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

[attila]

So only your opinion matters . . . . got it!



No, as stated above your opinion doesn't matter. Only those that love everything about whatever Apple does.

I do, however, agree with you and the poster that mentioned contrast. I think someone really missed the mark on making the design scheme functional for a broad range of folks.



Now THAT is much better Apple . . . kudos.

Too many black lines!

 

[NightFox]

Weather App

So, with iOS7 on the iPad, Siri can give us weather information, Notification Center can give us the weather summary for today, but still no weather app

Never really understood this omission from the iPad, so let's hope it's finally going to be there in the public release.

 

[sero323]

- The Control Center handle is now fixed. Previously, when the handle was a horizontal bar when you are dragging it, you would still see the corners from when the handle was in an arrow form.

Image

- Notification Center now behaves like in iOS 6 where the direction of the movement depends on the last direction of your finger drag. In Beta 1, if you drag down NC halfway, but then drag it up, the NC would still fall down. In Beta 2, it will spring back up.

- The icons on the tab menu in the App Store are thicker by default. In Beta 1 the icons would only be the thick version if selected. However, the default loading image of the App Store has not been updated so you can still see the thin icons before the app finishes loading.

that looks so much better...not a big fan of the thin tab icons

----------

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 DONT GET IT BRO. THIS IS THE NATURAL WAY. And if you're coming from android it will take you MAX 2 days to get used to it lol

 

[icanhazapple]

Not sure if someone has posted this or not. FaceTime Audio works over cellular. Just did a 20 minute call with myself being on wifi and the other person on LTE driving. Anyone else have this experience? I called her, so Wifi called cellular and it worked!

wow, that's huge. This is one feature that I think has really been under the media radar.

Do you know if the audio/video is duplex? (Both parties can transmit audio and video simultaneously, basically inadvertently talking over each other. I know this sounds strange, but overlaps are more common in conversation than you might imagine)

 

[åidån]

I thought I recall this being an issue in Beta 1, but can you still access Airplane Mode from the Lock Screen Control Center when your iPhone is locked?

 

[rmeadejr]

in settings , notification center you can now turn traffic conditions on or off.

 

[akamu24]

Any chance someone could screen cap before and after views of the option to have bolded text? I agree the system font is far too thin, would be really interested to see what that option does...

Did you mean like this?

It doesn't seem to change anything on the lock screen. I thought that's what people were complaining about/providing a solution for..

 

[haydn!]

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).

Considering something like 50% of all iPhone buyers are new to the platform, therefore unfamiliar with it. What about them?

That said, I don't think the arrow is an issue. I do think that they should limit the 'space' where you can swipe to unlock as anywhere on the screen is prone to accidental swipes.

 

[Carlanga]

They sure hammered out a lot of bugs in two weeks! Much more stable.

I very much agree. Its a big improvement.

lol why would you guys/gals believe they fixed all those things in those 2 weeks... the first beta was just for people to get started upgrading their apps, many of the features that were missing from the beta were already in the conference and prob beta 2 was already cooked inside apple, just not released yet. Apple was and still is debugging beta 3 or 4 since the first beta was out. This is all to get more hype w/ every beta so places like macrumors can keep the iOS news hot and trending.

 

[jaw04005]

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.

It's not like any of iOS 7's other features including the crazy accelerometer driven animated backgrounds do that.

 

[pirg]

lol why would you guys/gals believe they fixed all those things in those 2 weeks... the first beta was just for people to get started upgrading their apps, many of the features that were missing from the beta were already in the conference and prob beta 2 was already cooked inside apple, just not released yet. Apple was and still is debugging beta 3 or 4 since the first beta was out. This is all to get more hype w/ every beta so places like macrumors can keep the iOS news hot and trending.

Awesome you have inside knowledge. Can you post your source?

 

[sero323]

Did you mean like this?

It doesn't seem to change anything on the lock screen. I thought that's what people were complaining about/providing a solution for..

actually it does change the slide to unlock text (not 100% sure though) but nothing else.

 

[omro]

Still broken.

bugger, it's not the OS's fault, as most apps work fine. It's a failure in the app.

 

[runeapple]

Yes. MacRumors... What's going on? Infinite "mobile theme" toggle is displayed.

Oops... Apple hates us.

Macrumors is basically the only site I visit on my iPhone - now I can't do that, well I guess that is one way of saving battery life!

