iOS 7

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I installed it but just got back from being on the road and take off again tonight so I don't think I'll actually see itunes until about a week from now. It's a different look at startup but my libraries all seem ok.

[dix]

I went ahead and updated to 11.1 on my laptop. It's a bit faster than 10 actually. So far the only really annoying thing is that you can no longer have multiple playlists open. I can't imagine why they removed that functionality.

MLC which iPhone do you have that's so much faster with iOS7?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

iPhone 5 (original). In view iniTunes, do you have Show Sidebar selected in the View menu? You should see all your playlists (if that's what you meant).

[Prime Mover]

Okay, I went ahead and installed it, and I have very mixed views. I applaud apple for really embracing a design philosophy... Not sure whether I completely agree with it. When GUI designers first started using drop shadows and bevels, some of us scoffed at it, but then I talked to some visual design theorists who convinced me that a lot of the 3d and texturing really helped to separate elements and define function. I've really come to see that. And iOS7 proves that all the better... It's a little more difficult to understand functions of the design elements. Also, apple has become so intent on making the interface invisible that, as you would expect, often times it takes a second to find interface elements when you need them! So counter to the huge wave of ioS7 appologists, I'm not convinced that this total minimalism direction is a great functional design idea. I do think the massive drop shadows and 3d bells and whistles had gone too far, but this strikes me as a bit over reactionary... Sorta like 90s music from the 80s. I'd like some of the useful interface attention-getting elements to come back.

Secondly... The Music app. Here it comes... It's AWEFUL! It really embraces the "I don't care what I listen to" mentality, and says "screw it" to everyone else. Many "serious" music lovers, like myself, have there iDevice filled to the brim with thousands of tracks from different artists, and we want a sensible way to find them. Now the "Artist" tab has been completely screwed up. Browsing starts as it normally does by being shown an alphebetical list of artists. But the. Clicking on the artist doesn't give you a list of albums... But one huge list of SONGS grouped by album. That means if, like me, you have a band's total discography, you're faced with swiping through a list of hundreds of songs, difficult to discern because the album subheadings themselves aren't in alphebetical order and the fly by. I tried to get my head around it, but the more I tried it, the more I realized that it was just as bad or worse than I had originally realized. To me, this is a huge disaster, the worst apple has made in over a decade. I really hope Apple listsens to the outrage (there are a lot of people talking about this) and at least gives us an option to go back to viewing an album list.

The solution: I didn't ever realize it before, but there are several third party music player apps, designed for various reasons, whose music browsing works just like the old way. I installed one Audassey, and am back to browsing the way I always have.


However, I am looking forward to air drop and like the new maps and home screen. The overall OS is very good, it's mostly the music app that ticks me off.

[mikehalloran]

My 1st gen iPad is stuck in iOS5 which is fine with me.

I installed iOS7 onto my iPhone. The only app I'm looking forward to is having Notes now work on my iPhone, iPad and iMac. With my job, the ability to take quick notes and have them just show up on my desktop is very nice - it's also about time.

Other than that, I'm not overly impressed with much else. Perhaps I'll discover some new functionality that I like. We'll see...

Is it my imagination or has iPhone battery life taken a sudden hit with iOS7? I can't tell - maybe it's me.

[bayswater]

Is it my imagination or has iPhone battery life taken a sudden hit with iOS7? I can't tell - maybe it's me.

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

[mikehalloran]

Is it my imagination or has iPhone battery life taken a sudden hit with iOS7? I can't tell - maybe it's me.

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.

[bayswater]

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.

Apparently I can get a 5S now for $99. But I was hoping for something smaller, not bigger. As for battery life and other performance issues, there could be some improvements in a .x release coming up.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

$99 gets you a nice cheap plastic POC iPhone.

[bayswater]

$99 gets you a nice cheap plastic POC iPhone.

Depends on country and carrier. I can get the plastic thingy for free. I already have a lot of free plastic.

[mikehalloran]

Depends on country and carrier.

and your current plan.

February 2014 for me unless I wish to pay a whole lot more.

The 5c is the current 5 with a few minor enhancements including a slightly bigger battery, tweaked camera and a few other goodies. Not commenting on the case.

For my work, I really need true 4G LTE, not the cribbed pseudo version that AT&T and Apple have on my 4s. So for my needs, the 5c would be a major improvement but, for $100 more, I can have the 5s? No contest. I've lived without for this long and can wait till Feb.

[Prime Mover]

Actually, 4S doesn't do LTE at all. It has "4G", which as I've read simply means "faster than 3G"... and is a basic streamlining of the 3G protocol, "HSPA" to "HSPA+". On the other hand "LTE" or "4G LTE" is a completely different protocol from the HSPA 3G/4G, and is inherently much faster.

There is one curious benefit to 4G, and that is that it runs significantly faster than 3G on the same networks. My town has not yet erected LTE towers. I got an iPhone 5 about 4 months ago, and didn't realize this, yet when it said "4G", it felt immediately zippier than my old iPhone 3Gs. Just this weekend drove down to Anchorage where they have some LTE towers, and Woah... it blew my landline DSL connection out of the water. But the 4G that I had been on still give my land line a good fight, so I wasn't complaining.

[mikehalloran]

Actually, 4S doesn't do LTE at all. It has "4G", which as I've read simply means "faster than 3G"... and is a basic streamlining of the 3G protocol, "HSPA" to "HSPA+". On the other hand "LTE" or "4G LTE" is a completely different protocol from the HSPA 3G/4G, and is inherently much faster.

Yep, that's what I was referring to.

I was working in Fairbanks and Anchorage awhile back. My data card was so slow, I just worked from paper and didn't try to connect till I got back to my hotels.

Time before, it was still a territory. I was born in Anchorage but don't get up there much.

[Prime Mover]

Back to iOS7. The more I use it, the more it bothers me. I think that Apple has taken the "invisible interface" design philosophy too far to the extreme, and I'm finding myself having to hunt and search for interface widgets, or even get them to appear! They've gone to such lengths at making the interface invisible that they really succeeded, and it's aggravating to try to "use" the device. As gaudy and decadent as iOS6 had become, those garish bevels and drop shadows made it immediate to use! Now I feel a bit overwhelmed in trying to find all these things, where did they run off to now?

Oh, and the music app navigation. I just can't live with it. 18 Rush albums' worth of tracks to swipe through just to get to "Clockwork Angels"... not going to happen. Even if I continue to use iOS7, I'll be using an alternative music player, one that's guaranteed to make other people confused and won't be as nicely integrated into the system.

A large part of me wants to just downgrade back to iOS6, but then another side of me goes: "but this is how it's going to be, better get used to it now". But I'm leaning towards, "downgrade and wait to see if Apple comes to their senses a bit and backs off". I'm certainly not going to be a day 1 Mavericks updater, though.

Edit: Never mind. Apple just closed their signing. I'm stuck in iOS7.

[David Polich]

I was an "early adapter" of iOS7 because frankly I don't rely that much
on my i-Phone, so I didn't care if it was a bit worse or not. I don't have
any music on my phone, I listen to music enough for a living.

I dunno, there's a lot I like about iOS 7. Safari and mail are so much
faster, I couldn't go back to iOS 6 just because of that.

That said, overall, I just don't view a new O.S. as something tantamount to the Second Coming. It's just part of a gizmo. Got more important stuff to
be concerned about.

Agree with you about Mavericks - I'll wait months to move to that. Or maybe just skip over it, like I did with Leopard and Lion.