It’s been a week since I installed iOS 7 on my iPhone and iPad. Over the course of the week, some aspects of the update I like, but some I don’t.
The cons: This first one is purely aesthetic. The folders now have a light grey background. I prefer the contrast of the black background. And the background can’t be changed. I’ve looked. The whole look of iOS 7 is…pretty. I don’t mind the new font, but I’m not sure why Apple went in this direction of soft tones. I’m not a fan of the new look; it makes my eyes strain more than before. It would be nice to be able to customize the look of my device beyond changing the wallpaper.
The Apple map app is not completely fixed. While the directions didn’t have me drive into a lake, some of the routes were odd and added unnecessary time to my trip. Sometimes the app offered multiple routes, sometimes it didn’t. Also, iMessage still doesn’t work for me. I had issues before the update, and I figured iOS 7 would be the fix, but it’s not. My texts via iMessage were going to my mother’s phone or my iPad, and iMessage kept trying to use my mother’s phone number instead of mine on my own phone. I wasn’t in the mood to hunt for an answer, so I went the easy way and turned off iMessage on both of our phones.
iOS 7 is quicker and prettier than iOS 6.
The pros: Speed. That is the main benefit for upgrading to iOS 7. Opening apps is snappier, going from app to app is quicker, and apps run faster. However, my battery suffers. I haven’t changed how I’ve used my iPhone, but I’ve noticed that my battery runs out of juice faster. This is probably because iOS 7 is optimized for use with the new iPhone 5C and 5S. The drain isn’t too bad; I have lost about two hours.
I also like how easy it is to access certain features on the control panel. You swipe up for the control panel where you can access airplane mode, the flashlight (good-bye flashlight apps), the camera, calculator, and more. You can block people from calling, messaging, and face timing with you (if you put a person on any blocked list, you put them on all the lists), and I like auto updating. No more having to take time to update my apps.
There are other little things that I like such as the level included on the second page of the compass and the new way photos are organized. It was a hassle dealing with a malfunctioning iMessage, and I am disappointed that my charge doesn’t last all day like it used to. While the update is not perfect, iOS 7 is quicker and has some neat features. If you’re still wavering about updating, I suggest going ahead with iOS 7.
One final note: Before I updated my devices to iOS 7, I had to update iTunes. I know this doesn’t directly tie into iOS 7, but if you have updated to the latest version of iTunes, you should check your podcast subscriptions. After the update, iTunes unsubscribed me from all of my podcasts. The list was still there, but I had to go to the settings of each podcast and subscribe again.
