IOS 7: Apple Steals For Another Home Run

So WWDC has come and passed and as I mentioned in my last blog I’m a bit behind. So here is what I took from the recent reveal of the new iOS 7.

First off I have to say that I am not an apple lover, well at least not a mobile device apple lover anyway. I would kill for a Macbook for sure but I avoid the iOS devices like the plague. I used to be a proud iPhone owner but once I discovered the freedom and options of android I quickly became aware of how locked down iOS was and still is.

That being said after watching the iOS 7 keynote I mist say one thing above all else is true for Apple, its fucking beautiful. The way that the UI looks in general from screen to screen and the different native apps are amazingly detailed and just great to look at. Unfortunately that’s where, in my view, most of the originality ends.

The new iTunes radio while really cool and rumored to be released for a while now is not much more than any other streaming radio service except that it also works with your own purchased and iTunes match collection. The new version of Siri is pretty slick but to me seems nothing more than a slight upgrade of what people could already do on their android devices. And when did the iCloud service become a social network (Google + much?), plus they made a huge deal of auto updates from the app store which again android has been doing for a few years now, except we also have the option to not auto update if we want, however I am not sure if iOS will offer that as an option too ( they really should and hopefully will).

Like I said not a whole lot of originality but they did tweak things enough to not only make them their own in a way but as I stated at the beginning of this blog very, very pretty.

The few things that they did do that seem very original are the calendar and photo organization. The calendar looks really cool and has some good short cuts but I’m sure third party calendar apps have done most of this before, apple just seems to have a way of taking other ideas and making them look awesome.

The photo organization was one of the things that really looked cool to me though. It will automatically organized my “moment” which is pretty cool, in theory. The fact that it will not only take the date but also location into account when organizing is pretty cool but my big question is what happens when I don’t have my GPS or data on, will it still work via cell tower triangulation?

Another cool idea that actually I would love to see on Android is being able to filter the app store by age. That is a brilliant idea and as a father I would love this on my android tablet for my son so he could choose his own apps and games.

The last thing that was pretty neat was the activation lock theft deterrent. Basically when someone steal your phone and tries to wipe it it won’t activate again or do anything really until you type in the Apple ID and password originally associated with the phone. This is really a great idea but I hope they have a way to get around this if someone wants to sell their device otherwise they are stuck with it for life, which I’m sure Apple would be okay with anyway.

So really this update to me is more cosmetic and full of tweaking other peoples ideas than the innovation we have come to know from Apple. I guess what will make this new iOS shine though is the new Apple mobile devices that will most likely debut this fall ad pet their usual schedule. Until then I say way to rip everyone else off, make it prettier and say its yours Apple.

Richard
@riche613