Apple releases iOS 7

119 Comments

Apple today released iOS 7.

With more than 200 new features, iOS 7 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch includes:

• New design
◦ Redesigned interface updates the entire system and every built-in app
◦ Subtle motion and animation; layers and translucency provide depth
◦ Elegant new color palette and refined typography
◦ Updated system sounds and ringtones

• Control Center
◦ Quick access to commonly used controls and apps with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen
◦ Turn on & off Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Do Not Disturb; adjust screen brightness; access media controls; turn on AirPlay and AirDrop
◦ Quickly access flashlight, timer, calculator, camera and music controls

• Notification Center improvements
◦ New Today view gives you an overview of your day, including weather, calendar, and stocks
◦ Notifications dismissed on one device dismisses across all your devices

• Multitasking improvements
◦ Preview screens of open apps when you switch between them
◦ Permits any app to keep content up-to-date in the background

• Camera improvements
◦ Swipe through different camera modes – video, still photo, square aspect, and panorama
◦ Real-time photo filters with iPhone 4S or later, and iPod touch (5th generation)

• Photos improvements
◦ Automatically organizes your photos and videos based on time and location into Moments
◦ iCloud Photo Sharing supports multiple contributors and videos, plus a new Activity view
◦ Add photo filter effects
◦ Flickr and Vimeo support

• AirDrop
◦ Quickly and easily share content with people nearby
◦ Securely encrypted transfers with no network or setup required
◦ Supported on iPhone 5, iPad (4th generation), iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation) and requires an iCloud account

• Safari improvements
◦ New iPhone tab view that lets you easily switch between open web pages
◦ Unified smart search field for both search terms and web addresses
◦ Shared Links shows web pages shared by people you follow on Twitter

• iTunes Radio
◦ Streaming radio service
◦ Pick from over 250 featured and genre-focused stations
◦ Start your own station from your favorite artist or song

• Siri improvements
◦ New, more natural sounding male and female voices for US English, French and German
◦ Integrated Wikipedia, Twitter search, and Bing web search results
◦ Change settings including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and brightness
◦ Supported on iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad with Retina display, iPad mini, and iPod touch (5th generation)

• App Store improvements
◦ See apps relevant to your current location with Popular Near Me
◦ Discover age-appropriate apps in the Kids category
◦ Keep your apps up to date automatically

• Find My iPhone Activation Lock
◦ Turning off Find My iPhone, erasing your device, reactivation, and signing out of iCloud requires your Apple ID password
◦ A custom message can be displayed on your device even after a remote erase

• iTunes Store improvements
◦ Preview and buy songs you’ve heard on iTunes Radio while inside the iTunes Store
◦ Add to, and shop from, your iTunes Wish List
◦ Scan code with camera to redeem iTunes Gift Cards

• Music improvements
◦ Play music purchases from iCloud
◦ Rotate your iPhone or iPod touch to browse your music with the Album Wall

• Videos improvements
◦ Play movie and TV show purchases from iCloud
◦ View similar movies and TV shows from Related

• Maps improvements
◦ Turn-by-turn walking directions
◦ Automatic night mode
◦ Bookmarks shared across devices via iCloud

• Mail improvements
◦ New Smart Mailboxes, including Unread, Attachments, All Drafts and To or CC
◦ Improved search
◦ View PDF annotations

• FaceTime audio calling

• Block unwanted Phone, Messages and FaceTime callers

• Support for sending long MMS messages

• Pull down on any Home Screen to reveal Spotlight search

• Scan to acquire Passbook passes

• New ringtones, alarms, alerts and system sounds

• Definitions of a selected word for additional languages: Italian, Korean, and Dutch

• Inclinometer in the Compass app

• Wi-Fi HotSpot 2.0 support

• Accessibility features
◦ Individuals with limited physical motor skills can now control their device using Switch Control
◦ Customize closed caption style
◦ Handwriting input support in VoiceOver
◦ Math input support using Nemeth Braille in VoiceOver
◦ Select from multiple premium voices for speak selection and VoiceOver
◦ Support for Made for iPhone Hearing Aids and stereo audio for iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation)

