Showing posts with label iOS 7. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iOS 7. Show all posts
Friday, October 11, 2013
Apps
When it comes to applications the App Store on the iPhone 5S really only has one competitor in the form of Google Play, and it's fair to say that the App Store still comes out on top in terms of quality - if not quantity.
At last count earlier this year, Apple confirmed it had over 900,000 applications in its App Store, so there's plenty for you to choose from including business related content, fitness apps and games.
The store itself is simple to navigate with various categories to drill down into to find the apps best suited to you, and the Top Charts shows you which ones are the most popular at the moment - and ultimately the ones which are worth downloading.
You can download a maximum of three applications simultaneously on the iPhone 5S, letting you get your favourite apps onto the phone even quicker.
If you select more than three to download the others will wait in the wings on your homescreen and will commence downloading when another has finished.
Apps such as Clock, Calendar, Weather, Calculator and Compass are all self explanatory, intuitive and have been given a visual reboot thanks to iOS 7.
The Passbook app arrived with iOS 6 last year and provides you with a storage area for all your loyalty and gift cards, cinema tickets and airplane boarding passes.
It's scope is limited depending on which region you live in and there's only a handful of applications which current support the Passbook way of life - although most of the major airlines have tie ins with the service, as do the likes of Starbucks, AirBnB and yPlan.
Passbook seems like the perfect opportunity to work inNFC to the iPhone ecosystem, but calls for the contactless technology have continued to fall on deaf ears over at Apple - the wait goes on, and looks like it may do so forever.
In short Passbook has a lot of potential, it just hasn't been realised by Apple or app developers yet.
Overall, many apps in the store need something of a refresh to make sure they play nicely with iOS 7. For instance: GMail still uses the old keyboard from iOS 6. Netflix and Adidas MiCoach won't recognise the phone. Some games will crash where the ran fine on the iPhone 5.
We're sure this will happen soon, and many may not even notice it, so we'll be checking back and updating the review in the near future.
Siri
Siri makes a return to the iPhone arena on the iPhone 5S and thanks to the iOS 7 update it's got a few new tricks up its sleeve - including the ability for you to choose whether it's a woman's or man's dulcet tones which ask you "what can I help you with?"
Just hold down the home button to activate Siri, or hold down the central button on the earpods cable if you're in need of some hands-free action.
All the usual commands are present, from making a call and writing a text to setting a reminder to buy milk and finding out if you need to take an umbrella with you - because looking out of the window is difficult.
You can ask your virtual assistant to launch applications - although we found this a little unnecessary - and with the help of WolframAlpha you can ask poignant questions such as "how many days until Christmas?" or "how far away is the moon?" It's enlightening stuff.
We still think Siri trumps the Google Now offering in Android, but it's usefulness varies from country to country - with the best service available in the States where far more services are intertwined with the personal assistant.
Siri has become more useful with iOS 7, there's little disputing that, and the range of answers and information it can give is inching closer to day by day use. It's not great for some things, especially outside of the US, but we don't hate it as much any more. That's a win.
While Apple's own business orientated applications, aimed at taking on Microsoft's Office suite and Google Docs, don't come pre-installed on the iPhone 5S it's worth noting these apps are now available to download free on all newly purchased iPhones.
This means you can get access to Pages (a word processor), Keynote (a PowerPoint rival) and Numbers (basically Excel) free of charge, which will be a godsend for anyone looking to use the iPhone 5S for business. You'll also get iPhoto and iMovie for free too, and really does supercharge the iPhone when it comes to being a fully-formed device right out of the box.
All your documents are backed up to iCloud as well, meaning they'll be available on any of your iDevices or Macs - plus you can also access them via any web browser by going to the iCloud website.
Let's face it: if you want the best apps experience out there, then Apple still has it. While the top end of Android devices are pretty universal in their slick UI and power for apps, Google Play still has to deal with so much fragmentation.
