Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
With iOS 7 Apple certainly address some of the literary criticism it had face latterly – the words stale and boring have been used by some to account iOS , but that special literary criticism can no longer be applied to the look of the software , which we think is now by far the most attractive and challenging of any roving operating system on the mart . And the iOS 7.1 update ( and to a much smaller extent Io 7.1.1 ) tackles the criticism that were in go level at iOS 7 in admirably honest fashion , such as the more extreme colour choices and the operation issuing on older ironware . Nevertheless , you ’ll be disappointed if you were hoping for Android - like feature , such as widgets , the ability to change the default keyboard , or set up apps without travel through the App Store . The walls around Apple ’s garden are as high as ever , but this tight quality control provides essential security ; and less buccaneering too , another reason why app developer choose iOS before Android . Globally , the marketplace part of iOS is now dwarf by Android , a bitter pill for Apple to swallow , pass on the caller was first to market with a forward-looking take on capacitive - touch screen smartphones and tablets . Our opinion is that just about all the changes in iOS 7 are for the better , even if we have lowly issues with some of the iCons , such as Safari , being less attractive . But the utilisation of transparency is far more effective than it was when Microsoft adjudicate it with Aero in Windows Vista , and the subtle feel that the iCons and UI element are strong-arm objects floating on unlike layers is not only attractive , but canny and unequaled . So iOS 7 may be the cleared sign yet that Apple is commute counseling , at least in terms of the flavor of its software . It ’s no coincidence that the iPhone 5c employs the same smart colours and shades in its casing that Apple has prefer for its iCons . The software system is Apple ’s argument that the society , post - Jobs , has not stood still , and is prepared to make modification when it feel it is necessary .
Welcome to our iOS 7 review . If you ’d like to screw about the latest version of iOS , read ouriOS 10 reviewandiOS 9 vs iOS 10 .
iOS 7 , the a la mode version of Apple ’s lock system software program foriPhone , iPadandiPod touch , heralds the biggest change to the optic panache of its fluid interface since the first iPhone was demonstrate in 2007 . For the first meter , the new look is the brainchild of Jonathan I ve , the somebody behind the ironware design of Apple ’s product since the original Bondi Blue iMac .
The most noticeable differences in iOS 7 are a readiness of new , brightly biased ikon and a simpler , more minimal design aesthetic . It ’s all part of a so - hollo ‘ flat design ’ that replaces faux-3D factor such as bevelled button and embossed toolbars that were used in all previous iterations of iOS . Yet vaporous stratum and other neat visual trick convey profoundness in more subtle ways .
iOS 18 is the recent version and will inSeptember 2025be replaced with iOS 19 . Io 18 which has amount a retentive way sinceolder version of iOS(seeiOS 18 vs iOS 17 ) . Find outwhich iPhones are compatible with iOS 18 in ouriOS compatibility checker . You candownload the Io genus Beta to sample out new characteristic , but you will want to carefully considerwhether you should instal the iOS betafirst .
iOS 7 review: New features in iOS 7.1 & iOS 7.1.1
Update , thirtieth April 2014 : Before we get on to the major change from iOS 6 to iOS 7 , we ’ll speedily cover the smaller ( but often significant ) tweaks and blueprint updates that have arrived since iOS 7.1 ’s initial launching . These have been released in Apple ’s two latest point update , Io 7.1 and iOS 7.1.1 , both of which are barren to download .
( Bear in idea that , block up some cleverjailbreakingor similar hacks , you have to set up the latest OS when update . At metre of writing , if you want to update from iOS 6 to iOS 7 , that entail iOS 7.1.1 . iOS 7.0 is no longer an option for most of us . )
iOS 7 and iOS 7.1.1 new features: Visual changes
The most obvious change in iOS 7.1 is ocular . This update saw some of the more controversial aspects of iOS 7 ’s excogitation tone down and softened to appeal to a wider audience .
Take the ‘ toxic ’ shiny greens that mass receive so exceptionable , for instance . Those are now dark and less optic - capture . This has mostly been applaud , although we now miss the previous look ever so slightly . I pretend we got used to it .
Some interface changes are more obvious . The Phone app , for example , sees a lot of cake - way clit replace by round buttons , and the former caller-out ID range of a function , which used to take up the whole screen , has been recoil to a little thumbnail :
iOS 7.1 includes a number of other ocular updates , include some modification to typography and color choices , as well as updated interfaces in Apple apps .
iOS 7 and iOS 7.1.1 new features: Performance changes
The most controversial facial expression of iOS 7 was n’t the flavour , however – it was the performance penalty seen on older computer hardware . The iPhone 4 was supposed to be able to palm iOS 7 ( it was the lowest level of iPhone ratified for this ) but many iPhone 4 experienced slowdowns after updating .
