Google published a big update for it’s Google Earth app for iOS today. The new version includes an improved UI with a left hand panel that makes it easier to enable different layers of information.
Along with the refreshed UI, the Google Earth update adds Google Maps Street View to the service so you can explore the world in 3D flyover or at street level. Improved directions and search were also added to the list of new features.
Here’s what’s new:
Let’s be honest–sometimes it gets a little tricky to see the stuff on those tiny little iPhone screens, especially as we all get a little (ahem) older. While the accessibility feature to set large text has been around for a while, there’s a new feature in iOS 7 beta that holds promise, and isn’t actually in the accessibility section.
Dynamic Type will let any application that supports the feature adjust the font size in the app to better match what works best for you.
Here’s how to access and change the settings for Dynamic Type in iOS 7 beta.
This is a neat touch: the camera quick launch drawer in iOS 7 actually has its own gravity bounce effect, so that you can effectively bounce it against the bottom of the screen like a rubber ball. You can even do it so hard that it will bounce all the way to the top of the screen and the camera app will open. Very cool.
Via: Reddit
Apple has added a new promotional page to its website for iOS 7, targeting business users who will be using iPhones and iPads in a professional capacity. “iOS 7 offers more advanced ways to deploy devices and deliver a great user experience for your employees,” the Cupertino company says, before highlighting the many ways in which iOS 7 can benefit business users.
I asked Siri something yesterday, and s/he – as usual – misheard me. Whatever I actually asked, Siri thought I said “Election Tacos,” and as that didn’t really fit in with Siri’s abilities, he did a web search. Only instead of popping me into Safari, the results were shown right on the lock screen. And that’s not all.
One slick feature of Android handsets is the back button. No matter what app you’re in or what screen you’re on, you should be–in theory–able to back out the way you came. It’s tremendously helpful.
With iOS 7 beta, Apple has quietly introduced a gesture that does the same thing, and it seems to work in most apps like Safari, Mail, and Settings. Here’s how to make it work.
iOS hacker Joshua Hill, more commonly known as P0isxninja, has taken to Twitter to announce that “amazing things” are coming to us all soon. The details of Hill’s latest project are still a mystery, so we have no idea what he’s planning to unveil. But he says “think bigger than jailbreak.”
Here’s a couple neat new features to Messages in iOS 7 Beta 2: you not only can see contact photos for users in Messages.app now, you can also see the time that messages were sent.
We’ve seen a lot of what iOS 7 will look like on the iPhone, but for the past week there has been little info on the iPad version other than this video. The iOS 7 beta for iPad just came out though so we’ve already dug in and started to explore Jony Ive’s vision for the iPad.
Here is what iOS 7 looks like on an iPad:
As we predicted, iOS 7 Beta 2 dropped for developers today, but substantially, it’s the first iOS 7 beta to support the iPad 2, Retina iPad and iPad mini.
We’ve already seen official shots of what iOS 7 looks like running on the iPad, as well as shots of iOS 7 running on Xcode’s iPad emulator. Now, though, we’ll get to finally see it running on a real device.
Here are the direct download links:
Apple is expected to seed its second iOS 7 beta to developers today, two weeks after it released the first during the Worldwide Developers Conference, according to carrier sources. The update it expected to fix bugs that were present in the first beta, and address things like performance and battery life. We may even see some more new features.
With iOS 7, when you plug an unauthorized Lightning cable into your iOS device, you’ll get a notification that informs you you’re not using a “certified” Lightning accessory, and that it “may not work reliably” with your device.
But after just two weeks, one accessory maker has already cracked Apple’s detection and fooled iOS 7 into thinking uncertified Lightning accessories are certified ones.
This is a fantastic idea. When Apple overhauled iTunes in the latest version, they did something pretty with Album View, so that the color of the Album View was matched to the dominant color in that album’s artwork.
It’s a nice effect, and as Reddit user Bostonlbi has shown, it looks even prettier on iOS 7, especially if you change the color of the rest of the interface elements with the second and third most dominant colors. Come on, Apple! It’s not too late to take this idea and run with it!
Disclaimer: Seriously, folks, iOS 7 beta is a pre-release version of iOS. Don’t use these tips as proof that anything will be in the final release, or that they’ll work past the beta. We’re providing these as a fun way to explore Apple’s new mobile OS, is all.
The iPhone’s built-in navigation system has profoundly changed my life. No longer do I need to plan extra time to get to a meeting so I can deal with my ability to get lost on even the most benign route in my own hometown, since I can use turn by turn spoken directions to get me to my destination.
