Over the last few weeks you’ve probably heard all about iOS 7. How different it looks. How beautiful the new UI is. How it’s the biggest change to the iPhone since Steve Jobs unveiled the original back in 2007.
All of that is true, but iOS 7 is much more than just a shiny new UI and some flat icons. Along with the new UI, there are tons of new software feature that will make using your iPhone easier and faster than ever before. Here are the 10 iOS 7 features that will make you never want to go back to iOS 6.
Control Center
For the past six years, one of the best reasons to jailbreak iOS was to add tweaks like SBSettings that give you quick access to setting switches with the use of just a gesture. The ability to quickly turn off WiFi, adjust brightness, or toggle Bluetooth no matter where you are in the operating system has been widely popular among jailbreakers for years… and now Apple’s finally bringing the ability to iOS 7.
With iOS 7 you can swipe up from the bottom of your screen to reveal the Control Center. There, you can toggle settings for Airplane mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb, and Orientation Lock. There’s also a brightness dimmer, access to AirDrop, AirPlay, Music controls, a Flashlight, Timer, Calculator and the Camera.
Control Center makes it easier to control your iPhone on the fly, without having to dive into apps and settings menus. Why mess with the gears when all you want to do is play?
Parallax
Most people have viewed Jony Ive’s addition of parallax into iOS 7 as mere eye candy, but it’s hard to appreciate the new feature without having seen it in action first hand. Essentially, iOS 7 creates the illusion that objects on the screen stand in a three-dimensional space. Through some clever coding, the objects shift as the device shifts.
Parallax is more than a magic trick or gimmick though. One of the best parts of iOS 7 is how much more depth there is, thanks to the way content is layered on top of different ‘planes’ of content. Think of multiple windows overlapping each other. Once third-party developers start taking advantage of Parallax, we’ll start to see new iOS apps and experiences that you couldn’t even imagine before.
AirDrop
iOS 7 makes sharing photos with friends easier than ever thanks to the addition of AirDrop. Rather than sending pictures via iMessage, e-mail, or Dropbox, now you can just turn on AirDrop from Control Center and send it over to a friend’s iPhone. The best part is the transfer is over Bluetooth so none of your data gets used.
The advantages of AirDrop don’t top out at just pictures though. Apple has integrated AirDrop throughout iOS, so you can also send directions from map locations to a friend, Passbook tickets to a ticket taker, and so on. Developers can integrate it into their apps as well, which will all make sharing content with friends and family a much easier proposition as iOS 7 continues to mature.
Notification Syncing
Notification Center got a welcome redesign with iOS 7. For one thing, the linen backgrounds are gone, and notifications have been spaced out and categorized so they don’t feel quite so much like a big dump of random notifications.
But that’s not all. As iOS and OS X have moved closer together in terms of appearances and features, Apple still hasn’t perfected the lines of communication between the two platforms. With the new Notification Center in iOS 7, though, Apple is finally adding notification syncing. Now when you read an iMessage on your Mac, the notification won’t appear on your iPhone, and vice versa. Keen!
Unified Smart Search Field
There are third-party browsers for iOS that certainly look better than Safari, but because of Apple’s restrictions, none of them will be as fast as the browser built into iOS. Thankfully, iOS 7 includes a big update to Safari that includes a new tab view, quick access to privacy (aka ‘porn’) mode, and a unified smart search field.
If you’re ever used Chrome for iOS, you’ll appreciate the new unified smart search field. Now if you want to search for something in Safari you can just type it into the address bar. It makes things quicker and easier to use, plus it cleans up the screen for a much cleaner UI.
With iOS 7, Apple has learned something Google has known for a while: for most people, there’s no real difference between a web address and searching for a web address.
iCloud Keychain
Storing credit card info and passwords on an iPhone has always been a risky idea. There have been a few apps that can help you manage all of your important info, but now Apple has baked that functionality into iOS 7 with the new iCloud keychain.
iCloud Keychain keeps all of your personal info locked away inside your iPhone with 256-bit AES encryption and then whenever you need that data it automatically fills it in for you. If you buy a lot of stuff on your iPhone and don’t want to bust your wallet out every time, this is the best feature iOS 7 has to offer.
Bluetooth Device Notifications
With iOS 7’s new Bluetooth LE profiles and location beacons, Apple is giving developers the ability to do some really exciting things with accessories.
The addition of location beacons gives developers the ability to send Bluetooth notifications to nearby iOS devices based upon their proximity, which would come in handy at parks, museums, or even your local grocery store. For example, imagine walking up to a door, and having it automatically open because it sensed through Bluetooth you’d walked right up to it. Pretty cool, huh? That’s what iOS 7’s Bluetooth LE beacons can do in a nutshell: trigger Bluetooth events through proximity.
But iOS 7’s Bluetooth enhancements don’t top out at location beacons. Even more exciting is that Apple iOS 7 allows Bluetooth to pass on time, notifications, keyboards, and stereo sound to other devices, meaning any company can make, oh, say, a smartwatch that can receive all your iOS 7 notifications. Who knows, it might even pave the way for the iWatch.
Siri Is Finally Usable
Since its launch, Siri has been more of a gimmick than a useful tool. iOS 6 fixed that a little bit, but with iOS 7, Siri is finally becoming useable for everyday stuff.
Not only does the Siri UI look much better in iOS 7, but Siri also comes with a new, more natural voice. Even better, she is much faster at answering questions thanks to the new data sources Apple has added on the backend. You can also now use Siri to control more of your iPhone’s functionality through verbal commands for things like timers, playing voicemail, or controlling your music. You can even teach it how to pronounce your name properly.
Activation Lock
Unbelievably, the iPhone is so incredibly in demand that it’s caused a political controversy. The iPhone has caused New York City’s crime rate to rise for the first time in decades, and with every thief across the country trying to get their hands on the iPhone, politicians have asked Apple to make the device harder to steal, so Apple’s hoping to appease users by adding a new feature to iOS 7: Activation Lock.
Activation Lock is a new feature complementing Find My iPhone that can render your iPhone or iPad unusable to a thief if you’re pretty sure you’re never going to get it back. If your device has been stolen, and you think it’s lost for good, you can tell your iDevice to brick itself. The only way the device can become functional again is by entering your iCloud password, so hopefully thieves will start to think twice before trying to steal iPhones now.
FaceTime Audio
Apple already annoyed the carriers when iMessage offered iPhone users a way to circumvent texting plans, but now Apple’s trying to help reduce your minutes too with iOS 7’s new FaceTime audio feature.
Rather than using a ton of data on a FaceTime video call, iOS 7 users can now use FaceTime for audio calls as well. Our tests found the audio quality to be solid, plus it doesn’t eat into your monthly minute plan, so you can talk to your friends and family as much as you want.
Hey, why not? Finally, FaceTime will be useful to people who hate video chat!