Io 7.1 addresses this , and benckmark tests show that an iPhone 4 is quicker on Io 7.1 than on iOS 7 . ( For more on this , readCan iOS 7.1 improve iPhone performance ? How to speed up a slow iPhone 4 or other Old iPhone ) It ’s still slow than on iOS 6 , however , and our advice to iPhone 4 owners would be not to update from iOS 6 at all .
iOS 7 and iOS 7.1.1 new features: New Siri voices
iOS 7.1 let in young Siri voice . In the UK that means at long last the option of a distaff voice – hooray ! you’re able to stick with the bloke if you favour .
iOS 7 and iOS 7.1.1 new features: CarPlay
As expected , iOS 7.1 bringsCarPlaycompatibility . We ’ve got more on that here : CarPlay buying usher : which cars and models come with Apple CarPlay ?
iOS 7 and iOS 7.1.1 new features: Touch ID
This one will only touch iPhone 5s possessor , but iOS 7.1.1 include some improvement to the way Apple’sTouch ID fingerprint scannerworks .
That cover most of the major change in iOS 7.1 and iOS 7.1.1 . All of the remain screenshots in our iOS 7 review , include the one below this paragraph , are based on the original iOS 7.0 .
iOS 7 review: Thin and flat interface design
A fragile system baptistery , Helvetica Neue , is used throughout the system . Borders around many apps are patently ashen with simple smutty text edition , with a color tone used to indicate buttons and interactive elements . This minimalist design remind us of the approach path Jony I ve favours for the unseamed aluminium shell of Apple ’s ironware .
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Certain apps such as Game Center and Notepad , which previously used graphical replicas of substantial - world objects to fetch their subroutine , such as yellow notepaper and green tabular array experience , have been scale back to only allow visual data relevant to the task they perform .
But the flat , simplistic stylus train some getting used to . When Apple first present iOS 7 , the initial response was not entirely overconfident . The image in special have polarise opinion , with many describing the lustrous colours as garish , infantile , or plain ugly , liken with the previous established intent .
Changing the spirit of a software package interface familiar to millions is a delicate procedure , with the risk that by confuse users , they may give up your political platform and choose for a challenger ’s mathematical product instead . sanely , although Apple has made radical changes to the show of iOS 7 , the method acting of interacting with the devices is just about very . This is no repeat of Microsoft ’s Windows 8 debacle , where exploiter were pull up stakes floundering for their direction around .
The 10 bad Siri annoyance , and how to restore them
The brightly slanted newfangled ikon designs used in iOS 7
iOS 7 review: Transparency, depth and three dimensions
Io 7 unquestionably grows on you over time . Behind the wide-eyed appearance are insidious and complex ideas . The redesigned Notification Centre has a semitransparent backdrop , allowing the wallpaper and icons to show through , enhance the good sense that each UI element is a physical physical object lying atop whatever ’s underneath .
The new Control Centre , get at by swiping from the bottom of the sieve upwards , is likewise see - through , as is the Search ginmill , which now appear when you pinch down on any empty sphere of the wallpaper . Control Centre provides easy access to usually aline configurations such as Flight Mode , Wi - Fi , Bluetooth and Flashlight toggle switch , something users have been quest .
The transparent effect is striking . Choose a wallpaper with a range of sharp blues , for example , and UI element such as the new translucent dock glow with a frosty appearance , almost as through a paneling of glass . Change to a empurpled background – Apple ’s unexampled set of include wallpapers have been carefully chosen to highlight this – and the UI calculate wholly different .
Another small-scale ghost Apple has added to the wallpaper is a clever parallax essence , where you could pitch your gimmick to more or less roll the setting look-alike behind the icons , give the pernicious imprint that they are physical objects on a unlike plane from the background .
The effect is keen , and enhances the idea that three - dimensional space is make from interface ingredient , rather than via the more canonic blending of buttons on Io 6 and before .
There ’s another 3D result when chess opening and closing apps . rap on an ikon and the app neatly zooms in to become full screen . Hit the habitation push button and it zooms out . This works on folders of icons too , and gives the impression you ’re drilling in and out of various segment of iOS 7 , again to make it seem the OS is built from layer of physical object . parole do n’t easily convey how impressive this looks in the flesh , but it ’s undoubtedly one of the best optic betterment of the software .
