iOS 7 is hungry for Ice Cream Sandwich

This past week, Apple unveiled to the world their long anticipated iteration of their mobile software, iOS 7. The software update comes with new features as you'd expect - but also the first major design overhaul the iOS has seen since it's launch in 2007. A pretty big deal for Apple - considering it's taken 6 years for a change.

Apple had always taken baby steps when it comes to design revisions and feature additions when it came to the iPhone - for instance video recording being added in iOS 3 and being able to set a background in iOS 4. This is because Steve Jobs had been quoted in saying that 'customers don't know what they want until you show them' - a business philosophy to which Apple stays loyal to - however, it does intrigue me as to why these simple features weren't available on a premium phone from the get go.

For context, I had the original iPhone, back in 2008 I think - then the 3G; until I moved to Android. I've since worked closely with all sorts of phones from all sorts of brands. I did love my iPhone, I really did. The design is sleek, the build is solid and it did feel good owning one. After a while however, limitations did show. I couldn't do many things without needing to jailbreak (gaining root access to the phone to be able to truly modify it to your own needs) the phone.

Back when I had an iPhone; here's how it went. The jailbreaking community would always stay 2 steps ahead in terms of offering tweaks and features in which Apple did not want to include. Many of the official iOS updates generally started to include these features. Video recording? Bluetooth Transfer? Tethering, Quick Settings? Jailbreak beat ya to it. If it wasn't for Cydia and the third party apps, I wouldn't have enjoyed the iPhone experience as much - and this brings me to iOS 7.

SBSettings - the original "control centre"

I am very happy that Apple is progressing and finally adding such features into their OS - it's a good step. The thing that bugs and irritates me is that they will introduce these things as 'revolutionary' and 'amazing'; but the fact is that hell of a lot of these features have been lifted directly from Android (lockscreen anybody?) and have been available many years before the iPhone even came to be.

The lockscreen has been taken from Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) - the multitasking interface taken from HTC's Sense - the 'control centre' has been deemed similar to Android's quick settings (but look at SBSettings above..) and AirDrop is rivalling NFC transfer and Samsung Beam  etc. etc.

I feel like at one point - Apple was at the top of the game in terms of smartphones - hell, it is literally because of the iPhone that we had the influx of smartphones and the true innovation & progress we've seen from our handheld devices within the past half-decade. I think that now every other company has played catch-up and, inevitably overtaken Apple in terms of out-of-the-box features (not including third party apps) - Apple seems to be the one who need to catch up. In doing so, the mass redesign is seen as a radical move in hopes of breathing new life into iOS - without forgetting the irresistible force of Apples dominate marketing team.

The icons are ugly, though.