iOS 7

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Anyone remember DP6 GUI?

[Prime Mover]

An example of how bad many things have become:
In Mail you can now only swipe in one direction to delete mail, and that direction is AWAY from where the ugly square delete button is revealed, so you have to move your finger back to hit it. Not a very elegant solution.

I actually have a theory about that. I bet they did it on purpose to prevent accidental deletion. It's possible that someone could accidentally brush horizontally and tap, resulting in a delete. Now the action requires a more complicated pattern, and would be virtually impossible to do accidentally. For something as potentially "dangerous" as a delete, I sorta understand why they would do this, and plan on just getting used to it.

As for the other stuff... I can see both sides. It's really remenicient of the battle between the Elektronische Musik and Musique Concrete schools: can technology stand on it's own, or does it always need some real-world analogue? To be honest, I'm not sure what to think. We've seen abstractions go way overboard to being cheesy and silly: unconventional amp models with raytraced leather textures (I understand that "real" emulations are trying to draw on user's prior experience with that device, so that makes sense), it's kinda ridiculous. On the flip side, we've seen abstract interfaces that don't spark any intuitive idea as to how they work.

Part of me feels that a computer is a computer, it has no relationship to the outside world so we shouldn't be trying to emulate it but forge on ahead develop an intuitive "computer feel". After all, for many of the objects computer interfaces are modeled after, users have never even used! But on the other side, there is no universal computer feel, so there's no grounding for how to create something that looks like it's supposed to "do this". In fact, the only common representations that computers have standardized ARE based on real world objects. "Raised bumps mean you can drag it", may have originally been based on physical tread, but it has very much come to be part of the universal computer language; people no longer think "that looks like tread" they think "I can slide it".

And there's really no reason to divorce computer interfaces from the physical world, in many cases. If they become garish, take up too much space, and aren't as simple to use as other things, then sure, they need to be streamlined, and full-on emulations should be compromised on, but unless there is a particularly good reason, why is it's relationship to the physical world a bad thing?

[bayswater]

An example of how bad many things have become:
In Mail you can now only swipe in one direction to delete mail, and that direction is AWAY from where the ugly square delete button is revealed, so you have to move your finger back to hit it. Not a very elegant solution.

I actually have a theory about that.

Have a look at the detailed review in Ars Technica. They go over the reasons for many of the changes. Functions have been added that need swipes to activate, and there are only so many swipes available on a two dimensional surface, so having two swipes do the same thing was not sustainable.

[Prime Mover]

Ah! I see, right->left swiping in mail now goes back a level... nice, actually fairly handy. Makes more sense now. Though, they could have put the "delete" on the left side, and I still say they did to decrease the chances of accidental deletion.

BTW: My girlfriend hates it, I can't get her to upgrade, which is unfortunate because the FaceTime voice thing would be really handy since both of us live at the edge of cell reception. She said it was so bright and colorful it made her want to scratch her eyes out. I don't entirely disagree with her, though I've done my part to tone it back.

[FutureLegends]

BTW: My girlfriend hates it, I can't get her to upgrade, which is unfortunate because the FaceTime voice thing would be really handy since both of us live at the edge of cell reception. She said it was so bright and colorful it made her want to scratch her eyes out.

Yes, have to wear shades to use the phone now. Well, at least an excuse for using shades inside!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Wow. I'm glad I'm not so obsessed with form over function. Same with DP and pretty much everything else in my life. I don't use 3rd party themes, polish my piano but once a year if that, or care that my car is black and not red.

The phone works better for me in the new OS and that overrides GUI concerns. It's not like you have to eat the damn thing or stare at it all day.

Give me function over form every time.

[mikehalloran]

Along with iOS 7, have been a few recent changes in iCloud. I hadn't noticed till yesterday that the new version, officially still in beta, allows the direct upload of Word docs to iCloud without converting to Pages first.

I tested this last night. I had my script to Ruddigore in Word so I uploaded it directly to iCloud yesterday. At my rehearsal, when not on stage, I opened Pages on my iPhone and there it was so I could study my lines. Having my script in my shirt pocket ... I wish that I had thought to do that earlier.

Yes, the basic functionality predated iOS 7 and the latest version of iCloud with Pages beta but previously it was a convoluted pain to make it work - I've been using it on a limited basis since OS 10.7. This is a marked improvement and I'm glad that Apple has chosen to release it ahead of 10.9.

Uploading Word to iCloud is now very easy. Log into iCloud, drag your doc onto the web page and you're done. Open Pages on your iPhone or iPad and there it is.

[bayswater]

The Ars tests say there is about a 30 minutes hit.

Dang. Feels like more... but then my iPhone 4S is over a year and a half old so it probably is a bigger hit.

Well, the one feature I needed does work. It's too late to downgrade to IOS 6 anyway - Apple is no longer signing the downgrade.

So, I can live with shorter battery life till February when I will upgrade. Before then, it will cost a small fortune to get a 5S.

Oops. The latest Ars test on a 5 using wifi browsing shows a loss of 3 hours (from 11 in iOS 6). That's a big hit.

[cuttime]

Oops. The latest Ars test on a 5 using wifi browsing shows a loss of 3 hours (from 11 in iOS 6). That's a big hit.

Apparently disabling some of the pretties helps a lot:
http://theweek.com/article/index/250098 ... powered-up

[Phil O]

Apparently disabling some of the pretties helps a lot:
http://theweek.com/article/index/250098 ... powered-up

Yeah. I'm on a 4S and I've followed the advice found on similar sites. With the frills turned off, I'm not really noticing a hit.

Phil

[Prime Mover]

All I really care about is making it through the day. I plug it in overnight.

[bayswater]

All I really care about is making it through the day. I plug it in overnight.

You should be fine for Fairbanks days in the winter. Summer days are going to be a bit difficult.

[frankf]

Search is worse,
.

I've been using search in iOS 6 to find almost everything, and find it very fast. In iOS7, search is available without having to tap back to home screen, just swipe down most screens and tap a few letters. For me, concept is great, but I'm still getting used to the correct way to swipe to get to the search screen. Siri wold be fantastic for artist selection, if only it would stop interpreting "Thelonius Monk" as "Lonliest Monk". Siri got "All Blues" no problem.


Frank Ferrucci

[mikehalloran]

The server for the above link is down but this one is up. I like that it shows you the path for every power hungry feature in iOS 7 and how to disable it.

How to Take Care of Your Smartphone Battery the Right Way
http://gizmodo.com/how-to-take-care-of- ... @ericlimer

Here's another good one that has info not contained in the above link
http://gigaom.com/2013/09/28/how-to-inc ... -on-ios-7/

This is worth watching focusing on increasing visibility of text and (doesn't mention the Contrast fix that I found useful), disabling Parallax and Control Center within Apps

http://cnettv.cnet.com/fix-ios-7-most-a ... 55902.html

[Phil O]

Thanks for the link, Mike. That's a good one.