6 months seems about right. By the time there is an announcement and beta, Apple has already had a feature freeze for quite a while. The roadmap was set a long time ago.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
For those excited by Ive's iOS 7...
- Thread starter Dulcimer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
6 months seems about right. By the time there is an announcement and beta, Apple has already had a feature freeze for quite a while. The roadmap was set a long time ago.
Apple should add more gestures to ios. Why do i need to use buttons for actions that could be accomplished with swipes (1,2,3 fingers, swipe from edge)
People really should stop wanting change just for the sake of change. iOS is extremely elegant yet powerful. It should only be changed for the sake of improvement, not for the sake of change.
Every iPhone so far has become the best selling smartphone to date, this is largely due to the OS. Apple should be extremely cautious changing that.
I, for one, love iOS the way it is. I think it can be improved, but not by adding more quick toggles or widgets or whatevers. That's just gimmicky nonsense.
Every iPhone so far has become the best selling smartphone to date, this is largely due to the OS. Apple should be extremely cautious changing that.
I, for one, love iOS the way it is. I think it can be improved, but not by adding more quick toggles or widgets or whatevers. That's just gimmicky nonsense.
Is it really powerful? You can't share to any app (makes the OS limited). Notification center is a joke (Android's rich notification system makes iOS seem so limited). Sure, iOS is really good. But there are lots of changes they can make that can improve the OS and make it easier to use.
You can share to apps. I can open PDF's from Dropbox to Adobe Reader, iAnnotate or even Google Drive. What do you mean exactly?
Second, rich notifications are not necessarily better. They're just richer, but also more distracting. I don't see how iOS notifications fall short, they provide all the info one could possible want to push.
Third, I think the existence of lock screen notification is MUCH more important than the lack of rich notifications. Lock screens notifications are, in my opinion, essential to a good a notification system and Android lacks good lock screen notifications. Overall, the iOS notification system is superior.
Open the photos app and try sharing a photo to any app. How do you do that? On Android, any app can plug into sharing of any file type. It is very useful.
Notification center is terrible. I have notifications stuck there forever even though they have been read. And don't even get me started on the X button that is almost impossible to click on. Why can't you just easily swipe them away? Apple makes it so difficult.
Email notifications provide virtually no information because they can't be expanded. Missed phone calls do not let you choose an action. On Android you can choose to message back or call back directly from the notification. That isn't distracting, its just a time saver. Having music controls in the notification center is a million times better than double clicking the home button and swiping left. Plus, they are able to have album art which makes the song more identifiable.
I said, anything Apple does to make iOS less stale will use more energy.
You come at me with the ability to set defaults and a properly functioning sharing system?!?!
That is your refresh to make iOS less stale? Adding features that other mobile os's have had for over half a decade?
Gimme a break, that's no refresh. That's boring! They are gonna have to do a lot better then that to keep me awake through the keynotes.
I still stand by what I said either power consumption.
Update: it seems like Ive may actually have influence over a new design direction for iOS. Supposedly, he's pushing for a more 'flat' design, which means more simplicity and less skeuomorphism. What do you guys think about this?
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/2...eater-hardware-software-design-collaboration/
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/2...eater-hardware-software-design-collaboration/
There's a reason other mobile operating systems have those features. And yes, that will make Apple less stale. Your battery argument does not hold water. There's a lot of features that can be added that do not add to battery usage. It seems like you are saying Apple can not ever add features again in the history of Apple's existence because it might affect battery usage. These days, the biggest drain of the battery is caused by screen on time. The reason is operating systems and processors have become much more efficient.
I wasn't expecting anything big for iOS 7 due to the short amount of time from Scott Forstall being let go. Although, I was expecting maybe a small change or some sort, and according to rumors the "flat" design will be the small change.
It SEEMS like I'm saying that because you cut small portions of my post out as quotes. Aka you are hearing what you want to hear.
Firstly I'm talking about current devices. The battery is static and can not be upgraded. We are talking about iOS 7 not future iPhones with bigger and/or more advanced battery where a million features can be added and still get a days usage.
Secondly, there are very very very few features that can be added that don't use power. Do not disturb, because you save on he screen lighting up and ring/vibrate which apple already implemented. And call blocking for the same reasons.
Third. Even apple cannot define physics believe it or not. Everything that does anything requires energy. Even the alarm clock uses some minute level of power.
Fourth and is a part you cut out. Every feature apple has ever added uses more power then it did prior to that feature. Some features only use power when they are active but regardless they still use more power. Do you think when you get to the airport and passbook brings up your boarding pass that all happened off magical fairy dust and not the battery in the phone? The app was using the GPS to tell where you were, it was using the processor and all the phones hardware to pull up the proper boarding pass, it was blasting the screen at max brightness so the pass would scan. Same applies to Siri, hold the phone to your head to activate Siri which most people turn off btw to CONVERSE BATTERY.
