iOS 7 – The New Version of Operating System From Apple

Introduction:
Since the day iPhone first launched in 2007, the look and feel of Apple's mobile operating system has remained largely unaltered. Although iOS has seen significant functional expansion and iterative design updates over the last six years, the user interface has been a constant.

But now, in face of increasing intense competition and leadership changes, Apple is making its first substantial leap into a new, more modern design with iOS 7. Yes, the iOS 7 has finally arrived. As announced last week, Apple on Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at the company's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) released a major update of the operating system that runs on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

Apple's iOS 7 has been heralded by most as a flat design due to the lack of texture on app icons, the bare-bones fonts and the minimalistic menus. However, we don't think that's the right word to describe it, as Apple's new color palette, swooshy transitions and live wallpapers make iOS more vibrant and exciting than ever.

The new UI is a dramatic reimagining of the core of Apple’s mobile operating system for iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. The most obvious superficial change is a completely new visual appearance with a new emphasis on minimalism and simplicity. At the same time, iOS 7 is always in motion, with transitions and other effects almost everywhere you look in the OS.

What’s New in iOS 7:
The design of iOS 7's new elements was led by Jonathan "Jony" Ive, Apple's Senior Vice President of Design, which comes up with the following new & interesting features:

• Camera: the iOS 7 comes up with a new Camera interface that 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.

While the iPhone 5S will be the only device to offer Apple's new slow-motion video and burst photography features, older devices will be getting other upgrades to the camera app. With iOS 7, the viewfinder UI has been simplified.

Now with a simple swipe to the left or right anywhere on the screen, users can switch between the photo, video, and panorama modes. The rise of Instagram has influenced iOS 7, prompting Apple to add a new square photo mode and live photo filters. Overall, the camera app is not just easier to use, but faster to operate.

• Control Centre: One novel new addition to iOS in this iteration is the always-accessible Control Center, which allows for easy access and control of a number of the device settings and a few other thoughtful features like a flashlight.

If you swipe up from the bottom of any screen, including the lock screen, you'll see the Control Center. In the Control Center, you'll be able to quickly access the flashlight, alarms, calculator and camera. You'll also be able to adjust your device's brightness to save battery life; pause, play, or skip a song you're listening to; adjust your Wi-Fi and more.

Similar to the Notification Center, Control Center is available by scrolling up from the bottom of the screen and 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, compass, calculator, and camera.
Control Center makes it effortless to manage. I often like to change tracks on the fly when listening to music, and while there was already quick access with a double tap of the home button or from the lock screen, Control Center provides a more consolidated view.

• Notification Centre: in the new iOS 7 it’s the most interesting feature. Where upwards swipes bring up Control Center, downwards ones give you the new Notification area.

Notification Centre lets you know about new mail, missed calls, to-dos that need doing and more. And a new feature called Today gives you a convenient summary of, well, today. One glance at your iPhone and you’ll know if it’s a certain someone’s birthday or if you’ll need an umbrella. You’ll even get a heads-up on tomorrow. You can access Notification Centre from any screen, including the Lock screen. Just swipe down. And get up to speed.

This is divided into three (swipeable) sections: Today, which summarises your calendar and tells you what the weather's doing; All, which records background app updates, push notifications and so on; and Missed, which as you might expect details any alerts you haven't acknowledged.

• AirDrop: A feature in iOS 7 that may prove to be very popular is AirDrop. It allows users who are near each other to quickly send one another pictures, videos and other items using either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It's Apple's answer to a similar feature on Samsung's Galaxy smartphones. On top of that, transfers through AirDrop are encrypted, so you don't have to worry about the NSA or others spying.

With AirDrop, users only need to be concerned with the top two rows. Since we selected a video from the Photos app, other images and clips appear alongside as scrollable thumbnails. Users can choose from other photos in a library and send multiple files in a single AirDrop session. Each selected picture is ticked with a blue checkmark.
It lets you quickly and easily share photos, videos, contacts and anything else from any app with a Share button. Just tap Share, then select the person you want to share with. AirDrop does the rest using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. No setup required. And transfers are encrypted, so what you share is highly secure.

• Multitasking: Multitasking first appeared in iOS 4, but at the time it was limited: Only certain types of apps could run in the background, using Apple-approved frameworks for tasks such as audio, location, and uploading. In iOS 7, Apple has loosened the restrictions for multitasking and added a whole new user interface for switching between apps.

A double tap of the home button brings up a redesigned app switching view. In the past, the interface was limited to a small, expanded row of icons on the bottom of the screen. Now, the multitasking view takes over the entire screen and presents not only the icon, but a snapshot of the app's interface.

The change makes for not only a more appealing visual experience, but actually allows for quick reference. For example, if you're drafting an email and need to refer to information on a website, you can make quick reference of the Safari window from within the multitasking view. It may seem like a small change, but the impact on day-to-day efficiency is significant.

• Photos: Gallery app innovation has been at a standstill for years. Until now, the iPhone has just shown a grid of photos that you must endlessly scroll through. Now, in the iOS 7 the Photo app intelligently organizes your photos in some new ways. The default “Moments” view shows you your photos organized by day (and labeled by location).

