Update: This post is wrong. Once we downloaded iOS 7, it was clear that the carrier name is still very much a part of iOS, even though Apple didn’t show it in their keynote. Mea culpa!
With iOS 7, Apple is getting rid of the signal bars in the top left-hand corner and replacing them with five dots to represent signal strength.
This is a good move, because the iOS signal bars have been incredibly misleading for years, although it remains to be seen if the new dots will come with controversies of their own.
Here’s the thing I really found interesting about it, though. Notice there’s no room for a carrier name anymore. Apple has finally succeeded in removing every trace of carrier branding from every iPhone they sell.
This has been a battle Apple has been trying to win for years. The original iPhone revolutionized the mobile landscape by eschewing the carrier-mandated branding and crapware that every other mobile phone on Earth came with at that time, and managed to reduce the carrier’s branding to just a small mention in the Status Bar. Now even that’s gone. To find out what carrier an iPhone is using, you’ll have to delve into Settings.
How things have changed in just six years. When the iPhone first came out, phones were branded with the carrier they ran on more than they were by the companies that made them. If you want proof at a glance how radically Apple has changed things, just look to those five little signal dots in iOS 7: they are Apple’s ultimate triumph over carriers in a power struggle which has been going on ever since the iPhone first debuted.
Update: This post is wrong. Once we downloaded iOS 7, it was clear that the carrier name is still very much a part of iOS, even though Apple didn’t show it in their keynote. Mea culpa!