Google has done a fantastic job at managing to overcome this problem, but its rare we'll download an app on an iPhone and an Android device and not be more impressed by the UI (if perhaps not always the functionality) on the iPhone or iPad.
Gallery
The gallery app on the iPhone 5S is something that stays very true to Apple's ethos, one of displaying all your photos in one place but organising them in easy to find places.
For instance, when you open up the redesigned Photos app, you're taken through a few options. You can view your album, your Photostream through iCloud or the myriad videos you'll have nabbed during your time with the device.
However, once into your camera roll, you can organise by moments in time, location or just general collections, with only a couple of taps being needed to make it easier to share the content with a social network.
Obviously from this app you're able to do more, such as create a shared photostream for the family to enjoy, or you can open Apple maps to see properly where the photos were taken. And if you want to zoom out a bit then all you need to do is tap the top left-hand icon, taking you from 'Collections' to 'Years' which means that if you've got millions of snaps then you can see them grouped properly together.
If you're not happy with the photos you have you can always tap the "edit" button when viewing a particular picture to take you into a basic editor.
From there you have various options including crop, rotate, red eye removal, eight filters and auto-enhance.
It's certainly not as detailed as Apple's iPhoto app - which can be downloaded for free from the App Store - but for the occasional photography this simple editor will suffice
Airdrop
If you're interested in sharing these photos with others, the Airdrop is your friend here. Apple's new proprietary connection is one that's pretty darn good and beats the pants of the likes of S Beam on a Galaxy phone or the general need to pull ones hair out when setting up Wi-Fi direct.
In this option you simply tap the photo you want to share, make sure the person you're looking to share it with has a compatible Apple device (and is visible) then tap on the icon of the person that comes up at the bottom in the Control Centre - this works really well and the photo sharing times between the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C were very impressive indeed, using Apple's implementation of the Wi-Fi ad-hoc technology.
It's startling how fast photos beam across, and it's more simple than competitor methods, providing you've made yourself available or accepted other users.
Bluetooth - your days as a data transmission option are starting to draw to a close, unless a newer version of the technology pushes the envelope again.
Video and Slo-mo
Video on the iPhone 5S isn't anything overly special beyond offering decent footage without having to try very hard. Like the camera there's no optical image stabilisation on board, which means that anything that comes with a shaky hand will have the same judder in the footage.
This is especially apparent when zooming in on the footage when you're filming, which can now be done at the same time.
However, the general clarity and smoothness of the video is impressive and will help you capture the precious moments in high clarity. The only other real option is to turn the LED light on to get some real illumination, but be warned: it's bright.
Slo-mo
Another trick enabled by the A7 chip, slow motion has been added to the iPhone 5S. It enables 120fps capture at 720p resolution, but more importantly you can choose when in the footage to speed up and slow down the action, so if you've got a squirrel falling from the tree you can make it so that only the really hilarious bit is at the slower speed.
It's a really neat system for editing your footage, with little tabs to trim the movie to get rid of any waiting around at the start or the end.
While the effect is cool, it's not something we're particularly bothered about in terms of a killer feature on a smartphone. The results are fun and pleasing, but they don't really make us want to pull out Slow-mo mode all the time.
On top of that it's very hard to share the slow motion video, as you can't just pull it off the phone, with the resulting .MOV file jumping and skipping somewhat when viewed back on a PC.
So while we like the idea, Slow-Mo left us feeling rather cold.
Camera
Right - this is where the iPhone 5S is expected to shine, and it really rather does. Apple has decided to push harder with the camera sensor in the new handset, trying to create something the lies squarely between the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, and beat both.
In honesty, it mostly manages this, although the other two are also really decent snappers and in many ways are also class leading.
Let's dial it back a little and explain: Samsung is all about staying true to the 'megapixel wars' and wants to cram as many as it can in there, which is why it has such a complex sensor. It can't function as well in low light, but get the shot composition right and you're going to get some really nice snaps.
