Apple Seeds iOS 7.1 Beta 2 to Developers [Updated]

[smulji]

Hope it can be fixed in software - unlike adding another 1GB of RAM.

It's at least partly the meagre RAM memory that is responsible for Safari crashes / tab reloads.

That's my feeling as well. If you read the review on Anandtech for the iPad Air / Retina Mini, even they state that having only 1GB on these devices, at times causes instability / crashing issues, especially with the transition to 64-bit.

Don't be surprised if Apple includes 2GB of RAM on their next iPads & iPhone. Personally, I think they need it now.

 

[JAT]

My 72 year old mother upgraded to iOS 7 on her mini and is using it just fine. I think this "affordance" BS is overblown.

Until we have a 6.5b person consensus on what "fine" means, I'm pretty happy with my own observations on this. 4 of 6 Devices at my house have been upgraded to 7 (not to mention many apps that changed their look, and are downloadable on iOS6), not a lot of happiness. And I hear the same from other houses. Although the Music bugs are certainly worse than the look.

I understand my blind friend a lot more since 7 rolled out.

 

[aziatiklover]

I'm still waiting on quick reply messages!

 

[rtomyj]

If they keep it I hope they change it to the itunes buy style. Needs to be consistent.

Not just a gray background color but more with the foreground? Yea. Although I kinda prefer the 3D thing it's got going right now. xD.

 

[smulji]

Until we have a 6.5b person consensus on what "fine" means, I'm pretty happy with my own observations on this. 4 of 6 Devices at my house have been upgraded to 7 (not to mention many apps that changed their look, and are downloadable on iOS6), not a lot of happiness. And I hear the same from other houses. Although the Music bugs are certainly worse than the look.

I understand my blind friend a lot more since 7 rolled out.

What specifically aren't they happy? Some people aren't happy with any change. Ever.

 

[hansonjohn590]

My 72 year old mother upgraded to iOS 7 on her mini and is using it just fine. I think this "affordance" BS is overblown.

Ok, we get it. Apple does no wrong.

Hey, it's 3:00! Time for the afternoon Steve Jobs prayer!

 

[thisisdallas]

In a completely new look, with no visual differentiation in 90% of everything and text you need young eyes and 20-15 vision to see? No, they don't always know.

My grandma who thinks facebook is called "facepage" and has no idea how to work ANYTHING on the computer seems to be working her iPad without any problems. There was a minor learning curve, but after an hour or so, she had it down to an art form. I understand the complaints about not having visual differentiation, but at the same time, I feel like most of the people who are complaining are simply doing so JUST to complain.

If my grandma who is hard at seeing and can't figure out how to work something as simple as a flip phone for old folks can use iOS 7 without issue, I have a hard time believing that people are suffering without button pictures behind everything.

 

[larrylaffer]

The bounce animation on control center looks REALLY bad.

 

[Millah]

I totally agree with this. I got an iPad Air and was really expecting a fast, fluid experience from the latest A7 chip and new hardware. Whoa, was I disappointed to find gestures are laggy, switching between apps is slow, jumping around the system is sluggish and painful. It came with 7.0.3 pre-installed.

I used an iPad 4 and my iPhone 5 on iOS 6 and I cannot believe how fluid and wonderful they were together. Using it was genuinely fun. iOS 6 was ready and waiting for you, iOS 7 is reluctantly carrying out your commands in it's own time.

Interaction speed with an OS is possibly the single most important thing you can right and so far with 7.0.X I'm pretty disappointed. I find it harder to believe that iOS 7 UI is slower considering it's so much simpler - way more single colour space, less shadows, no more textures and gradients to chew through. The opaque stuff is clearly eating into ti but even when turned off (Increase Contrast setting) it's still much worse than iOS 6.

No, not really, but okay lets exaggerate things. iOS 7 runs very smooth and responsive on both the A7 and even the A6.

By the way, the graphics in iOS 7 are far more taxing than the textures and gradients were in 6. Textures don't use CPU, thats just artwork. However, heavily blurring live content in a layering structure, physics engine built into view controllers (UI Dynamics), and particle effects DOES use a significant amount of graphics sophistication to pull off. And 7 runs these graphical effects beautifully and smooth. The graphics in 7's user interface are far more advanced than 6's, even the animations are more sophisticated than OSX. "Simpler" does not mean dumbed down.

You wanna know why its not as PERFECTLY smooth as iOS 6? Because its a brand new piece of software. It still needs optimization. Just like every new piece of software. But as someone who has used Apple software for 15 years, I can say that this is a very stable 1.0 release in Apples long history. Not yet perfect, but nowhere NEAR what you are sensationalizing. You're making things up to justify your disliking of it.

 

[Zcott]

I may upgrade from iOS6 now, but looking ahead, iOS8 is just around the corner. I may wait.

What are you hoping for with iOS 8? It'll be evolution of iOS 7, not revolution.

 

[mcfly88]

The bounce animation on control center looks REALLY bad.

I'm sure it will look a lot smoother in the final version.

 

[kaplag]

I really hope iOS 7.1 is fluid as iOS 6 for me to update my iPhone 5. I've had both my iPhone 5 and an iPhone 5s run against each other with iOS 7 and performance was exactly the same. Then when my iPhone 5 broke, Apple replaced it coming with iOS 6. I was shocked at how much smoother everything felt. I did the same tests with iOS 6 vs iOS 7 and the iPhone 5 beat the iPhone 5s in many fluidity and responsiveness tests. Battery was also much better with iOS 6. I really want to update as I can't get many of the apps I want, please Apple!

whenever I see someone on the train still running iOS 6 unlock their device and just jump into an app I get really annoyed that it takes me longer. Between the stupid fade in when you wake the device and that over the top unlock animation it really erks me. The old unlock animation was so elegant, quick, and made sense for the unlock metaphor. The icons came in from the side of the screen because they are in the device. In the new unlock they come from outside of the device. How does that make any sense?