On the down side , mind you , a telephone number of user withvestibular disordershave reported that the many animation tricks within iOS 7 triggermotion sickness and related to job . Apple has been somewhat responsive to concerns , and you could inflect thing down by going to preferences > General > handiness > Reduce Motion , but not everyone is slaked .
With these caution , however , iOS 7 is on balance a pattern victory , full of attractive visual hint . The passcode lock screen , for case – which might seem trivial , but is a projection screen the mean substance abuser will be see a lot of – has been given a much more modernistic spirit :
iOS 7 review: New features
Watch our video below for a immediate run - through of the new features in iOS 7 .
In what ways is iOS 7 different to iOS 6 ? Compared with the extremist renovation made to the appearance of iOS 7 , Apple has been more reserved when it comes to adding or removing features from the software . It ’s a fair assumption that if a certain function was present in iOS 6 , you ’ll discover it in iOS 7 – although it may front quite unlike .
iOS 7 new features: Music
The Music app now countenance you browse your medicine via a scrolling listing of book binding art , with a quick hydrant zooming onto the record album , displaying a tracklist .
knock an record album cover to be taken to a tracklist . Choose your track , then tap romp .
iOS 7 new features: Voice recorder
The voice recorder , which antecedently demo a redundant mental picture of a actual microphone , now expose a simple spectral analyzer and a list of recording , along with a big violent push button to start captivate audio recording .
iOS 7 new features: Camera
The Camera has get perhaps the most care , and is all the better for it . you may quickly swipe through picture taking modes : normal , straight , panoramic and video , with a set of Instragram - similar filter to apply , such as chrome or sepia . The iPhone 4 does n’t get all these feature article , though .
iOS 7 new features: Safari web browser
Rather than being circumscribe to eight , you could now open as many tabs as you like in Safari , which has a lowly border around webpages to display more selective information on the screen . When browsing through your open tab on an iPhone you may swipe through screenshots of each page , presented as a 3D roll of pages .
Safari in iOS 7 also sees improved pilotage and performance tweaks , a integrated search field , new bookmarking features and more .
Alternatives to Safari : The best web internet browser apps for iPad and iPhone
iOS 7 new features: Calendar
Calendar is perhaps the serious illustration of how iOS 7 uses colour to draw the user ’s attention to relevant information . The current particular date is highlighted with a big red circle , in a flash draw your eye to it , with the same shade of red used to foreground other interactional component .
But there are drawbacks to the fast-growing reductivism of iOS 7 ’s calendar , and we can see many users looking elsewhere for a calendar app .
On the iPad , calendar month view countenance you see a few words of each appointment or natal day , but the iPhone – which surely is the political platform on which most hoi polloi use a calendar app – is far less utilitarian : in portrayal musical mode you only see a little dot to indicate that something is pass off ( we give notice switch off indicators for Facebook birthdays and such like , or you ’ll find that almost every day has a back breaker ) . And in landscape painting fashion you only see a 5 - hour snatch of three days at a time , stimulate it hard to rapidly scan your free night .
iOS 7 new features: Maps
Apple ’s much - criticize Maps are still present , as anticipate , but with a few small additions . There ’s a scale leaf index number in the turning point , and bookmarks are now saved in iCloud and share across devices , a ready to hand add-on we think that should have been there in the first place . Mac users can seem forward to being capable to send out function and directions now to their iPhone using the background Maps app in OS X Mavericks too .
iOS 7 new features: Siri
Two years after it launched , Siri is no longer in beta . The interface is more or less change , but the big addition is a broad reach of search power . Ask it to search Wikipedia , and it comes up with the clause without lead into Safari and loading the page .
Search the web ( divertingly now with Bing , a further severance of Apple ’s tie to Google ) and you get all sorts of relevant information straight in the app . This is a far better access that get Siri more utile in itself , rather than as a voice - controlled pad to other parts of the system .
The Notifications Center has had a major redesign , as seen on the iPad
iOS 7 new features: Newsstand
The Newsstand app now runs full screen , with a gorgeous shaded desktop that shows your wallpaper through it , rather than expanding like a brochure as in iOS 6 . And give thanks good , if you do n’t employ it , it can now be dropped into the obligatory ‘ unused ’ folder everyone often ends up with on their twist , rather than occupying distance on the home screen .
iOS 7 new features: Multitasking
Multitasking , to only switch between already undefended apps , now works as it does on Android or HP ’s WebOS computer software . There ’s a shot of each running app displayed above the ikon . Swiping up closes the app .
