September 18, 2013: iOS 7 launches with a radical redesign that divides the tech world.
The biggest overhaul Apple’s mobile operating system has seen in years, iOS 7 ditches the skeuomorphic objects, dials and textures of previous iterations. Instead, it boasts stark patches of white space, simpler icons and more abstract controls for settings. The Jony Ive era of software design is truly underway.
If you’re still rocking an older iPhone running iOS 7, you’re going to need to upgrade if you want to continue using WhatsApp.
The world’s biggest messaging service will soon stop working on iOS 7 devices. Other aging operating systems are going to get left out in the cold, too.
The overall UI of iOS hasn’t changed too much since iOS 7 got rid of skeuomorphism, but an ex-Apple employee has come up with a brilliant UI concept that makes elements on your iPhone look like real-life objects.
Former Apple software engineer Bob Burrough posted a video of an environmentally-lit user interface he’s developing and even though it’s still very basic, it looks very promising. By using the iPhone’s front-facing camera, the iPhone’s UI shades objects based on the lighting in a room. It may not sound that exciting, but once you see it in action you’ll be wowed.
Check it out:
WhatsApp has confirmed plans to drop support for iOS 7.
The hugely popular messaging service, owned by Facebook, will continue to work for a little while yet. However, WhatsApp warns that it is no longer actively developing for iOS 7, and certain features could stop working at any time.
A judge has ruled that a lawsuit against Apple for breaking FaceTime in iOS 6 can continue.
It is alleged that the iPhone-maker purposely allowed the feature to be disabled on older devices in an effort to force users to update to iOS 7.
The operating system that powers the iPhone has undergone radical changes since Apple launched the device 10 years ago.
As part of Cult of Mac’s collaboration with Wired UK to mark the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, we took a look at the evolution of iOS, from a simple touchscreen operating system lacking key features into a true computing behemoth with more tools than any one user could possibly need.
Apple has pulled its iCloud Activation Lock page which helped users find out if an iOS device was locked to an iCloud account.
The tool could be used to verify that a used iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch wasn’t stolen before you purchased it — but the website’s URL now leads to an error page.
The public release of iOS 9 got off to a rocky start yesterday but it appears that Apple’s problematic servers didn’t stop the big software update from gaining faster adoption in the first 18 hours than iOS 8.
Even though iPhone and iPad users are downloading iOS 9 at a slightly faster rate than they installed iOS 8, the number crunchers at TapyJoy found that iOS 9 is still lagging way behind iOS 7’s adoption rate.
Check out the race in the comparison chart below:
Hackers have just given iPhone and iPad users a big reason to upgrade to iOS 9 due out later today: it fixes a serious AirDrop security vulnerability.
Mark Dowd, an Australian security researcher with Azimuth Security, revealed this morning that iOS 8.4.1 contains a critic security flaw in AirDrop that could allow an attacker to install malware on any device within range. Worst of all, even if a victim tried to reject the incoming AirDrop file, the bug lets attackers tweak the iOS settings so the exploit will still work.
Check out the lethal bug in action:
Swiping a finger across a smartphone screen to unlock it may soon become a universal gesture, even on devices not made by Apple, because Germany’s top civil court has decided Apple didn’t invent “slide to unlock.”
One of the first projects Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer oversaw as CEO was the Yahoo Weather app. The app was so well received that it even ended up receiving a coveted Apple Design Award in 2013.
Apple also redesigned its stock Weather app to look just like it in iOS 7.
It turns out that it wasn’t a coincidence the two apps looked so similar. Jony Ive was “tormented” with jealously of Yahoo Weather’s design.
When Apple first released iOS 8 to the general public, more than a few people with older devices such as the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and iPad mini noticed that it slowed their devices down to a crawl.
When Apple released iOS 8.1.1, they promised that the update would fix some of the speed issues that iOS 8 had on older devices.
So how’d it work out? iOS 8.1.1 is sometimes an improvement. Sometimes, but not always. And even then, it’s not a huge leap.
Three out of four drivers in America believe that using hands-free technology like Siri is a safer way to cruise the highway than fiddling with buttons and knobs, but a surprising study from AAA found that using Siri on the road is actually dangerously distracting.