The HTC is almost the opposite, as with that you can get some really great low light shots thanks to the improved Ultrapixel camera. This is only a 4MP sensor, but with much larger pixels which let in more light. This means better night time performance and a faster shutter, and with this camera you get a wider gamut of shots to take away with you, although you probably won't want to blow them up for the wall.
The iPhone 5S, as we said, falls in between these camps, coming with an 8MP sensor and pixels 75% the size of the HTC One's offering. The result is a strong blend between sharpness and low light ability, where the iPhone straddles the categories without being market leading in either.
It's got an f/2.2 aperture for better low light, but that's still the same as the Samsung Galaxy S4 and not as good as the f/2.0 on the HTC One.
That said, the new camera interface, combined with the A7's ability to easily combine together three snaps to make the best picture it can, mean this is a truly awesome cameraphone.
The new UI will let you simply slide between modes, be it panorama, a new 'square' mode for social networks, the standard photo, video at 1080p or the all new Slow-mo mode, which can capture 120 frames per second at 720p resolution and gives you the option to choose when the slow down and speed up happens.
The new CPU is at its best here, with the shutter speed really great, the all new burst mode working well (simply activated by pressing the shutter button for any length of time) and giving seemingly unlimited shots. The iPhone can also intelligently work out the best shot and the suggestions usually get it pretty bang on, where other handsets with the same functionality can't every time.
We know that Apple is pretty late to the burst mode game, but it's implemented it in a way that really works rather well. At least the ability to lock focus is on board, as well as locking exposure - these are closer to pro-photographer moves, and allow for some interesting shot composition.
The UI is a something of a bugbear though, despite looking so flashy. The options to enable HDR mode, turn the flash on and off or change to the front facing camera don't always want to come on when you tap, which makes it hard to use the camera when you're trying to take an arty shot in lower light that doesn't need the flash.
This leads us nicely onto the other big change, with the flash getting something of an update thanks to an increase to dual LED. This is nothing new in smartphones, but Apple's been smart here as well, thanks to bringing a white and amber option into play.
What this allows the iPhone 5S to do is analyse the scene with a primary flash and then mix the amber and white colours together to reproduce colours more accurately and stop everything looking so washed out.
It's actually a more impressive feature than we thought it might be when it comes to colour rendition, but we can't say it made us want to use the flash any more than normal. As per usual, it got turned off pretty soon and didn't come back on again, which is partly due to the impressive low light performance.
To summarise: this is the best iPhone camera yet by some distance, and its simplicity of use and the great modes on offer (there's even an area that allows you to choose a filter before you start snapping, with real time previews so you can check each one out.)
That's actually something that we found a little odd: when you pull a filtered photo from your iPhone 5S, the filter has been removed. However, share it through Airdrop or in the Mail app and it will display with Chrome or Mono or whatever filter you went for.
However, that's a terribly minor niggle compared to the hugely impressive camera, which we urge you to try with a little more depth should you get the chance. We would like to see Apple enable 16:9 photos at some point soon, as the UI doesn't lend itself to the 4:3 options that come out.
We understand Apple is trying to stay close to more professional photography, but most phones make full use of the screen, and it would be great if Apple followed suit.
Click here for the full-res image
Internet
The internet browser on the iPhone 5S is one of the most improved elements when it comes to looking at the way iOS 7 has been integrated into the device. The overall UI is more sleek than ever, and there are some dynamic touches that make trotting around the world wide web much easier.
One of the biggest changes, and simultaneously the smallest, is how fast the URL bar will shrink and grow as needed. Go to the top of the page where the URL bar used to be and it will expand to offer full functionality. Start scrolling and you'll see it move away, but still give you the information you need to check on where you actually are on the net.
The Retina display is still sharp enough for general browsing, but you'll need to double tap more than you might on other phones to zoom in as text isn't as legible on some of the Full HD phones out there when viewing a web page from afar.
However, the A7 processor is adept at not only rendering web pages with panache, but also making sure that web elements are loaded properly and don't detract from the overall zooming experience. It's fluid without being fast, which is a trait of iOS 7 overall.
