.::TeCh  PoRTaL::.

All system icons are different though, the clock now has an animated icon showing the current time, the system fonts have been altered, there are lots of semi-transparent elements and new gestures.

Let's start from the beginning - the lockscreen. It's totally different and yet it works in a very similar way. The slide to unlock bar with virtual guide is now gone and you can swipe anywhere on the screen to unlock your iDevice. The text is somewhat illogically placed right above the tiny arrow for the control center which points up, but you actually still need to slide to the right to access the homescreen. We would have preferred swipe to left gesture to be also working, but that's not the case.

The lockscreen also has the camera shortcut at the bottom, you can swipe up from there for quick access to the camera app. Double tap on the Home key will bring the multimedia controls as usual. Lockscreen notifications are available as well.

You can notice two transparent arrows at the top and the bottom of the lockscreen. Swiping from the top will bring the Notification Center, while swiping from the bottom will pop up the new Control Center.

Unlocking the lockscreen brings you the revamped homescreen. You can notice the Spotlight pane is now gone. Don't you worry, it's not missing, it just activated with a new gesture - make a pull down gesture anywhere on the homescreen and Spotlight search will appear above it.

Folders are available as usual, but there is no longer limitation how many apps you can put inside them. Pages are available in the folders, each page can pack up to nine apps, but there is no limitations for the page count. And you can finally put the Newsstand in a folder! Hallelujah!

Opening and closing folders are now accompanied by cool looking new animations. Those do take a bit too long, though, and might become irritating once you are past their wow phase. We are hoping Apple shortens them a bit in the final version or at least give us the option to switch them off. A cool bit is the folder icons and the folders themselves are semi-transparent and their backgrounds adapt to the background's prevailing color.

You should have already noticed the semi-transparent dock, folders, keyboard and Control Center from the screenshots. The Notification and Control Center colors are also adaptive, just like the folders, and they'll change depending on the background. So they might be blue-ish on the homescreen, but light gray in the web browser, or dark gray in the settings, or green in the gallery, etc.

The keyboard is less transparent and has only two themes - very light gray and very dark gray. Of course, they also change depending on whether your keyboard has popped up on top of a light or a dark background. Beside the new theme and font of its letters, the iOS keyboard is unchanged, which is not a bad thing as it's certainly one of the most comfortable around.

The changes don't end with those transparent and adaptive elements. Opening an app shows you a zoom in animation over the app icon, which is pretty cool.

Moving on to the parallax effect, which is visible throughout iOS 7. As is to be expected, Apple designed the new iOS on independent layers - background, homescreen icons, icon badges, app pop ups. The iPhone then uses its accelerometer and gyroscope to move layers independently and create an illusion of depth. The movement isn't too big so it's not irritating. In fact you might not even notice it if you are not looking for it, but it's there and it looks really awesome once you start moving a bit your device.

The parallax is not only available on the homescreen. You can see it in folders and on the pop ups that ask you for passwords or bring you some notifications. Those pop ups by the way are also translucent and adapt their background color in addition to the depth effect.

Apple iOS 7 also brings live wallpapers. You can find them at the Dynamic section in Wallpaper Settings. Currently there are only two live wallpapers, but we expect more to become available in the AppStore as soon as iOS 7 becomes available this fall.

You might have noticed from all those shots that Apple has ditched the cellular coverage bars and replaced them with five dots. The battery also got a new icon.

Sadly, video player hasn't changed a bit

Many things have changed in iOS 7 but the video player is definitely not one of them. You can upload only supported formats via iTunes or purchase videos from the iTunes store. This is an extremely disappointing showing by a platform that is supposed to excel at multimedia consumption.

The lack of extra functionality is bad enough, but having to use just an extremely limited number of codecs or resorting to convering files, which is both slow and inconvenient is a real deal-breaker. Too bad for the video-friendly 16:9 screen of the latest iPhone.

Music and iTunes Radio

The iOS 7 music player is exactly the same as the one in iOS 6, its appearance is in line with the new iOS design.

If you live in the US (the service will roll out in more countries after the iOS 7 launch), your iOS 7 music player will get an additional iTunes Radio tab. It's a music streaming service with the entire iTunes content available for streaming.

The stations are divided by genres, but once you add a station, you can choose to remove artists or add more songs from an artist/group. You can preview a station before adding it to your list.

In case you like a song, you can buy it with just one tap. History is available and you can always return to buy songs later. A Wish List is available as well.

 

iTunes Radio is ad-free if you are using iTunes Match. Otherwise, every 7 to 10 songs are broken by about 15sec of commercials.

New camera interface, filters with live preview

The camera app has been completely rewritten. There are four modes available - Video, Photo, Square and Pano. There is no dedicated switch for those, you need to swipe to get to the desired camera mode.

There are no image settings besides the flash and HDR toggles, but there are 8 filters with live preview available for the Photo and Square modes - Mono, Tonal, Noir, Fade, Chrome, Process, Transfer and Instant.

You can use filters and take square photos with the front camera as well.

Connectivity

There is one new feature in the iOS 7 connectivity department - AirDrop. It's a system-wide file sharing service between supported iDevices. AirDrop needs both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on to work.

AirDrop is available in every share menu throughout the iOS 7. You can send pictures, videos, App Store and iTunes links, Notes, Maps links, all kind of files from file managing apps (i.e. Filer, Flash Drive, Air Disk, etc.), Office docs, and more.

Maps gets turn-by-turn walking directions

The Maps app surely got some improvements, but even after the update they can't quite measure to the competition like Google Maps and Nokia Here. They are prettier looking though and got a major new feature - the new Maps app offers turn-by-turn walking directions.

Final words

The long awaited iOS interface redesign is finally a reality. It can be a dream come true for many, but others will have a point too in calling it a blatant copycat, and even a cartoonish mess. But there's no denying that iOS 7 is a major step forward for the platform and a real breath of fresh air after the uninspiring iOS 5 and the fiasco of a iOS 6. This time we get a completely new UI and a host of cool new features that really make a difference from a user perspective - exactly what Apple used to stand for at its best.

Like all things Apple though, there is no way that everyone will love the new look. It's always like that with major redesigns - even if everything about the new design was perfect there would always be a large group of people to hate it for various reasons - some like the old design better while others simply hate change. Apple could have helped its case a little by starting last year with iOS6 and making this a two-stage transition, but that's not the point now.