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety tested the distraction levels of a number of hands-free solutions from auto-manufacturers that allow drivers to compose messages, change the radio, and navigate complex menus with voice commands, and found that trying to chat with Siri while driving is more distracting that composing a text.
Popcorn Time, the service that allows users to stream movie torrents, today makes its debut on iOS. It’s available only to jailbroken devices — there’s no way Apple would have approved it for the App Store — and it can be obtained through Cydia via a dedicated Popcorn Time repository.
If you hate iOS 8 -— whether because it runs like crap on your device, you miss your jailbreak, or because it’s significantly more buggy — you’ve previously had the option to downgrade back to iOS 7.1.2 if you wanted to.
But bad news. That ship has sailed. Apple has stopped signing iOS 7.1.2, making iOS 8 the only version of iOS that can be installed on any device capable of supporting it.
Apple is still supporting the iPhone 4s when it comes to new software, despite the fact that it is now outdated by several generations. But while iOS 8 is technically usable by iPhone 4s owners, just how fast can it run compared to iOS 7?
Finding the answer to this question is the basis of a new video by YouTube user kabriolett, who staged a speed comparison between an iPhone 4s running iOS 7.1.2 and one running iOS 8.0.2.
The results are surprising.
Almost half of all iOS users are using the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, according to figures released by Cupertino on its App Store Distribution page.
The figures show that as of September 21, 46 percent of users had upgraded to iOS 8, slightly down from the 49 percent of users on iOS 7. A tiny minority (just 5 percent) of users are still using earlier firmware versions.
Apple’s fabulous iPhone used to be the number one reason crime was on the rise in New York City, but now that Apple’s added Activation Lock to iOS 7, thieves have given up their iLust and are targeting Samsung phones like never before.
Just look at the sudden change in thefts in the chart below:
iOS 8 was released just 24 hours ago in what Apple is calling the biggest iOS release ever, but if early adoption numbers are any indication, customers might not feel the same way.
Users are upgrading to iOS 8 at a much slower rate than iOS 7, according to Tapjoy’s data from its app network of 200 million unique iOS users. Not only is iOS 8 lagging behind iOS 7, it’s being adopted even slower than iOS 6 was.
We don’t usually post infographics on Cult of Mac — far too many of them are just poorly designed info dumps, without any real focus or design chops — but we’re making an exception for this one showing the evolution of iOS over the last seven years.
Created by the folks at 7 Day Shop, this infographic doesn’t just examine the evolution of the iOS home screen (something we here at Cult of Mac have been known to chart from time to time), but the evolution of individual icons, and the addition of features to Apple’s mobile operating system.
It’s very thorough, and a great primer on how far we’ve come since 2007. Check it out in full after the jump.
Not even Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus support super-sharp 4K video recording out of the box, but they do have the necessary hardware to support it. Vizzywig 4K, a new iOS app that was just approved by Apple, brings this functionality to the iPhone 5s — but it costs a whopping $999.99.
Jailbreaking has been around almost as long as iOS itself, giving users more control over their iPhones and letting them customize almost everything.
In today’s video, we take a look at how to jailbreak iOS 7.1 using the Pangu jailbreaking tool. If you’re not running that particular version of Apple’s mobile operating system, don’t worry: The process is very similar for every release. Take a look at the video to learn how to do it for yourself – it only takes a few minutes!
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If you’ve never really understood why Apple decided to make the iPhone’s signal bars circular in iOS 7 (I haven’t, either), then you’ll be pleased to know that you’ll soon have the ability to change it, thanks to an upcoming tweak for jailbroken iPhones called Meter.
iOS 8 is just around the corner and, if the iOS 7 figures are any indicator, it’s likely to find near-total adoption.
Apple just released the latest figures for its current-generation operating system, saying iOS 7 is running on a massive 90 percent of devices. iOS 6, meanwhile, stands at just 9 percent, while earlier versions of iOS represent a minuscule 2 percent combined. iOS 7 was launched 10 months ago in September 2013, making it the fastest-adopted mobile OS in history.
The Chinese are so good at cloning Apple’s upcoming products that they regularly release fully functional doppelgangers of the next iPhone before Apple has even officially announced it. But these are ‘clones’ in only the vaguest sense, because they always have one major problem: they run Android, not iOS.
But that’s not true with this iPhone 6 clone. Although it looks exactly like an iPhone 6, it appears to be running iOS 7, not Android.