• Enterprise features
◦ Manage which apps and accounts are used to open documents and attachments
◦ Per App VPN
◦ App Store license management
◦ Enterprise single sign-on
◦ Remote configuration of managed apps
◦ Automatic data protection for third-party apps
◦ Exchange Notes syncing
◦ Install custom fonts
◦ New management queries and restrictions

• Education features
◦ Mobile device management for Apple TV
◦ Request AirPlay Mirroring from a student device to Apple TV
◦ Pre-configure AirPlay destinations and AirPrint printers
◦ Streamlined MDM enrollment
◦ Ability to restrict changes to accounts
◦ Web content filtering
◦ Authorized apps can initiate single app mode
◦ Configure accessibility settings for single app mode

• Features for China
◦ Tencent Weibo integration
◦ Chinese-English bilingual dictionary
◦ Improved handwriting input with improved accuracy, stroke order independence and support for simultaneous multiple character input

• Bug fixes

Some features may not be available for all countries or all areas.

To update your iOS device, check the “General > Software Update” section in your iOS device’s Settings for over-the-air updating or plug into a computer with iTunes installed.

MacDailyNews Take: Happy updating (but expect some delays due to the initial rush)!

119 Comments

    2. Best part about it…

      I can finally hide Newsstand in a folder.

      The finger magnifier is offset now when I try to edit text. That’s not good.

      Mr. Cook, please address the aforementioned bug, if you please.

      Thank you.

      Reply

        1. Can you buy yourself a $99 Airport Express and take to & from work everyday. And set it up under your desk at work (and maybe don’t tell others? Or better yet, tell them you “discovered” a secret wifi, and and name it something generic sounding or mysterious!)

  15. is downloading right now.
    at the start it estimated 28 minutes, went down to 25 minutes after about 2 minutes and now the time remaining keeps getting up – seems like the pipes start to clog already.

    Funny tidbit: “start download” always resulted in an error as long as the phone was plugged in (a work PC laptop sans itunes) – as soon as i unplugged it download started.

    Reply

  18. Boys and girls, I counsel patience.

    I have received a torrent of iOS app updates in the past few days, and more will surely come. And right behind those will be inevitable emergency bug fixes to your apps. I would not be surprised if Apple pushes out iOS 7.0.1 quickly to address reported bugs, even though it was extensively beta tested.

    That’s why, as tempted as you may be, it’s best to WAIT. Keep your pants on and hold off on downloading and installing iOS7 for at least a few days. A week would be even better. Let the other canaries fly into the coal mine.

    It’s not to say that iOS won’t work correctly right out of the box, or that your apps won’t blow up. But why take the chance? Being first does not assure happiness.

    Oh, and please, back up your iPhone data and apps before proceeding. Please. I hate it when you whine on here, trying to blame Apple for what you failed to do.

    Don’t say I didn’t warn you. iOS7 will come your way soon enough. In the mean time, go outside and get a life. Please.

    Thanks. Best of luck. And have a nice day.

    Reply

    1. I suggest paying particular attention to Brian if you have an iPhone 4. I read Anand Shimpi’s review of the iPhone 5s and he complained that iPhone 4 ran slowly on iOS 7 (he used iOS 7 on iPhone 4 to compare performance). No way am I going to put iOS 7 on my iPhone 4 until I get word that performance is good (it’s barely acceptable right now with iOS 6), perhaps with a future enhancement.

      Reply

  22. Been trying since 7 pm Paris time. Nearly impossible to get iTunes update, can’t get iOS 7 over wi-fi update! These servers are workin’ OT already. OK, got 40.1MB of 141MB of iTunes. Ooops. error in download, gotta start over.

    Reply

  23. Yeah, servers pretty much swamped. I suspect people who use openDNS and googleDNS will have problems also. My download estimate times dropped from 47 minutes to 5 minutes by switching to TimeWarner DNS. Still the blue bar is sitting there, no progress, then after a few minutes, Software Update Failed.

    Ah well. Such is life.

    Reply

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