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iOS 7 – а step forward, two steps back

14 June 2013 / 16:06:55  GRReporter
7781 reads

Thanks to its special form Mac Pro offers astonishingly good and quiet cooling among three plates placed in a triangle surrounded by the cylindrical casing.

The new Mac Pro is expected to go on sale by the end of the year.

iOS 7

The new Apple iOS 7 mobile operating system was introduced last at the conference. The American company announced that it has sold 600 million iOS devices so far and introduced iOS 7 as the biggest platform change since the introduction of the iPhone, in terms of interface and functionality.

All icons have been dramatically changed, as well as typography and a new colour palette has been used, new animations have been included, and windows’ elements have been made transparent. The interface is now extended over the entire screen and uses available space more efficiently. The change has affected all embedded applications such as Weather, Calendar, Messages, Game Centre, Mail, the notifications system, folders, etc.

The so called Control Centre is also a great innovation – it is shown on the display with a move up from the bottom of the screen. The tool features a number of the most desired controls for fast access – adjustment of screen brightness, volume, Airplane mode, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, and a flashlight. The Control Centre will also provide control via AirPlay, as well as all settings related to listening to music.

Now all applications can run in a background mode, which, according to the company, will not affect battery life, and switching between them is very similar to the card interface of webOS. New additions to iOS 7 also include the AirDrop technology, which, similarly to Wi-Fi Direct, allows a direct wireless connection for file transfer between iOS devices and OS X. However, the technology will not be available for iPhone 4 and 4S.

The premiere of Apple’s new music streaming service has finally come, after all sorts of rumours about it. This is the iTunes Radio which will be available to users via iTunes, iOS and Apple TV. Listeners will be able to create their own or listen to pre-set radio stations, vote for their favourite songs and add tracks to desired songs in iTunes. The new service will be launched in the autumn with iOS 7, and, initially, it will be only available to users in the USA. The service will be free of charge for everybody, but users who have an annual subscription to iTunes Match will not hear ads, unlike other users.

A new look and image – aren’t they too drastic and too sudden?

Over the last three years, Apple was criticised about its slow pace and the fact that the number of presented innovations in mobile products of the company declines with each version. And while the company’s shares reached incredible levels, consumers bought iPhone and iPad with unprecedented vigour, inertia and Apple-fans’ applauses seem to have muted this criticism. However, competition in the mobile sector has exacerbated dramatically and Android, the main and largest competitor of iOS, managed to develop a lot. Meanwhile Samsung, which sells 90% of phones with Android, presented a number of exciting innovations that have won them many admirers and sales of the Korean company exceeded those of Apple. Criticism in terms of lagging behind were being heard much often at the time and seem to have been heard in Cupertino, too. With Apple iOS 7, the company offered not only a new design, but many new features with which it will catch up with its competitors. And while these innovations are accepted fairly well, the same cannot be said about the design! The design of iOS 7 is the work of a team led by Jonathan Eve. Criticism comes from ordinary users and designers from around the world. The design is a particularly sensitive topic when it comes to Apple, since the company boasts a very good appearance of its products.

Social networks were literally flooded with opinions of displeased consumers

Another thing that was subjected to criticism was the opening of the conference itself. For years, fans of Apple were enchanted by the charisma of the late Steve Jobs. His presentations stood out with simplicity and originality, as well as his ability to present the company’s new products in a way that left the audience speechless and in disbelief for a moment, and later burst into loud applause. This year’s performance was marked by humour that was characterised as excessive by fans of the company. The old virtual calendar of the platform imitated leather binding. "No virtual cows were harmed in the making of this calendar," said Craig Federighi at the presentation of the new version of the application.

Last but not least – the painful issue regarding innovations: users see copying of features available by iOS competitors in many of the innovations. Jobs’s famous "Copycats" were mentioned, not without sarcasm, but this time regarding Apple.

Regardless of criticism and applause, one thing is clear: this year’s conference managed to stir the status quo and bring Apple fans a lot of new and interesting products. iOS 7 is also a big step forward, and, despite criticism, it will be very successful, according to analysts. But there is still more time until the release of the new iPhone with the new iOS 7. Surely, we will see more details and some of the "edges" of the operating system will be smoothed out.

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