Monday’s WWDC keynote has come and gone, and we’ve been shown the new OS X Mavericks (unlike most tweets I’ve read, I like the name) and iOS 7. If you haven’t seen the the keynote you can watch the two hour keynote here.
I’ll go over the iOS 7 announcements in a moment, but first I want to run through my iOS 7 wishlist and see what, if anything, I got from my list.
- Siri – Kind of
- Preinstalled Apps – Nope
- Setting Default Apps – Nope
- Settings – Yes!
- Sharing – Nope
- Timestamps – Nope
I’ll go more into depth on a few of these below. But first, some thoughts on OS X Mavericks.
OS X Mavericks
As I said above I really like the name Mavericks, which is in contradiction of most of what I’ve read on Twitter.
They showed off a few new “features” like tabbed Finder windows (Finder still looks like a turd) and tagging of files, which does sound useful. They also talked about updates to Safari which sounded cool, but Ryan Block who was live blogging for Engadget summed up my thoughts perfectly:
I love how Apple’s Safari demos always make me want to start using Safari. And yet I always wind up back in Chrome…
I tried switching back to Safari when both Lion and Mountain Lion were released but went right back to Chrome a few hours later. I don’t think I’ll give Safari a spin this time.
They also mentioned other updates and under-the-hood enhancements that will ship in Mavericks. I hope there is a lot more coming, or that this is a free OS update. There’s not a lot that I’m excited about here.
You can read and see more about OS X Mavericks here.
Now onto the real star of Apple, iOS.
iOS 7
The Design
First off the bat when Tim Cook came out he introduced a video that showcased the new design of iOS 7. If you didn’t see the video you can watch it here.
This is the first major redesign that iOS has seen. Overall I think I like the new design, however there are some really ugly app icons, such as Game Center, Settings, Safari and Photos. Hopefully they will see some updates before the official iOS 7 is released.
The new interface will take some getting used to, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. When you see the layers and transparency in person you’ll fall in love with the design. Even if you don’t like everything (or anything!) about it, the steps that Jony Ive and his team have taken are definitely steps in the correct direction.
It’ll be interesting to see how this new design evolves not only wen iOS ships this fall, but in the coming years.
However, the color pallet is very Eastery as @Rands points out on Twitter.
Each time I see an iOS 7 screenshot, I think “Easter”.
— rands (@rands) June 10, 2013
Now, for some of the features that Apple demoed on stage during the keynote.
Control Center
This is one of my biggest wants on my wishlist and Apple came through with all of the features I wanted for it. The addition of shortcuts to the flashlight, clocks, calculator and camera are nice, but I kind of wish that area was customizable.
Notification Center
I like the “Today” view, but I don’t see the point of having both “All” and “Missed”. If I missed the notification chances are I didn’t care about it in the first place or if I did, I missed the event that the iPhone was trying to notify me of.
It seems pointless and more data than I care to have. Also all those missed notifications will pile up for who knows how long since you can’t mass clear them.
Multitasking
Finally, real multitasking. This seems like a really cool feature. Hopefully it’s not a battery killer. I don’t have much to add here except that I am happy that the restrictions that kept Apple from doing this in the past have been broken through.
Camera
I like the new camera app. It’s a lot less cluttered as it only shows you the important stuff to get you taking photos and videos. I’m not so big on the filters though. While I loved Instagram pre-Facebook, every photo app having filters is really gimmicky. That’s something that should be left to the 3rd party apps.
Photos
Collections is really cool to see. I like using iPhoto on my Mac because it groups photos into events like this. However I keep my iPhone clear of photos (I download them to my Mac weekly) so this feature is lot on me, sadly. I don’t want to give up precious hard drive space just to use it. Still, great implementation.
AirDrop
A feature of OS X since 2008 is finally available on iOS. This is perfect for people like Ali and I who constantly text message or email photos back and forth to each other.
Safari
I don’t use Safari on my Mac, and I barely browse the web on my iPhone or iPad. I mostly browse in specific apps and only use Safari for quick reference while on the go if I don’t have an app that does the job.
iTunes Radio
Finally. It’s a head scratcher as to why this took so long to be released. Maybe Apple truly thought it was a fad and that people wanted to own their music? That’s partially true, but music subscription services like Pandora are a great way to discover new music
iTunes knows what music I have and like, so their suggestion engine should hopefully be really good off the bat.
Siri
Siri got an improved voice, and a male counterpart. I don’t like the idea of a male Siri, but that’s just me. The female voice upgrade is an improvement, but is still far off from where the Google Now voice is at.
However, they have made some improvements and additions to Siri, just not enough. They really need to up their game to compete with Google here.
App Store
This really wasn’t an amazing feature or update for them to showcase in the keynote, I thought.
Find My iPhone
It seems like Apple may have solved the growing issue of iPhone thefts. A stolen iPhone becomes unusable once it has been set to lost and wiped by the owner. Really great idea. I hope it works and reduces thefts.
iOS in the Car
iOS in the Car is really cool, but let’s be honest, this feature will be priced out of many people’s reaches for a long time.
Final Thoughts
I do think iOS is a good update. We are finally getting some things that a lot of users were looking for such as the Control Center and true Multitasking. Other updates, like Siri fall a little short. I know Apple will keep plugging away at these updates, I just wish they’d do them a little faster.
You can read and see more about iOS 7 here.
[…] This time last year I wrote a post about my wishlist for the upcoming redesign of iOS which was to be unveiled at WWDC 2013 (you can read the wrap up here). […]