Apple announced a lot today as WWDC began. Chief among the announcements is a long-overdue redesign for iOS, which looks essentially the same in iOS 6 as it did in iPhone OS 1, or whatever they versioned it back in 2007.
The redesign is very slick, and as expected by many, focuses on reducing design aspects to a more flat design.
I’m not an iOS user and haven’t been one for quite some time, but one feature jumped out as surprisingly refreshing, the Control Center, which allows the user quick access to device settings among other things. Quoting the Verge:
Adding quick-access controls like these have been a popular jailbreak tweak, and clearly Apple has taken that to heart.
Over the years when I get into discussions with developers about why they carry iPhones, this topic comes up frequently. The developer will say something like “I only jailbroke my phone so I could get quick access to settings” via some app or another. So, unlike many Android phone carrying developers, these people don’t really want to tamper with their devices.
Android has always been a playground for the curious, and iOS has always had an antagonistic relationship with the jailbreaking community. I asked my boss why he still carries an iPhone, despite his recent drift to various Android devices. His comments boiled down to something like “I just need it to work, and with Android, because I can muck about with it, I do. And sometimes that means I break it. I need the phone to work.”
By extension, he needs to the phone to protect him from himself and his muck-about tendencies.
I’m in the same place, albeit on a different phone OS, and I’ve stuck with Nexus devices specifically because I wanted them to just work and avoid falling down the rabbit hole.
Back to Control Center, it’s significant that Apple has listened to its users. This might be a new direction. Apple is famous for its design and execution and for aggressively making decisions, regardless of what users may think.
I’m probably reading into to it bit too much, since I have to assume that Apple’s employees all carry iPhones and have probably been screaming for this feature for years. Still, I wonder why it took so many years to make it into base iOS.
Anyway, iOS 7 looks very nice and has quite a few new features. I’m also interested to see how well the WebOS-style multi-tasking works.
Thoughts? Find the comments.