We like that Apple has also included the search bar in with the URL entry area, as it means that more screen real estate can be used for browsing, rather than all being crushed at the top. There's no need for it to be any other way, and it makes things more integrated too.
You get icons on the home landing page which you can set as your most-used apps, and this is a nifty feature that solves the fact that Apple's bookmarking system can be a little convoluted, The icons at the bottom of the screen can be a little harder to work out on the first viewing, but do work nicely nonetheless, with the tabs page allowing you to simply swipe away the open web pages you don't want.
Airdrop is integrated here too, if you want to share web pages with people around you easily, as well as the ability to share it to Twitter, Facebook or other installed apps. Of course you can always lock it in an app like Pocket, but with the ability to add these things to the reading list for easy access later on, that's not really as much of a necessary option.
The reading mode has also been given a tweak that means that it no longer takes up as much of the URL bar, with a simple 'lines' icon signifying when you can enter the cleaner, more stripped down version of the page. This is most useful when using the Twitter functionality, which we really like.
If you're signed into Twitter on your iPhone, then it can parse through your feeds and present you with a list of Tweets with embedded links, which you can scroll through at your leisure, with the bottom of each web page passing on to the next one Tweeted.
It's a nice way to browse through what your friends are sharing, and will perhaps encourage reading on a wider range of subjects.
Apple was in danger of making Safari too complicated with recent iterations, and on the iPhone 5S the cleaner, more simple look is held up nicely by the processing power. We're fans of this method of browsing as it allows users to get to the stuff they really want with the minimum of fuss, and share it easily too.
Messaging
Messaging on the iPhone has always been a tricky area to call, and this device is no exception. On the one hand, the range and stability of the options to talk to other people with your fingers have been superb, and iOS 7 takes this even further than before.
The way things look is just so much more complete, and when you're doing something simple like swiping away an email, the new blockier interface gives you so many options in such a small space.
However, the same screen is getting very cramped for typing these days, and the lack of keyboard customisation is annoying. We understand how Apple likes to lock down its devices, making sure that the experience isn't diluted by third party options, but the keyboard on the iPhone 5S simply isn't accurate enough to be considered a real winner.
If only something like Swiftkey could be enabled on the iPhone 5S, things would be so much more impressive, but we're left frustrated at having to pick out the letters on too many occasions.
The predictive text isn't too bad though, and seems to have improved over previous iterations of the iPhone. But not being able to simply add in a full stop without having to measure a tap and slide just gets too aggravating at times, and the fact your finger will often cover the area that lets you know when caps lock is on led to a few expletives.
Email, SMS and iMessage
As we mentioned, email on the iPhone 5S is excellent thanks to a combination of fast speeds and a strong UI that makes it a breeze to whip through missives from your boss.
The folder organisation is fresh and easy to use, and you can simply choose the options you want in the mailbox instead of just a list of the accounts you've got on offer.
A swipe to the left or right on the message will give you the option to delete said email or quick reply without having to open the message itself. It's clean and crisp and, the smaller screen aside, it's very easy to manage your mail.
Mail does seem to be one of the harder apps on the operating system, with a couple of pauses noted when jumping from one app to another. It also caused a crash on a couple of passes through different apps - we're not used to this kind of thing from Apple, so will be keeping an eye on this when the first software update lands.
However, it wasn't enough to warrant a worry, more that we were surprised it happened at all.
The impressive messaging experience continued when using the SMS and iMessage apps – the only real difference between the two (and thus when you know when it's a free messaging service or a paid for one) is there will be green or blue accents rolling around, including the bar that fills the screen as the message sends.
The ease with which you can send a photo is great, as a quick tap on the icon will enable it... however, it's annoying you can't send other files over iMessage as it feels like a missed opportunity when the system is so slick.
Rival apps such as WhatsApp and Skype also offer similar services while also being available on multiple platforms, so they will be better options if you want to contact your Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry buddies.
