iOS 7 Beta 2 Tidbits: New Welcome Screen, Updated Siri Voices, iCloud Fixes, Voice Memos App

[alexbassy]

When you lock the phone when listening to music, the music controls are on the lock screen by default. Double tapping the home button doesn't revert it back. Really annoying when you just want to quickly check the time... The parallax background is also a bit buggy on my iPhone 5.

However it fixes a lot of bugs and hopefully my phone won't decide to restart itself when I'm in the middle of a phone call!

Also - hoorah! It took 6 years but we can finally see time stamps for messages easily!

 

[3282868]

Damn. Responded to wrong comment. Grrrr

Thought I'd never admit it, but I prefer iOS 6 now.

 

[carl0sian]

change them icons please

Icons are fine! Get over it!

 

[johngordon]

I would love to meet the person who is actually stumped by the unlock process on the lock screen given the fact that it is exactly the same motion that iOS users have been using since day one. If any of you had trouble figuring this out please let us know (prediction: this didn't actually confuse anyone).

The person who is new to iOS and hasn't been using it since day 1.

Sure, it doesn't take too long to learn, but in the past there was nothing to learn, because it wasn't counter intuitive as it currently is in ios7.

And it should say 'swipe' not 'slide', since there is no longer anything onscreen to slide.

 

[TheBirdman]

Anybody having trouble with anything that requires the keyboard being insanely slow? messages, safari, snapchat, etc. Keyboard lags horribly.

Any fixes I should try?

 

[Brittany246]

Just kidding, it looks actually functional for the first time ever.

Still looks like crap...

 

[johngordon]

My only wish list features are a dark background on white text mode (I have a feeling all that white will start hurting my eyes after extended use), being able to set default apps, and a more Expose like multitasker for the iPad (though if they keep multitasking as is, I'll still be happy).

I don't see much to gripe about with iOS7. It looks cleaner, jumps between apps faster, and seems easier to use overall. The default Apple icons being a little goofy looking is only a small, inconsequential ding to an overall solid looking package.

You can invert the colours in settings - general > accessibility > invert colors. Although it does affect all colours, not just black and white, which could be a deal breaker.

 

[luckydcxx]

Instagram fixed.

 

[ionjohn]

Icons are fine! Get over it!

They're the ugliest thing I've seen on iOS and I've been on iOS since the iphone 3g

 

[imlynxy]

The calendar needs change I think. What happened to the dot indicators for each day.

You are right, they don't change calendar I switch to Android. I hate it not to see if my day is empty or not

 

[TheWaveable]

You can now also swipe to go back in apps. Just like you could in beta 1 in Mail.app

Messages now showing nicknames instead of name.

 

[syd430]

I would love to meet the person who is actually stumped by the unlock process on the lock screen given the fact that it is exactly the same motion that iOS users have been using since day one. If any of you had trouble figuring this out please let us know (prediction: this didn't actually confuse anyone).

I've been a heavy iphone user since 2008 and intially thought that they had changed the unlock gesture to bottom to top when I first installed it and saw the new arrow on the bottom.

It tripped me up for a good 10 seconds before I finally figured it out and I'd guess it would do the same to millions of others when they upgrade.

 

[LastZion]

I know it's small but I love that I can now check the times of each individual text message

Me too! Been waiting for this

 

[swarmster]

It's not that it's difficult, but its probably because it uses an unnecessary amount of battery and CPU cycles to pull the info from the Internet all the time.

Really? Because it is already doing that to bring the weather to the notification center. It checks at a regular interval in the background to give you the current forecast in the Today tab of notification center. People act like widgets and live data are battery hogs but when done correctly, there is negligible impact on the battery.

There are a couple reasons you'll probably never see a live weather icon.

1) What happens when you're in airplane mode, or outside of data range, or on an iPod/iPad without wi-fi? It shows the wrong weather? You get a blank icon? A big error? The clock can be live because it is measured accurately by the phone itself.

2) I think there are probably usability concerns with an app icon that changes its design drastically multiple times a day. If you want to launch the app and check the forecast there's a part of your brain that would first have to consider whether its currently raining or sunny so you can recognize at a glance where your app is. Sure, you'd probably get used to where it is by location, but that doesn't make it super friendly compared to apps that don't have day/night cycles.

 

[luckydcxx]

I wish they would bring back "search the web" and "search Wikipedia" in the spotlight search. I actually used that a lot.

 

[Deuce2]

The more I see the IOS 7 UI, the more I fear for Apple's future. That Jonny Ive and his team would allow such a half-baked design to see the light of day is discomfiting. And that they're likely to keep the fundamental UI elements intact is even more disturbing.