If you back out a level into the “Collections” view, the app bundles them more broadly, again by date taken and location. Finally, a new “Years” view shows you every picture you took in an entire year. Cooler still, you can hold your thumb over the collection of pictures to preview individual photos and jump right to them. This app is great and we hope other phones follow Apple’s lead.
Tap “Years" and all your shots fill the screen. Each year holds Collections, like your trip to California. And in that Collection are distinct Moments — photos of Hollywood Boulevard, videos of San Francisco Bay. So you can find a shot from whenever, wherever, in no time.

• Safari: Now you can do browsing in a bigger, better and faster way through Safari in iOS7.

The first thing you'll likely encounter that's different is the address bar. As you can see there are no longer two different text fields, one for entering a URL and one for search. Instead Apple has combined the two fields into one Smart Search field.
Another new screen in Safari—on both the iPhone and the iPad—is the Shared Links section. You can access it by first tapping on the bookmarks button, and then on the @ button. The resulting screen lists any Twitter posts, tweeted by people you follow, that contain a URL.

• iTunes Radio: in the iOS 7 along with new UI, the new music interface also integrates Apple's iTunes Radio service, which initially launched in the United States. Launch in Europe will follow later. iTunes Radio is a Pandora-like service that streams music similar to a selected artist or song. iTunes Radio is ad-supported.

The new Music app handles creating Genius playlists differently. Where once you went to a track’s Now Playing screen on an iPhone or iPod touch and tapped a Genius button to create a playlist of related tracks, you now go to the Now Playing screen and tap a Create entry on the bottom of the screen.
A menu appears with three options—Genius Playlist, New Station From Artist, and New Station From Song. Tap Genius Playlist and the app will create a playlist of 25 related tracks. This playlist appears when you tap the Playlists button, not the Genius button. You can’t create Genius Playlists from tracks playing through iTunes Radio.

PROS of iOS 7: iOS 7 is bundled with hidden features and tricks that let iPhone and iPad users get more out of their device with the newest software. Following are some examples of those:

• Better Do Not Disturb Options:If you haven’t already started using Do Not Disturb, iOS 7 is the perfect time to turn on this sanity saving feature.

• A unified screen to quickly access toggles and controls for system settings and services, and for using AirDrop and AirPlay.

• Block Calls and Text in iOS 7: if you want to block calls or texts on the iPhone you need something more. In iOS 7 there is an option to block calls, texts and FaceTime from a specific contact.

• Providing iOS control to in-car control systems on some car models by selected vendors from 2014.
• Shoot Multiple Photos in semi-Burst Mode: Holding down the shutter button on the iPhone 5 with IOS 7 will shoot about three photos per second, a far cry from the 10 per second on the iPhone 5s.
• Includes Siri integration (eyes-free/hands-free modes), satellite navigation, telephony, music, and iMessage integration.

• Smarter Updating of Apps: With Background App Refresh in iOS 7 your apps can be updated smarter based on the connection you have and it should eventually learn when is the best time to update information.

• Apple boosts iTunes Radio's ability to learn from users' actions and hone in on their musical tastes — stations "evolve based on the music you play and download.

• Zoom While Shooting Video: the most interesting one. Users can zoom in while taking video on the iPhone 5 with a pinch to zoom gesture. To do this just pinch on the video while recording or when setting up your shot.

• Accessible on every page of the Home screen by swiping downward from anywhere.

• Swipe Up To Dismiss Notifications: To dismiss a notification just push up on it and it will slide away. You can also pull down to go straight to the Notification Center in iOS 7.

CONS of iOS 7: despite having some very good highlights and new updates, but still iOS7 has no. of loopholes, which need to be optimized. Following are some of them.

• No Home Button Swipe: everything about the iOS 7 experience is gesture-based, but when you want to go back to the main screen, you have to press the home button.
• AirDrop support too fragmented: Great feature but only works with the iPhone 5 and newer, the iPad (fourth-generation and later) and iPad Mini, and the iPod touch (fifth generation and later).
• Charger & Battery issues: iOS 7 has the ability to both refresh app data and update apps automatically in the background, but my limited testing suggests this is very heavy on the battery. Also with the new iOS, this note pops up on screen: "This is not an authorized Apple product and may not be reliable.
• Folder views only show nine icons: While the number of icons that a folder can hold has been increased, only nine icons are shown at any one time. This is a poor use of screen real estate and forces users to swipe unnecessarily.
• Notifications panel is too big: It's too big and doesn't present enough at-a-glance data.
• Poor response to touch: Finding myself having to tap and then retap often. More of a problem on the iPad.

Conclusion:
Though having few drawbacks, Apple says there are 200 new features in iOS 7, so there plenty more to explore and enjoy. It’s easy to think that the software is simply iOS 6 with a fresh coat of flat paint but I think that’s a short-sighted observation. The more you’ll use iOS7, the more you’ll get impressed by its updates & exciting,new features.