iOS 7: Have You Noticed These Features?

Using an iOS 7 device, without being familiar with all the key features and properties of the interface, would be a bit of a shame. Read through the following, and enjoy using the all-new mobile interface from Apple to the fullest.

According to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple Inc., iOS 7 had been downloaded on nearly 65% of all the iOS devices present worldwide, within a month of its release. This statistic clearly underlines the eagerness with which iPhone and iPad users had been looking forward to the new mobile user interface. Without going into the debate about whether iOS 7 has been able to really satisfy all user-expectations, we will only highlight some of its features and properties that you might have missed out on:

1. Backward-swiping feature – No longer do you need to actually close every app or settings page manually. Once you’re done with downloading a song, sending a mail, or changing the phone settings – simply swipe on the screen backwards, and you will get back to the previous page. This one will help you save quite a bit of time.

2. Camera Burst Mode – Hailed by experts from nearly every iPhone application development company in India, the Burst Mode for camera on iOS 7 is definitely one of the high points of the latter. When you press the camera shutter on the handset (along with one or both the audio buttons), the device will snap along at intervals of about half a second. More opportunities to capture that perfect frame!

3. Calling from the Messages app – That’s right, on an iOS 7 device, you can directly call up a person – after reading a message from him/her (no need to go back to your phonebook). On the top right hand corner of the page, you will also get options to look up all the contact information about the sender, and can even invite him/her for a FaceTime chat.

4. Better multitasking features – The multitasking properties of iOS have been revamped – something that has earned praise for Apple, from mobile application development companies in India and abroad. To swap between two or more applications, you only have to tap twice on the home screen, and then tap on the app you want to work with at present. The absence of a ‘Back’ button is still an issue, but multitasking on an iOS device is no longer as frustrating as it once was.

5. Visibility of message timestamps – Need to find out exactly at what time someone had sent you a multimedia or a text message? Contrary to what it might appear at first, iOS 7 does not delete such time-related information – it only hides them from the default view. If you swipe left on the screen, the detailed timestamps of each of the messages will become visible.

6. Blocking a contact – If you do not want to be bothered by prank calls, or an acquaintance – you can simply block that person’s number on your contact list. On devices powered by iOS7, you will find a ‘Block This Caller’ tab against every entry on the phonebook. Of course, you can unblock the number/person at any time too. Remember, when you block a number, you won’t get messages sent from it either.

7. Control Center – With the recent upsurge in iPhone app development in India, the average number of applications installed on iOS devices is increasing too. The Control Center on iOS 7 makes it easy to manage all the installed/default mobile apps – from a centralized location. Apps that are not already open will be displayed as locked in the Control Center.

8. A more ‘eager-to-learn’ Siri – Siri is back on iOS 7, and she is more eager than ever to respond correctly to all your commands. For instance, you can now teach her the correct pronunciation of the names of each of your contacts – so that voice dialing never becomes a problem. The only possible flipside? Siri will give you three options for every name, and if none of them is correct – well, tough luck!

9. Automated app upgrades – Although not a particularly good news for the already-suspect battery life of iPhones, this iOS 7 feature has made getting the latest versions and releases of the mobile apps that you regularly use a lot easier. You only have to turn the ‘Automatic Downloads’ feature on, from your handset’s settings dashboard. However, if you are going for a long-distance road trip where there would be no facilities for charging your phone, it will be advisable to switch off this feature.

10. Airdrop – iOS 7 makes the task of sharing stuff (documents, pictures, videos, practically everything) with others through iphones/ipads extremely easy. You have to set Airdrop on from the Control Center, put the things that you wish to share there, tap on the ‘Share’ button – and enter the number of the person(s) with whom the sharing has to be done. Airdrop for iOS ranks high on the security count too.

If you have plenty of iPhone apps with push-notification features installed, you will find the option to hide unnecessary notifications to be handy too (you need not go through each of them). The new down-swipe feature of Spotlight is also much more user-friendly than the need for side-swiping on the older versions of iOS. The Compass app (native in iOS 7) is yet another element of the interface that is useful. iOS 7 might still not be an absolutely ‘perfect’ interface, but it ain’t too far off the mark either!