due to hardware limitations). All seven have "bubble" designs with different colors. The bubbles in the wallpapers move based on the device's accelerometers and gyroscope. Static wallpapers now move with the gyroscope in an effect called Parallax. Photos in iOS 7 uses the EXIF data in each photo to sort photos by date and location, to the year level, and also supports sharing video through iCloud Photo Stream.
Safari in iOS 7 integrates the smart search field first used in Safari 6 for OS X and Mavericks' iCloud implementation of iCloud Keychain. Other changes include infinite tabs, parental controls, and improvements to Twitter sharing and Reading List. The tab area has also been rearranged to look at the tabs from above rather than a paged front-on view. Siri features a new translucent redesign to match the rest of the system, new male and female voices, greater control over system settings, and Twitter, Wikipedia, Bing, and Photos integration.The trusted devices feature alerts the user when they connect their iOS device to a new Mac/PC by asking them if they trust the current computer.This feature is meant to prevent iOS devices from being compromised by potentially malicous software on computers or charging devices. Other changes mentioned, but not fully featured in the keynote, include audio-only calling with the new FaceTime Audio, Notification Center syncing and availability from the lock-screen, Tencent Weibo integration, Wi-Fi Hotspot 2.0, OS-level call blocking, app-specific virtual private networking (VPN), and activation locking through Find My iPhone.
Reception
iOS 7 has received positive reviews. David Pogue of The New York Times praised iOS 7, saying that users will become accustomed to the dramatically changed interface, and will come to enjoy the utilitarian and additional Siri features. He also noted that iOS 7 was the biggest change in the current generation of iOS devices, not the iPhone 5S and 5C.Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch stated that although "iOS 7 will be a dramatic change from the iOS many users already know and love, but on balance it’s an update packed with plenty of new features that make using Apple’s mobile devices easier and more enjoyable".
The adoption rate of iOS 7 was reported to be as high as 35% after one day.By September 22, iOS 7 was installed on more than 200 million devices, which Apple claimed was "the fastest software update in history".Shortly after release, some users reported the ability to bypass their device's passcode requirement and access certain information, which Apple fixed with the 7.0.2 update.
Many users experienced dramatic virtual keyboard lag rendering their phones 'unusable' after updating to iOS 7 on iPhone 4 and 4S. A workaround with nearly 100% success was discovered which involves a simple step of turning off "Documents and Data" in Settings-iCloud-Documents and Data.A thread on the Apple online forum received attention from the media in late September 2013 after a number of users reported feeling nauseated after experiencing the animations of the new operating system. George Kikano of Case Medical Center stated that the new "parallax" function of iOS 7 is causing the symptoms in some users, and not the animations as previously thought.
Some critics noted the influence of competing mobile platforms on the design and functionality of iOS 7. Of note were the use of concepts from Android and Windows Phone, such as a similarly minimal and typographic design, Control Center being an equivalent to similar settings toggles on the notification shade of Android, a similar multitasking menu to WebOS, and even the design of the Weather app being almost identical to those on Windows 8 and HTC Sense. However, they also noted that Apple has had a long history of taking concepts from other platforms of the period and refining them as innovations of their own, including the original Mac OS–which was inspired primarily by the graphical user interface of Xerox PARC's Alto. Sascha Segan of PC Magazine stated that "Apple's brilliance is in putting the pieces together and marketing them. Apple's developer APIs and its history of making money for developers still reigns supreme—there's less piracy than on Android, and a bigger audience and more design flexibility than on Windows Phone."
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