I finally took the plunge into Apple’s IOS 7 on my iPhone 4s and my iPad 3. I don’t like doing the Apple upgrades/updates anymore – they always seem to break something, take something out or my devices seem to get slower.

This time I can report being mildly surprised in that IOS 7 does seem to have some improvements over IOS 6.

The rationale for letting Apple upgrade my devices to IOS 7, is that the iPhone 6 is touted to be being released in September along with the new IOS 8. Also I had a massive “Other” space wastage issue that I can see in iTunes.

IOS 8 I don’t want to be one of the guinea pigs, so best to get a late version of IOS 7, whilst I still have the opportunity. As the for “Other” space wastage I can report that upgrading the IOS version isn’t the fix for this problem.

Oh, and also Apple had a few months ago managed to “break” FaceTime on IOS 6 devices. Surely this is part of their forcing people to upgrade/update/buy new stuff ethos … but maybe I’m just being cynical !

Where I’ve gradually moved myself over the years is from the one who can’t wait for the new upgrades/updates, to the one who waits until the bugs have been ironed out, problems resolved etc. The reason I’m so slow to upgrade is so many times in the past, Apple (or Microsoft) just break things, basically. AND usually these breakages occur when I least need them, when I’m busy on projects and can’t really spare the time for hours of research and fiddling with settings. Who needs that ?

Changes In IOS 7.1.2 Over IOS 6

I really like that I now have a torch, I can see in the dark, yay ! This is a much delayed feature in the iPhone, where other phones have had this facility for decades. In fact the little ‘slide-up’ menu from the ‘phone-locked’ screen is very well thought out, and saves opening the device for many small things, such as airplane mode, bluetooth on and off, do not disturb and TORCH – I applaud Apple for these changes, again much delayed and obvious, really !

I don’t like a lot of the graphic design, fonts, etc, not as classy and stylish as previous IOS’es, it’s just a sign of the times. Personally I’d prefer my Apple not to be Andriod-esk. Within that, in simplifying things it does seem to run faster, so my devices seem actually faster. I don’t know if this is just me, or the little tricks they do with the animations, only time will tell. Speed is an improvement, not much debate on that.

I haven’t been able to find how to manage what gets downloaded on my device from iTunes match. It’s possible that I’m just not looking in the right places. Apart from that the “iPod” functionality seems to work fine. Music is the main thing I use the iPhone for apart from photography, so …

The camera software has been redesigned with some added features. The screen layout is different, not sure it’s an improvement, there’s a few things I had to change in my way of doing things, but I figured out how to use it. One thing I do really like is when taking HDR photos, it gives you the viewfinder straight back after you’ve taken a shot. This is great as I take a lot of photos often in quick succession, and will save time, which means more photo opportunities. There seems to be a larger viewable area of the shot, which is good, but the buttons and menus seem to now cover more of the screen. I don’t really like the slider for video/photo/pano, but it works.

The built in panorama function they’ve improved the contrast so it’s easier to see what’s going on.

Overall pretty impressive 8 megapixel camera all things considered, given the size of the device and lens. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Apple come up with camera wise in the iPhone 6. My next purchase will either be an iPhone 6 or a compact-DSLR, the deciding factor will be the camera on the iPhone 6, and funds obviously.

Outstanding Issues For Me

I’m still working on clearing space on both my devices as they are 16GB models. I’ve managed to reduce to 1.6GB of “Other” on both devices, but still 1.6GB of what I’m not sure. It’s pretty wasteful for 10% of the device’s already sparse storage to be taken up with ‘unknown crap’. It’s a work in progress anyway, I’ll continue to work with Apple’s nanny-fied interfaces see if I can figure out how to free it up. Probably part of Apple’s attempts to make me upgrade/update/buy new stuff, but that one they won’t win, I just complain about it !

Conclusion – Apple IOS 7.1.2

I’m happy with the late version of IOS 7 that I’ve installed. It seems faster and they’ve added some useful features, however I haven’t had the time for detailed full look at every aspect. A few minor issues, but this is par for the course for upgrades on Apple and Microsoft.

I will consider carefully now any upgrades in IOS 7 prior to IOS 8, as there’s a distinct possibility that my devices may stay on IOS 7 for quite a long period now.

Overall, it works, seemingly pretty well.

Cheers

Don Charisma

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Resources & Sources

Torch – morgueFile.com

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Warm regards, Don Charisma

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