But for firing off a few messages to one another and letting people see the glory of your dinner or sightseeing extravaganza, it's very easy to manage.
Social networking
With iOS 7 on board the iPhone 5S it means Twitter and Facebook come baked into the handset - head over to the settings menu and tap the relevant social network to sign in to your account.
Signing into these social networks in the settings menu of the iPhone 5S allows you to quickly share content to both without having to jump into the dedicated applications - which aren't installed by default.
Say you want to post a photo to Facebook, just head on over to the Photos app, select the image you want, tap the share button and choose the FB icon.
Instead of taking you out of the application and into Facebook's own offering, you instead get a little pop up box allowing you to tap in your message, select an album to post the photo to, attach the location it was snapped (which are both optional) and the audience you wish to view it.
A similar pop up box appears if you select Twitter, but obviously with less options and a counter for 140 characters.
Pull down the notification bar though and the "Tap to Tweet" and "Tap to Post" buttons are no longer sitting proudly at the top of the screen - so you'll have to fire up the dedicated apps (once you've downloaded and installed them) to update the world on what you had for breakfast.
We bemoaned the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 for Apple's poor implementation of the baked in social features and sadly with the new range of iPhones and iOS 7 things haven't got much better. We're sure there's some cool stuff Apple could do with this functionality, but it's obviously yet to realise its potential.
A7 and M7 chips
Apple has imbued the new iPhone 5S with not one, but two, chips that will help it become one of the most powerful phones on the market.
It's almost insane to think of the power running under the hood here, and there's no doubt that it's given things a real performance boost – with a lot, lot more potential to come down the road.
A7 Chip
The new A7 chip from Apple is an interesting concept: not only does it bring a huge boost in power, but it's now been turbo-charged to a 64-bit CPU.
To most people that label will mean nothing more than wondering whether this means their phone is as powerful as a Nintendo 64 – in reality, it's actually a pretty important move for the company.
Simply put, a 64-bit chip allows for more powerful processing and a greater amount of power to be plugged through the phone for most tasks. It will tolerate a greater amount of RAM in the future too.
The thing is, it doesn't really mean much to the consumer right now. There are some noticeable elements that take advantage, with the camera being much faster and able to handle so much smoothly. And we're willing to bet the Touch ID sensor is going to need a hefty whack of power to enable such tight security on the phone.
Beyond that though, you're not going to notice much in the way of an improved experience, and that's not because this phone is slow, it's because the iPhone is already a slick and fast beast. Almost since the iPhone 4 we haven't seen much in the way of slowdown from Apple's handsets, and this is no different. In fact, in side by side comparisons, the iPhone 5S is actually a touch slower than the iPhone 5 for general use, thanks to iOS 7 relying more on animations to move between apps.
This doesn't mean it feels slower, it just has a really different feel to the way you navigate through the phone.
So there are two things to note when thinking about the A7 chip: one, Apple is able to talk about a chip that's one of the most powerful around, which is something its rivals have been doing for a while now with no need. But like the quad-core phones of today, there's not a lot of point in a 64-bit chip right now.
That doesn't mean it's a pointless move from Apple, and this leads us to our second point: Apple is getting its iPhone range ready for the next generation of devices. These will allow developers to create apps across all Apple devices, thanks to iPhones now packing 'desktop class architecture'.
But what does it all mean for you, the consumer? Well, put simply, it's Apple taking its CPU seriously, giving the customer more power than they could ever possibly need at the moment without compromising too much on battery life.
It's pretty hard to see how that could be a negative, despite some claiming that this is nothing but a marketing exercise. It's not, it's Apple future proofing itself, allowing its phones to add in new layers of security and providing developers with the tools to make even better apps.
However, those apps will be larger and could create a greater drain on battery life should they get more intensive – however, that's for Apple and the developers to thrash out, and there's no reason to think that there won't be greater efficiencies clawed back through the improved OS integration.