 

[Crazy John]

I'd like an iPhone setting that, if turned on, would require my password before an app is deleted.

A couple of times I've accidentally deleted an app, restored it, but found all the user data is gone forever. Please fix this, Apple!

 

[sero323]

I'd like an iPhone setting that, if turned on, would require my password before an app is deleted.

A couple of times I've accidentally deleted an app, restored it, but found all the user data is gone forever. Please fix this, Apple!

Thats somewhat a developers issue. They need store info in the cloud so it can be restored when app is installed next time

 

[Zerilos]

Considering something like 50% of all iPhone buyers are new to the platform, therefore unfamiliar with it. What about them?

That said, I don't think the arrow is an issue. I do think that they should limit the 'space' where you can swipe to unlock as anywhere on the screen is prone to accidental swipes.

I view it as an IQ test for entry. If someone really is stumpped by it, they need to stick with a landline.

 

[Waughy]

Good timing. Beta 1 has started giving me grief. Siri will pop up randomly for no reason asking what I want, and the mylink system in my car keeps coming up as if I'm making a call, but there's nothing on the phone.
The home button is unresponsive when Siri plays up too, as if it's dodgy, but going back to iOS6 last night I didn't have the issue again. Hopefully it is an iOS 7 problem for me, it'll be a pain to try to get in to have my phone looked at.
I'll go to B2 tonight, fingers crossed things behave again, I'm liking 7 much more than 6.

 

[daviddth]

Grrrr, cant access Macrumors website from Safari as it goes into a loop, flickering between the screen and asking to select mobile layout. Was fine in Beta 1, but Beta 2 is broken

 

[green94]

Good timing. Beta 1 has started giving me grief. Siri will pop up randomly for no reason asking what I want, and the mylink system in my car keeps coming up as if I'm making a call, but there's nothing on the phone.
The home button is unresponsive when Siri plays up too, as if it's dodgy, but going back to iOS6 last night I didn't have the issue again. Hopefully it is an iOS 7 problem for me, it'll be a pain to try to get in to have my phone looked at.
I'll go to B2 tonight, fingers crossed things behave again, I'm liking 7 much more than 6.

Sounds like a hardware issue. I had the exact same problem with my phone to the point where I turned Siri off and would turn my phone off in the car so that Voice Control would turn off my music.

Apple replaced my i5 free of charge.

 

[Crazy John]

Thats somewhat a developers issue. They need store info in the cloud so it can be restored when app is installed next time

Agreed, but iOS makes it too easy for an app to be deleted. Sometime just from being in my pocket, my iPhone has gone into the app-deletion mode (with the shaky black/white X's on the apps).

 

[japanime]

Settings-> general-> accessibility -> turn on bold text or increase the size of font with large dynamic font

Fantastic! I just "up-voted" your post. The fact that they've included a "Bold Text" option in the accessibility settings is great news!

 

[Megakazbek]

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 bet many people at first thought that they changed unlocked gesture to sliding up, because of that arrow just below the "slide to unlock". Eventually, everyone will figure it out after a couple of tries of course. But the point is: if someone shows you a design which shows "slide to unlock" and arrow pointing up, but actually unlocks by sliding to the right, and then tells you that it was thought through and through in all the tiniest details, does that bring you trust and confidence about the quality of all the thousands of other things in their design?

People work perfectly fine with badly designed products (i.e. Android), but does that mean that it's okay for Apple design to become flawed too? Even if it's tiny flaws that are hardly noticeable, is it a good thing that they appeared in the first place?

 

[maverick808]

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).

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.

 

[Waughy]

Sounds like a hardware issue. I had the exact same problem with my phone to the point where I turned Siri off and would turn my phone off in the car so that Voice Control would turn off my music.

Apple replaced my i5 free of charge.

I am thinking that, but it's not always doing it, and only doing it on iOS7. I'll keep an eye on it and see how it goes. If it keeps it up I'll have to go back to 6 to take it in.

EDIT: It just did it again, and when I go to close it with the home button the phone reboots (or resprings, it's faster than starting from off). This happened a few times last night. And it also goes and checks my mail, lol. I've got my UDID registered with a developer, but he doesn't seem too interested in what I've come across so far.

Another thing I forgot to mention in my last post, It would be nice if there was an option to chose a weather provider (without jailbreaking). I'd rather use the BOM in Australia over Yahoo, much more reliable.