iOS 7 First Impressions

[Eug]

Yes, the fade-in takes less time than previous annoying animation so its easier on the eyes now.

You're right. It does seem to take less time than the zoom animation. Now, TouchID sometimes seems as fast as no lock screen at all.

I haven't timed it though.

 

[Fingolfin269]

The animation change was the first thing I noticed after updating today. At this point I honestly couldn't care less if they changed anything else with this version.

 

[Megatomic]

I'm late to the game but I've got iOS 7.0.3 on my 4S. Turned on reduced motion and turned off background app refresh on the apps I rarely/never use. Performance is the same as 6.1.3 was IMHO. I'll be watching battery life over the next week or so, is there anything else I need to adjust to optimize my 4S now?

 

[Eug]

I'm late to the game but I've got iOS 7.0.3 on my 4S. Turned on reduced motion and turned off background app refresh on the apps I rarely/never use. Performance is the same as 6.1.3 was IMHO. I'll be watching battery life over the next week or so, is there anything else I need to adjust to optimize my 4S now?

Turn on "Increase contrast". That arguably misnamed option setting removes transparency.

 

[Megatomic]

I've turned it on and off and checked to see differences but I can't find any. Where am I going to see the effects of turning on this setting? Thanks.

Nevermind, I found the difference. The transparency wasn't bothering me in that regard so I'm ok with that. But I just read about Bolding the type/fonts. Does that work out ok? Is it worth the reboot to see?

 

[Eug]

The transparency looks fine (eg. Control Center) but it adds to the computational complexity, so it may (or may not) affect performance slightly.

I've left transparency on for my 5s because I like the look. I've turned on reduce motion though to remove the zoom effect.

 

[MrX8503]

Motion and transparency is a big performance hit. I wish Apple didn't waste resources on these cosmetic changes.

 

[Megatomic]

Ok, so Reduced Motion is a win. Increase Contrast I left alone as I like the transparency. And I went with the Bold Text option, makes a big difference for my old eyes. I'm quite happy. I'm pretty happy so far.

 

[chin311]

7.0.3 seems faster just by changing the animation, but IMO touch ID is much faster & less likely to say "try again", nice changes whatever they did.

 

[Printer Bandit]

with 7.0.3, when you open the Mail app, is the status bar at the top that shows the clock, battery %, etc. missing for anyone? i didn't notice a missing status bar in other native apps like calendar, photos, safari, etc.

 

[Schfifty Five]

with 7.0.3, when you open the Mail app, is the status bar at the top that shows the clock, battery %, etc. missing for anyone? i didn't notice a missing status bar in other native apps like calendar, photos, safari, etc.

It is not missing for me.

You sure you're not overlooking it? I turns white on mine while in the mail app program as opposed to black when on the main icon screens.

I have a Iphone 5 FYI.

 

[Printer Bandit]

It is not missing for me.

You sure you're not overlooking it? I turns white on mine while in the mail app program as opposed to black when on the main icon screens.

I have a Iphone 5 FYI.

strange. i just did a reboot by pressing the home + power button for 10 seconds and now the status bar is back in the Mail app. thanks for confirming.

 

[Kaido]

I like the faster (perceptually, at least) performance.

However, my phone shutdown at 22% battery today 🙁

 

[Kaido]

Had a co-worker's entire contact list disappear today. Fortunately iCloud had a full backup; a reboot ended up fixing it. Lame.

I think it's time to switch from "skip the first release" to "skip the first few releases" 😛

 

[Kaido]

Crashed while using the native Camera app to record my son's first pumpkin lighting (complete OS shutdown).

Not too happy right now.

 

[Eug]

My 5s has reset a few times. Not complete reboot, but the Apple logo flashed on screen and and it reset.

Furthermore for some reason sometimes I can use voice dictation for text entry into the AnandTech posting boxes. The microphone is greyed out. I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong, but a hard reset of the phone will fix this.

So yeah. 64-bit iOS 7 on the 5s is pretty buggy at the moment.

This pretty much solidifies my decision NOT to get my wife a 5s for Xmas. I'll just give her my 5s next year maybe once 64-bitness and iOS has had time to sort itself out.

 

[TheStu]

My 5s has reset a few times. Not complete reboot, but the Apple logo flashed on screen and and it reset.

Furthermore for some reason sometimes I can use voice dictation for text entry into the AnandTech posting boxes. The microphone is greyed out. I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong, but a hard reset of the phone will fix this.

So yeah. 64-bit iOS 7 on the 5s is pretty buggy at the moment.

This pretty much solidifies my decision NOT to get my wife a 5s for Xmas. I'll just give her my 5s next year maybe once 64-bitness and iOS has had time to sort itself out.

That hadn't happened to me until after I read your comment. So thanks for cursing my iPhone, jerk.

 

[Ichinisan]

Furthermore for some reason sometimes I can use voice dictation for text entry into the AnandTech posting boxes. The microphone is greyed out. I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong, but a hard reset of the phone will fix this.

That has nothing to do with 64-bit or iOS 7. It has always done that with my iPhone 5. It's supposed to disable when there's no data connection and when you're on a call. However, it frequently glitches and the dictation feature remains disabled within a particular app. Some apps seem to do it more frequently than others (Safari and Google Voice). If you kill the app (swipe it up and off the screen from the switcher), then relaunch the app, dictation will be enabled again (assuming you have a good/working data connection).

 

[Kaido]

My 5s has reset a few times. Not complete reboot, but the Apple logo flashed on screen and and it reset.

Originally I thought it was a battery issue, but it happened at 40% last night, so it's definitely not a battery issue. Plus my battery case came in, and I'm swapping out the internal battery this weekend just in case. I really love the phone, but I really regret upgrading to iOS7 :thumbsdown:

 

[Adrenaline]

My wife updated her phone to iOS 7 a few weeks back. All if her contacts got erased out if nowhere. I looked this up on the Apple forums and people have been complaining about it. One person said after they reloaded their contacts, their contacts were erased again a few days later.

Just make sure to keep your phone backed up.

 

[jimmybrion99]

My favorite thing about iOS7 is you can kill apps, by just tossing them away out the top of your phone.

 

[Ichinisan]

My favorite thing about iOS7 is you can kill apps, by just tossing them away out the top of your phone.

Just like webOS in that regard. Even that's pretty intuitive, I've had at least 3 people ask me how to kill apps in iOS 7.

 

[Doppel]

My favorite thing about iOS7 is you can kill apps, by just tossing them away out the top of your phone.

Oh so that is how!

I have ios7 on an ipad2 and I realize it may be in my head but its safari performance sucks. I really don't think it used to be this bad. Pages just feel slow, and I don't mean to load, I mean sticky scrolling, it's just an experience of using underpowered hardware. I can't believe this old thing is still going for $399. Even holding a link to get the option to open in new tab takes too long.

 

[Ichinisan]

Oh so that is how!

I have ios7 on an ipad2 and I realize it may be in my head but its safari performance sucks. I really don't think it used to be this bad. Pages just feel slow, and I don't mean to load, I mean sticky scrolling, it's just an experience of using underpowered hardware. I can't believe this old thing is still going for $399. Even holding a link to get the option to open in new tab takes too long.

Strange. My iPad mini has the same processor (A5), screen resolution (1,024x768) and memory capacity (512MB) and still works great in iOS 7.

 

[Eug]

It's a bit of both. The iPad 2 works OK, but yes it does have moderately slow performance in Safari surfing, at least with more complex sites. Sticky scrolling is one manifestation.

Compared to an A7 iPad Air or iPhone 5s, the difference is quite noticeable.

That said, I can use the iPad 2 for extended periods and not rip my hair out.