In short: bigger, faster and better to give the most slick iPhone experience yet. This is Apple sticking it to the quad-core brigade.
M7
There's another cheeky little chip under the hood that sits alongside the A7 main unit: the M7 chip, which is there to make the iPhone 5S a rival to the likes of the Nike Fuelband and the Jawbone Up.
It allows the main CPU to snooze while it tracks the motion of the phone, through the accelerometer, gyrometer and compass.
This means that it will know when you're jogging or when you're in the car, and can take that information and store it without needing to drain the battery by having the main CPU chugging away.
It can even retrofit the data to apps that you download at a later date, meaning any M7-enabled app that uses the new CoreMotion API will be able to give you information on recent training.
It will also seamlessly slip from walking to driving navigation on Apple Maps, which is a nifty extra, taking another hassle out of life, and especially useful for keeping drivers safe behind the wheel.
We're yet to see the benefit of what's on offer with the M7 chip, but Apple is going to get more and more involved in the fitness part of the smartphone world, and this is a major play towards that.
Touch ID
Now we're getting onto something that's really rather special: the Touch ID sensor on the iPhone 5S. While obviously unconfirmed, this is likely to be used to the new range of iPad devices and give them a whole new level of functionality – it's much harder to enter a passcode on these two-handed devices.
But enough about the future – what about the now? Touch ID is a system that we didn't expect to see in phones now, with fingerprint scanning relatively written off as being something that was just too cumbersome to implement. Just look at the Motorola Atrix with its back-mounted sensor… that didn't really work.
Well, that's not true with the Touch ID sensor on the iPhone 5S. It's phenomenal in the way it works, making it possible to have a phone that is as secure as having a passcode, but without the irritation of having to enter it a million times a day.
Press the home button and let your finger rest there, and the phone just opens itself up. It's hard to explain just how cool the motion feels.
Yes, it's not 'properly' secure – there's still a passcode right there for those that don't want to use the fingerprint scanner, and if someone reads that over your shoulder they'll still be able to steal your phone and get in.
This negates the insanity that some are peddling, such as how robbers will be cutting off fingers or forcing users to unlock the phone. Firstly, the sensor is capacitive and therefore needs an actual, alive, finger to use it.
Secondly: this isn't a way of securing national secrets. If someone is that desperate to get into your phone, there are myriad ways. But if you want to avoid pecking out a passcode time and time again, this is a brilliant method of doing it.
Moreover, you can use Touch ID to replace your iTunes password. This is an excellent way of not having to pop in your special word over and over again when you're buying items or downloading certain apps. It might only save a few seconds, but more importantly than that, it's just so goshdarn cool that we can't help but love to do it.
And on the point of security, Apple may have pushed that element further than it needed to – but that should give consumers decent peace of mind.
The Touch ID sensor communicates directly with the stored fingerprint on the A7 chip, and not even the rest of the phone can see it. This means your fingerprint won't get backed up to iCloud and accidentally shared with the world. But you'll never be able to use different digits to open other apps, which would have been awesome from the lock screen.
Imagine being able to press a single digit to the phone to unlock it… OK, that's here now. But then press a different finger and open the music player, and a third will take you straight to your Pocket reader.
It would be an amazing way to do things and show that the iPhone is more built around the user – however, we suspect that Apple is erring on the side of security here, and that's not a bad thing at all.
In terms of setting up your finger recognition, there's nothing to it: press your digit up and down on the sensor and the phone will buzz every time it learns your fingerprint. And not only that, but you're then asked to show the edges of your finger to get a larger image of the print, giving more accuracy.
In practice you can turn your finger or thumb any way you like on the button and it will still register just the same – there are some mis-scans, but on the whole it's really rather excellent and accurate. We like, and this is the shape of things to come on phones, with Apple stealing a rather large march.
iOS 7
One big change on the iPhone 5S that will come to a number of other devices is iOS 7. However, this is clearly the flagship device for the new operating system, and it shows off the UI redesign superbly.