People are talking about an overhaul of iOS to make it fresh and new. I would like to see that but like I originally said (not sure if you quoted or cut it out) I don't see that being possible on the current hardware (no mention of future versions).
Then I went on to say what I think they should update. which you did cut out. Which were things like you mentioned, just minor updates and perfecting native apps. But I'm a realist I'm under no delusions that adding defaults or things like that will make iOS less stale, that's what they have been doing since the very beginning! Why would all of a sudden people say "Wow! Minor updates iOS is so fresh and cutting edge now!"?
So Apple isn't working to make the software more efficient? If they aren't, they are probably the only OS development team that isn't. You are acting like software only gets more bloated when features are added. In fact, by adding more features, often the process allows for more efficient core system features to be added as well.
Tap Edit > Select Photo > Tap Share. A share sheet comes up. I'll say one thing, it's not as consistent with what apps appear as I'd like from app to app but it's miles better than sharing was in iOS 5.
I've never had one get stuck, not saying you haven't, and I'll agree that the X has way too small of a target. I don't use the Notification Center all that often. The Lockscreen notifications are killer though. That I use multiple times a day, especially at work. I'm not familiar with Android that much but if it doesn't have that that's a deal breaker for me.
How is that a time saver? You tap on the notification and it takes you to exactly where the message/whatever is. Of course, I can't stand the BiteSMS widget (jailbroken app) because I just don't see the point. iOS switches apps so quickly there is no point to single widgets (only one on the screen).
These make a lot of sense. Nice to see somebody actually produce concrete suggestions rather than generally shouting away at 'outdated UIs'.
Personally, I don't think Apple will risk radical changes with 500M installed base. For most users it's better to be predictable and understandable than flashy and feature-packed. On the web we see the enthusiasts and reality get distorted. Of course it's great if one can please both customer groups.
I can't send photos from the Photo app to Dropbox. Why not?
That's app sharing.
(And before you say "but you can upload the photo from within Dropbox!", that's not the point, at all)
I couldn't help from laugh at this comment after what I previously posted.
But yes, once again, I covered this in previous post where I said the software is designed for the hardware. If they are working so hard to make iOS more efficient why hasn't it? How many years and versions do you think it will take them? Only thing making the iDevices more efficient is more efficient hardware. Note the colossal battery in the iPad 3 and 4, the slight gains in battery life of the iPad 4 are directly related to more efficient hardware vs the iPad 3. You should call Apple and tell them they are doing it wrong, stop investing millions into more efficient hardware and just make iOS more efficient in house. The fact is its as efficient as its going to get using the current hardware it uses.
BTW I think its a very power efficient OS the trade off is some people have begun to think its stale. You'll need to add to it and expand on it for people to think its fresh. Which once again takes me to where we started, its going to have to consume a bit or even a lot more power to do so. AND I don't think it has the battery to do that and still be up to Apples standards when it comes to battery life.
I think if we look at the more recently released Apple made apps such as iPhoto, we can see a better look as to how the entire OS may be headed in regards to sharing and the "flat" look. Given, some of the esthetics of the app are still that skeuomorphic design I think we can understand that the less colorful icons now in silver may spread throughout iOS.
Ives only being there 6 months
On the comments about Ives only having his new duties for 6 months. It has been 6 months since Apple announced it. But inside the company, they had to have known well before the announcement what they were going to do. Was it one month before, was it 6 months before? No idea. But they decided what they were gonna do, starting making changes, then look at their calendar of events and picked what they thought a good time to announce it would be.
----------
And, a lot of the features I'm dying for are already available as hacks in Cydia. It's not like they'd have to rewrite the operating system to get them in.
Isn't iOS 7 betas already available to developers? Why aren't we hearing what features are and are not available in iOS 7?
On the comments about Ives only having his new duties for 6 months. It has been 6 months since Apple announced it. But inside the company, they had to have known well before the announcement what they were going to do. Was it one month before, was it 6 months before? No idea. But they decided what they were gonna do, starting making changes, then look at their calendar of events and picked what they thought a good time to announce it would be.
----------
And, a lot of the features I'm dying for are already available as hacks in Cydia. It's not like they'd have to rewrite the operating system to get them in.
Isn't iOS 7 betas already available to developers? Why aren't we hearing what features are and are not available in iOS 7?
I would like that on the "search page." make the search spotlight a widget and have that entire page customizable with widgets. Though I would like the weather app on the home screen.