 

[petvas]

I may upgrade from iOS6 now, but looking ahead, iOS8 is just around the corner. I may wait.

Around the corner? You will have to wait at least 8 months to get a stable version..

 

[tarasis]

What about it???

iPhone 5 battery life is awful compared to iOS 6. iPad 4 battery life is about on par (slightly lower)

 

[rtomyj]

If they keep it I hope they change it to the itunes buy style. Needs to be consistent.

Not just a gray background color but more with the foreground? Yea. Although I kinda prefer the depth thing it's got going right now. xD.

By the way, they fixed lock screen controls. Before if you could slide to unlock everywhere with the music app playing (made it hard to adjust sound). Only real compliant of mine (other than stability).

 

[Parasprite]

I hope this fixes the "inadvertent Safari poof" bug (Safari closes suddenly).

Didn't have that on my 4S until iOS 7.

I believe that's usually due to low memory. IIRC previous versions of Safari were more adamant about prioritizing Safari (i.e., not giving up memory and closing other apps). Furthermore, iOS 6 behavior was more akin to just run slow or stop altogether rather than crash with low memory problems. I had this problem for about 2 months (nearly daily). It wasn't until I thought about it and started digging that I realized I was repeatedly opening a 1200 page PDF file into iBooks, which may have been contributing to low memory problems. I eventually split the PDF into 3 parts and reduced quality of the illustrations so I'd only be loading ~30MB at a time instead of 200MB which seemed to completely fix my problems with Safari closing.

Not to say that this isn't a bug per se, but that iOS 7 doesn't tolerate Safari or other apps "hogging memory" as much as it used to (it is certainly something that needs to be fixed somewhere along the line because it can be a huge PITA).

 

[joeshmo2010]

I may upgrade from iOS6 now, but looking ahead, iOS8 is just around the corner. I may wait.

iOS 8 is not just around the corner. Based on the historical release periods since iOS 5, iOS 8 beta will not be available until June, with a public release in Sept/Oct. That is far from "around the corner."

 

[Parasprite]

Around the corner? You will have to wait at least 8 months to get a stable version..

It could be "just around the corner" if he's looking at it from a particularly long street.

 

[Nevaborn]

well this went belly up.

I aint on the developer program but have never had any trouble installing and using betas, however that has changed. now I am being told I am not on the Developer after I have downloaded the beta ota. So now I have had to restore and now attempt to restore a backup.

I know I should just get a dev account and will probably but money has been very limited until now.

 

[Rogifan]

Ok, we get it. Apple does no wrong.

Hey, it's 3:00! Time for the afternoon Steve Jobs prayer!

And when did I say that?? Thinking usability issues with iOS 7 are overblown not equal Apple can do no wrong. Safari crashes on my iPad all the time and it's VERY annoying.

 

[Tubamajuba]

Ok, we get it. Apple does no wrong.

Hey, it's 3:00! Time for the afternoon Steve Jobs prayer!

Ok, we get it. Apple does no right.

Hey, it's 3:00! Time for the afternoon Steve Jobs picture burning!

See, I can use passive-aggressive ad hominem attacks as well!

 

[Piggie]

Option to have a row of numbers above the on screen keyboard?

From reading the mass, and i mean MASS of complaints about iOS7
I mean come on a web browser crashing?

iOS7 really does look like a Windows Vista Moment.

 

[smulji]

No, not really, but okay lets exaggerate things. iOS 7 runs very smooth and responsive on both the A7 and even the A6.

By the way, the graphics in iOS 7 are far more taxing than the textures and gradients were in 6. Textures don't use CPU, thats just artwork. However, heavily blurring live content in a layering structure, physics engine built into view controllers (UI Dynamics), and particle effects DOES use a significant amount of graphics sophistication to pull off. And 7 runs these graphical effects beautifully and smooth. The graphics in 7's user interface are far more advanced than 6's, even the animations are more sophisticated than OSX. "Simpler" does not mean dumbed down.

You wanna know why its not as PERFECTLY smooth as iOS 6? Because its a brand new piece of software. It still needs optimization. Just like every new piece of software. But as someone who has used Apple software for 15 years, I can say that this is a very stable 1.0 release in Apples long history. Not yet perfect, but nowhere NEAR what you are sensationalizing. You're making things up to justify your disliking of it.

"You wanna know why its not as PERFECTLY smooth as iOS 6? Because its a brand new piece of software. It still needs optimization. Just like every new piece of software."

Sure you're hope you're right about that one.

 

[ghostface147]

well this went belly up.

I aint on the developer program but have never had any trouble installing and using betas, however that has changed. now I am being told I am not on the Developer after I have downloaded the beta ota. So now I have had to restore and now attempt to restore a backup.

I know I should just get a dev account and will probably but money has been very limited until now.

You knew the risk going in right?

 

[Casiotone]

Quickly! Scour the release notes to find that there are pretty much no new user-facing features!

Not sure if you were sarcastic, but Apple usually doesn't put anything related to user facing features in beta release notes unless it can affect developers.

This is also true for bug fixes in the user interface or built-in apps, some fixes might not be listed in the release notes.