The Retina display is clearly calibrated to make best use of the explosion of colour on offer, and the flatter icons look painted onto the screen.
For those that missed the iOS update, you'd best gird your loins if you're not a fan of colour all over the place. iOS 7 is a lot brighter, cleaner and sleeker than its bloated predecessor, but it does look like Jony Ive has dipped into his crayon pot a few times.
But don't think this is a negative: we're fans.
The colours on offer are fun, fresh and most importantly distinctive, giving a real unique feel to iOS 7 that other platforms might not have. Photos, Safari and Music are all changed, as well as a host of other apps too, and while some have labelled them 'childish', they're clearly indicative of the new style Apple is looking to create.
What we do find frustrating in iOS 7 and its previous iterations is the dependence it has on the settings menu, with various app controls all housed here instead of within the apps themselves.
It's annoying if you're in the Facebook app for example and want to adjust the notification settings. You have to exit the app and navigate to the setting menu instead.
Look beyond the UI though and you'll see that the iPhone 5S is much easier to use, which is impressive for a phone that was already market-leading in its simplicity.
Dragging upwards from pretty much anywhere on the phone will open the Control Center, giving access to the music player, brightness, quick apps such as a timer, torch and calculator, as well as allowing you to switch on and off elements like the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
Yes, it's a notion that's been part of Android for a number of years, but it's been done in a way that feels a lot more solid and intuitive, never changing with notifications so you can easily trust that when you need a torch you can get to it easily.
That said, the torch was an odd area of the Control Center. Whenever lifting up the tab to access said function, you'd always need to wait a second or two before being able to hit any of the app quick icons. It's not a huge problem, but one that quickly got tiring. It's like the whole drawer needs a second to boot up.
We also found an odd glitch here too: the music controls don't work over Bluetooth headphones, nor on the lock screen. This was fixed with a reboot, but we've been on to Apple about this and will update the review as soon as we hear back.
There's also a new notification area that can be accessed by dragging downwards. Thankfully unlike the Control Center, this can be customised: you don't need to have to look at stocks or your upcoming meetings or lack of social engagements if you don't want to, but there's always information on the weather there, which is nice when you realise you'll need a coat.
This is also the place where you'll get any missed notifications, be it a call, message or that jacket on eBay you were looking to buy when someone's outbid you on it.
Both of these areas are nicely designed too, with translucency that allows you to see very vaguely through to the rest of the phone. This gives the whole handset an air of completeness. It feels like a phone that's able to connect within itself and not fall apart when a new app rolls into town.
Multi-tasking has been given an overhaul with iOS 7. Gone is the bar that appeared at the bottom of the display when you double tap the home button.
The double tap action now sees the screen you're viewing minimised to a thumbnail in the centre of the screen, and a horizontal list to the right of it made up of small panels of all the other apps running in the background.
The layout reminds us of the multitasking menu on HTC's Sense UI, and you can scroll through the various applications, swiping up over thumbnails to close certain applications.
We're not overly keen on this new design as the interface does break things up when flicking between apps. (On the iPad you've got the great five finger swipe to move between open apps – could this have not been repeated on the iPhone?)
There's obviously some other new features, as well as some old favourites. For instance, a long press on any app will engage the editing mode for the home screen, meaning you can uninstall anything you fancy (as long as it's not hard-coded by Apple) and drag and drop it onto another icon to make a folder.
The folder system was a great idea from Apple, and it's been improved with iOS 7, allowing users to dump more in one folder and just swipe through it to see more apps.
It's not a big thing, but show it to any iPhone user now and they'll smile at such an important fix. Who wants 'Games 4' anyway?
The rest of the phone is mostly a cosmetic upgrade - there are some important performance tweaks, such as on the internet browser and camera UI. But iOS is really a lick of exceptionally powerful and much-needed paint, keeping the raw power and integration that Apple prides itself on while taking some of the clever ideas from other smartphones on the market and making them its own.
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