Well, despite not wanting to (I’m a creature of habit and I was quite fond of the look of my old iPhone operating system) – I took the plunge and updated. This was sometime ago and as you can see, I am still not that comfortable with the new layout and way of navigating around it.
I am slowly – emphasis on slowly – getting used to it. Some have touted it as a ‘bold new look’. Hmmm. I disagree.
Heres what I DON’T like:
- I find the pastel palette watery and washed out and not always easy to read – I would like it to be bold and – well – customisable. (you can invert the colours to a dark palette but that is worse)
- I feel like I am in kindergarten and someone has handed me a kids toy – it looks simplistic and ‘child like’. (Incidentally – two of my office staff who updated felt the same way – obviously we are all a little reluctant to change)
- I updated Evernote (who claimed the new update would be far superior and be similar to the OS 7) – this was a mistake – on doing so I lost all my notes and had to reinstall to fix the bug. That is another post for another day but suffice to say I was most cross. I guess I am getting used to it.
- You still cant use it in landscape mode on the phone – a minor frustration but a frustration all the same.
- I dont like that it seems to often crash – it could be I need to update some of my apps but its becoming frustrating.
Heres what I DO like:
- The new version of the camera is a lot better. I especially like that you can swipe for video and now there are some nice new in app features for basic editing that are far better than before – its long overdue. Still wish it had some more features (like a one touch instant beautification thing that smoothed skin and made the photo just that little more ‘magazine’ like) because – well I am a girl after all and I do like the idea of no more yucky photos!! Maybe in the next update.
- I like that you can quit multiple apps at once – but I have only recently realised that double tapping the home button brings up all the open aps (of which I must have had half of them open) – now you can close them with more than one finger – three finger swipes if you are particularly skilled!! This force quits any running apps.
- Theres a new block callers feature. You just need to add the callers number to your contacts – scroll down to the bottom of the screen and ‘block caller’ – it will block incoming calls, facetimes and messages. Very handy if you are avoiding someone.
- If you want to see where you have been, location services has a nifty wee thing that has a map that shows you where you have been. Under SETTINGS, PRIVACY, LOCATION SERVICES, SYSTEM SERVICES (its at the bottom), FREQUENT LOCATIONS. Its quite useful if you need to find where you have been.
- Theres some new sounds – and they are marginally better. Pet peeve of mine is that you can’t (without an app to make it and a lot of fluffing around) make one of your songs into the ring tone. (which you can do with other phones) Lets hope apple one day make this better. Thus far its rubbish and there are times I wish I had Techno Mans cool sounds and songs from his android.
- Safari lets you auto fill your forms – I am still a bit suspect about that (trust issues anyone?) but the facility is there if you need it.
- I love that you can fill up a folder with many apps – thus tidying things up which is a great thing.
- Theres some nice things in the App Store – I like the ‘Apps near you‘ aspect. Here you can find what people are downloading near you – handy if you are travelling and want inside local knowledge.
- Control center is welcome – I am still learning how to use it but it does seem quite useful when I remember it is there.