They've been improving ios 7 ever since it's release, but once you get past the animations (which are getting fixed), just look at how much more modern and clean iOS 7 is.
Ok, I agree that iOS 7 is "modern" in that flat design is really trendy right now. And I agree that it is "clean" in that it has tons of empty, wasted space. But, these things do not make iOS 7 inherently "better" than what came before. And I have yet to see a single convincing argument to the contrary.
But, since you posted the pictures, let me point out a few ways iOS 7's "awesome" design is a real step backward.
Ok, so in iOS 6 we had a weather widget that showed the current temperature in large, easy to read font and the current conditions were shown with a large icon that allowed you tell the weather at a glance. A single swipe then got you a 6 day forecast. In iOS 7, everything is presented as a paragraph of text in small font that you have to read. Nothing is easy to glean at a glance and there is no long term forecast. My favorite part though is that is DOESN'T EVEN ALWAYS TELL YOU THE CURRENT CONDITIONS. Sometimes it will tell you what the high WAS. Why would I want to know that three hours later? Inconsistent information that is not easily read at a glance seems like a step backward to me.
Also, the calendar has regressed. In iOS 6, your upcoming events were presented in a succinct list. Now? It's shown as a calendar that takes up a TON of space to provide you with not that much information. The worst part is that the space is still taken up even if you have nothing on your calendar. Good call Apple.
Ok, let's start at the top. In iOS 6, the navigation was easily recognizable as, well, a navigation bar. It was a different color than your content. It was a different shape, and buttons looked like freakin' buttons. In iOS 7, the navigation bar is a flat, translucent area that is almost always white (because the background of most content is white). It is separated from the content area by the thinnest of grey lines. The title of the page is now plain black text that is only slightly bolder than the text found in the body of an email. And then there are the new "buttons" in iOS 7. The borders are gone because clearly borders are for sissies who hate change and are stuck in the past. Why on earth would you want to be able to identify tappable elements in the UI at a glance? The best part is that Apple also reduced the size of the tappable areas around buttons, which are now just the size of the text. Anyone remember Steve Jobs's joke about having to whittle down your finger tips to a point? Doesn't seem so funny now.
Next, we have the text bubbles. I'll grant you that removing the gloss was probably a good move. I always thought the effect looked nice, but that's just my opinion and it probably wasn't necessary. But I don't find the thin fonts easier to read. This I think is a personal preference kind of thing though.
Finally, the keyboard. In iOS 6, you had keys that clearly stood out because they were presented on a dark background. The letters on the keys were bolder and easier to read. In iOS 7, you have white keys on an ever-so-slightly darker grey background. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since low contrast seems to be the "in" thing in design these days and is absolutely rampant in iOS 7. But I don't get how a flat, low contrast keyboard is inherently better than a high contrast keyboard with some depth to the keys.
Well we did get rid of the unnecessary black space from iOS 6. But the dynamic backgrounds in iOS 7 lead to another low contrast situation. This is especially problematic when you have a cloudy day, where you get white text on a light grey background. Are you seriously telling me that is an improvement over the static background in iOS 6 that always made the text easy to read? Also, all the apostles of iOS 7 love to rail against how terrible skeuomorphism is. But, I'd just like to point out that the iOS 7 weather app is actually MORE skeuomorphic since the backgrounds are now made to look like real-world weather effects. I thought the whole argument behind iOS 7 is that we didn't need the app to actually look like rain to know it's raining outside. Did I miss something?
Ok well we get a preview of the open app. That's definitely an improvement. But, it comes at the cost of fewer open apps on the screen at a time. Way more scrolling now. It would have been nice if Apple had done something closer to Expose on OS X.
I agree Siri's new look is an improvement. iOS 7 isn't a total step backward!