I think Apple is going to be in for a rude awakening should they allow this UI to be released without a wholesale revamp.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Really wish CarrierEditor worked on iOS 7

+1 this, I want my Batman symbol back again.

 

[sladey]

Please bring a data toggle for the control center. That was the only reason I had to jailbreak my iPhone. I only have 100MB of data every month so I have to toggle data multiple times per day.

I don't need a toggle for wifi, but desperately need one for data!

How about a toggle for personal hotspot. I don't need the bluetooth toggle.

 

[a1kim]

Right here. I have had every single version of the iPhone and this has caught me several times on iOS 7. It happens most when I have a song playing and the lock screen shows the album artwork. This change of context on the lock screen caused by the artwork display makes me react differently, and the visual queues have more influence than my normal lock-screen muscle-memory. Several times I have tried to either swipe up, or swipe left. The visual queues are definitely lacking here.

Another thing that really gets me is that when you have no notifications you can swipe anywhere on that screen to unlock. However, if you have any notifications then only the area directly at/around the "slide to unlock" works. If you have one notification it's the worst, because you have one notification at the top, a ton of blank area as normal, and then the slide to unlock. So in this instance you think you can swipe any of the blank area (as you can normally when there are no notifications), but you can't, nothing happens when you try.

Finally, I find the navigation/transition of the lock screen poor now. In iOS7 it is very clear in the transition what you are doing is sliding the entire lock screen to the right. So immediately after I unlock I feel very strongly that now the lock screen should be sitting there, just offscreen to the right. However, obviously when you slide left you don't end up back at the lock screen, instead you find your second page of apps.

So yeah... the lock screen has a ton of UI and UX problems.

Summed up my experience perfectly.

 

[sladey]

You are right, they don't change calendar I switch to Android. I hate it not to see if my day is empty or not

LOL. Just buy something like Fantastical. $5. Or switch your phone to Android. $$$

 

[Terrin]

It only resembles Android superficially, and even then, it still acts and behaves like iOS, just with a few much needed tweaks and features added.

There is no such thing as Android because there are a million different flavors of it. Companies like Samsung stink their own skin on it. Google throws a billion features at it to see which ones stick. Since Android's over all look is inspired by iOS, it is impossible for Apple to change the look while keeping the overall design the similar without it being compared to Android.

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The more I see the IOS 7 UI, the more I fear for Apple's future. That Jonny Ive and his team would allow such a half-baked design to see the light of day is discomfiting. And that they're likely to keep the fundamental UI elements intact is even more disturbing.

I think Apple is going to be in for a rude awakening should they allow this UI to be released without a wholesale revamp.

I doubt you are using it. Most people who are actually using it says it is either great, or growing on them. Further, the color schemes will be very big in Asia.

 

[Karma*Police]

I usually poke fun at iOS. Have been doing so for years now, but this looks slightly more interesting. Haven't had a chance to play around with it but if it's as similar to Android as I think it is, then I'll look into getting an iphone 6 whenever they release it.

That's the strangest thing I've heard here considering how backwards Android feels to me. And this is coming from an HTC One X user, though admittedly, I much prefer using my iPhone 5.

 

[Douglas B]

For someone like me who has very poor eyesight, the extensive use of the "thin" font may make iOS7 a deal-breaker.
...

It's disappointing, though. Apple has always been a leader in the universal accessibility arena. This redesign seems to undo so much of what has been accomplished.

I see these options in Accessibility:
Larger Type
Bold Text
Increase Contrast

I tried Bold Text and it was certainly noticable in the Settings app itself. I think that Apple still has Accessibility in mind.

 

[kingtj]

Nah....

Most of these complaints are over the very first beta release, which is WAY too early to really cast judgement.

The icons? Yeah, I thought they looked like a step backwards and too much like bad clip art -- but we've also since found out they were just drawn up by Apple's marketing team, not Ives at all. Most likely, just supposed to serve as rough drafts while Apple focused on more important things to make the release actually function in time for WWDC.

I don't see what's so "half baked" about the rest of it? I mean, at worst, they simply added a bunch of UI features the Android people have gone on and on about for the last 1-2 years. So in that respect, they played catch-up with Android while keeping all the rest of what made iOS unique.

What did you have in mind that would be better for it?

The more I see the IOS 7 UI, the more I fear for Apple's future. That Jonny Ive and his team would allow such a half-baked design to see the light of day is discomfiting. And that they're likely to keep the fundamental UI elements intact is even more disturbing.

I think Apple is going to be in for a rude awakening should they allow this UI to be released without a wholesale revamp.

 

[Schmitty11]

I too, can draw lines in Photoshop.

Image

Hell, I'll stick with my master race numeric signal strength if that's alright with you folks

Coming from a guy who puts a clock in the "garbage" folder