Multitasking now more resembles Palm ’s Web OS : simply swipe up to fill up an app
iOS 7 new features: Visuals, ringtones and backgrounds
As before , Apple has aimed for a consistent experience between the experience of using iOS 7 on both the iPhone and iPad , using the same colours , design choices and identical functionality . The major differences are touch to layout , with a prominent use of split up - perspective ( such as in the options app ) to expose more entropy on the larger tablet screen .
A pocket-size addition that will be welcomed by many is the comprehension of a new band of tasteful ringtones . The old 1 are still there too in a ‘ classic ’ folder , if you ’re quite attached to the conversant nonpayment Marimba whole step , for example . There ’s also a kitchen stove of dynamical backgrounds , with bubble that slowly move across the screen if you move the gadget .
This clear habit of a new purgative API built into iOS , one of a long list of under - the - bonnet sweetening in Io 7 that third - party developers can take vantage of .
In the coming days , weeks and months , expect your favorite apps to be update with similar design language , transparence and level simplicity that Apple is using for in its own computer software .
iOS 7 new features: Miscellaneous updates
The hard limit to the number of apps you’re able to keep in a booklet has been take , a major annoyance for multitude with a bunch of apps on their twist , which often leave in a mussy booklet organization such as ‘ Games 1 ’ , ‘ Games 2 ’ , ‘ Games 3 ’ and so on .
Once again , a few apps on the iPhone are n’t available on the iPad , and vice versa , wherever Apple has deemed them less relevant . The iPad has no Voice Memos , Passbook , Compass , or Stocks app ( thankfully for many unconcerned by urban center finances ) while the iPhone miss out on the Photobooth app .
( As before , you are n’t permit to blue-pencil Apple ’s pre - installed apps from your iPad or iPhone , although there aresome ways around that . )
Apple iOS 7 review: Performance, speed and battery life
We ’ve been following Io 7 growth since the first genus Beta , and have seen every sweetening and alteration Apple has made since . The leaning of devices that support iOS 7 is pretty long , namely : the iPhone 4 , iPhone 4s , iPhone 5,iPhone 5candiPhone 5scan feed it ; along with the iPad 2 , iPad 3 , iPad 4 andiPad Air , the iPad miniskirt andiPad mini 2 with Retina presentation , plus thefifth - coevals iPod spot .
While it mostly run well on all the iPads and is fine on the 4s and above , on the iPhone 4 we found it a notably slower experience than iOS 6 . We ’d advocate iPhone 4 owners not to jump out in and upgrade at once , at least until they ’ve see it running on another gadget of comparable historic period and power .
ReadiPad review
Battery lifetime on the devices we tested has n’t been as outstanding , sometimes running low after less than a day ’s lite use . But again , we expect succeeding updates will improve this .
We noticed ouriPhone 4soccasionally becoming warm in usage , even while running the waiver version of iOS 7 . We also blemish the odd bug that has n’t been fixed yet . For deterrent example , when scrolling through cover artistry , a rubber band outcome is used when you seek to scroll beyond the content , but this occasionally became stuck , leaving a black saloon on the filmdom , which only disappeared after bring up the phone .
iOS 7 review: How to downgrade from iOS 7 to iOS 6
As with all iOS discharge , once you click update in iTunes , it ’s pretty much impossible to go back to a previous version . We ’re hoping point - release updates will ameliorate iPhone 4 performance in time , though .
Other than the performance issues that may confront iPhone 4 users , we ’d generally advocate stick with iOS 7 ( and in most cases you wo n’t have much choice ) . In this video we excuse the seven thing we most lie with about iOS 7 :
iOS 7 review: How to jailbreak iOS 7 iPhones and iPads
in the end , a quick word on jailbreaking . ( What is jailbreaking ? ) When iOS 7 was release , it closed the put on loophole used by jailbreakers to crack up iOS 6 , and thus for a while hackers were unable to jailbreak new iOS devices or older devices that had upgraded to iOS 7 .
Predictably , however , a direction has been find to jailbreak iOS 7 too . We explainhow to jailbreak iOS 7 in a disjoined article . Bear in mind , however , that this jailbreak is in twist blocked by change in the iOS 7.1 update ; and so the ageless saltation stay .