When walking however, I’m the guy who’s usually staring down at his iPhone, waving it around in some weird figure eight pattern to resolve interference, and generally bumping into things along the way.
No longer, though, as iOS 7 beta has turn by turn walking directions. Here’s how to use them.
Apple has begun charting iOS adoption figures to help developers establish the percentage of users running different versions of iOS. Google has been doing the same thing for Android developers for some time, and Apple’s chart only highlights the massive difference in fragmentation between the two platforms.
If you’re growing tired of the way iOS 6 keeps your photos together in one big shoebox of sorts, only letting you categorize photos and create albums manually, there’s a new app out that will help you do much more than that, and it’s free to boot.
Photoful is a new, free app that offers something of what you can expect to find in the upcoming iOS 7 version of Apple’s own Photos: an elegant, good-looking, well-designed app focused on helping you organize and display your camera photos in a better way.
Jony Ive’s new vision for iOS 7 is simple and parallax’d and all that, but it’s also completely devoid of the linen backgrounds Scott Forstall championed in earlier versions of iOS and OS X.
The loss of Forstall’s linens is one of the best improvements to iOS, but if you find yourself craving some fabric inspired backgrounds again, here are 8 linen wallpapers to bring Forstall’s linens back to iOS 7:
If you haven’t already watched Apple’s WWDC keynote, it’s probably because you just haven’t found the time. At just under two hours long, it’s not something you can just slip into your day. But you can now watch it at your leisure on any of your electronics devices because Apple just uploaded the entire thing to YouTube.
With iOS 7 Beta 1 now out on the iPhone, the next obvious question is “When is iOS 7 Beta 2” coming out? And what about Beta 3? Beta 4? When will iOS 7 go gold?
Good questions, and obviously, only Apple could tell you for sure. But Apple’s been releasing post-WWDC betas long enough at this point that it’s pretty easy to track how long on average each beta takes, and by doing so, we can not only forecast when iOS 7 will be released with a probable amount of accuracy: we can put a date on the iPhone 5S’s release.
Here’s what we think. We think iOS 7 Beta 2 will be released next Monday, the 24th. iOS 7 will go gold on September 10th, the same day the iPhone 5S will be announced. And the iPhone 5S and iOS 7 will be released on September 20th. Here’s why.
Wondering what iOS 7 will look like running on an iPad? Then look no further than this video from Russian blogger Rozetked, which shows just that.
Louie Mantia is a renowned icon and visual interface designer in Silicon Valley who has worked at big companies like Apple and Square. He was involved in designing many of Apple’s pre-iOS 7 app icons, like Trailers, Remote, Garageband, and iBooks. He even designed the Starbucks and Obama campaign app icons, for crying out loud.
The point is that this guy knows good icon design. He’s posted the above iOS 7 concept on his Dribbble, and I think it looks fantastic. He did the same thing last year for iOS 6. This time around, I think he’s nailed it better than Apple.
“Today, I revisited that original task and took about a day to understand the new style,” said Mantia. “Simpler, smoother, subtler. While I don’t employ the grid they created (and while I instead use the colors I chose), these feel interesting and balanced. Vibrant and bold, but not overbearing.”
Indeed. Please hire this guy back, Tim Cook. He gets it.
Source: Dribbble
The Clock app in iOS 7 has been updated so that users can choose whether they want time to be displayed in a traditional clock face or switch to a digital clock.
If you’re not quick on the draw with your clock face reading skills then you’ll love this neat little feature. To switch clocks in the app all you have to do is tap anywhere on the screen.
Here’s a GIF of how it works:
In October of last year, Apple underwent an executive shake-up that saw Scott Forstall’s head rolling down the Cupertino aisles and Jony Ive being put in charge of both software and hardware design in Apple… but his title, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, never changed.
Now that iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks have been unveiled, Apple has apparently formalized Jony Ive’s new role, giving him a new title, Senior Vice President, Design. The smouldering look on Jony’s pretty face is the same as it ever was, though.
Thanks: Rachel C.
iTunes Radio won’t just be available on your iOS devices, but also on your Apple TV, according to a new beta release now available to registered developers. The update also adds some other minor features, and makes improvements to Home Sharing to make it more reliable.
With all the new changes coming to iOS 7 there are still a ton of little details to discover while Apple continues to put the finishing touches on it. While iOS 7 does feature a completely revamped UI, its the little changes that make everything really come together.
One redditor put together this handy info graphic that compares some of the smallest iOS 7 UI elements with their iOS 6 counterparts.
Take a look: