Thursday, June 13, 2013

iOS 7 New Features and Device Compatibility List

 










Apple announced a bunch of new features coming to its iOS software, which runs the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Below are 10 new features in the iOS 7 software, which is expected to be available to consumers in the fall.

It is a pretty decent list of updates, but will the new OS offer enough new features to convince me to give up the jailbreak?  Not quite sure yet.

If you have an iPhone 5, all features will be available.  However, the feature list gets shorter as you go back in time to previous devices.  See the compatibility list at the bottom for more details. 

iOS 7 New Features

1. Control Center: You'll be able to swipe up from any screen to immediately jump into system settings such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

2-3. When the camera app is open, beyond stills or video, you'll get two other labeled options: shooting the photo as a square picture or a panorama. You can also edit photos with Instagram-like filters.

4. In the photo app, Apple is bringing organization to hundreds of photos, using the camera information about where and when they were shot to organize them into "Moments," "Collections" and "Years."

5. Find My iPhone lock: A new "activation lock" feature requires your Apple ID and password before you can turn off Find My iPhone, further thwarting thieves.

6. AirDrop. The new feature is Apple's answer to Samsung's Galaxy S line of phones, which let other Galaxy users share photos and other files by clicking the phones together. AirDrop lets other iOS users send items directly to each other, without opening text message or e-mail to do so. (This feature has already been available on Apple's latest Mac computers.)

7. Multi-tasking: Apple say it has improved multi-tasking. By pressing the home button twice, you can see preview screens of all your running apps and swipe to move from one to another.

8. Background updates: The new iOS will update apps automatically in the background and does so when you're plugged into Wi-Fi. The idea is that fetching such updates won't kill your battery.

8. iTunes radio. Apple also debuted its answer to Pandora. ITunes Radio will be available on computers and mobile devices later this year. The program brings in preprogrammed radio stations to iTunes, and will let listeners create stations based on their favorite artists.

9. Safari: Apple says its new look for the Safari browser will let you see more of your content and includes full-screen browsing. There's also a "smart search" field that simplifies searching and a cool new tab view for scrolling from one page to another.

10. Siri: New male and female voices are coming to Siri. Also new: Twitter search integration, which lets you ask Siri what people are chatting about on Twitter. Siri also now taps Wikipedia as a resource as well as Bing search.

Source: USA Today 

iOS 7 Compatibility List

Wondering which devices will support certain features? Here’s what we know so far from Apple:
  • AirDrop – iPhone 5, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPod touch 5th gen
  • Swipe & Panorama Photos – iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch 5th gen
  • Square photos and video formats – iPhone 4 and newer, iPad 3rd generation and newer, iPad mini, iPod touch 5th gen
  • Live filters from Camera app – iPhone 5, iPod touch 5th gen
  • Filters in Photos app – iPhone 4 and newer, iPad 3 and newer
  • iTunes Radio – All iOS 7 devices will get iTunes Radio through the Music app
Source: OSXdaily.com

Check out full details on iOS 7 straight from Apple with pictures and video.  

What are your first impressions?  What particular features do you like the best?

3 comments :

Jen said...

I'm pretty impressed with the list. I am looking forward to the new features! David and I love airdrop for our macs. It's very cool. Can't wait for these to come out.

Chris said...

Yeah, of all the options, airdrop seems most interesting. And the control center thing where you can hit settings like WiFi from any screen are nice, but I already have that via jailbreak.

Jen S said...

I'm excited for iTunes radio!

 
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