Apple unveils iOS 7

Apple has just announced the latest iteration of its iOS platform, the completely redesigned and improved iOS 7.

As you may have read in the past, iOS 7 is a complete overhaul and revamp of the six-year-old platform. Sir Jony Ive completely removed all signs of Scott Forstall’s skeuomorphism and replaced it with his own “flat” design which, most of us would agree, is a lot better.

Although, the UI is now cleaner and simpler, long-time iOS users will still find iOS 7 familiar and easy to use. Here are some of the new features of iOS 7:

Control Center – The Control Center gives you quick access to the settings and shortcuts. Just swipe up from any screen, including the Lock screen, and it will pull up a dashboard of controls and switches like connectivity toggles, brightness adjustment, play or skip a song, activate AirPlay, or quickly access your flashlight, timer, calculator and camera.

Notification Center – Swipe down from top to reveal an improved Notification Center. The usual functions are still there like letting you know about your new mail, text messages, missed calls, and to-dos. In addition, there’s a new feature called Today which gives you the weather and a quick summary of your agenda for the day. Like the Control Center, the new Notification Center is also accessible froom any screen including the Lock screen.

Multitasking – Multitasking is a lot better now on iOS 7. You sill have to press the Home button twice to reveal currently open apps but instead of just seeing a row of icons at the bottom, you’ll also get preview screens of those apps as well (reminds us of HTC’s multitasking feature). To quit an app, just swipe it up and out of preview.

Camera – the camera gets new features as well aside from its new look. To change shooting modes, no need to tap buttons or access menus. Just swipe to access video, panorama, stills and square (for easy Instagram posts). And guess what, you can now add filters to your still and square photos directly from the camera app.

Photos – The new Photos on iOS 7 now includes a feature called Collections, Moments, and years. In essence it’s a well-organized grouping of all your photos and videos based on the time and place they were taken. There’s also the iCloud Photo Sharing which is basically a a shared photo stream and functions like a Facebook Timeline of sorts where friends can post photos, videos, and comments to your stream.

AirDrop – Apple took the OS X’s AirDrop feature and included it in iOS 7. What AirDrop does is it lets you instantly share photos, videos, contacts, or files with other iOS 7 users near you. However it’s only limited to the iPhone 5, latest iPod Touch, iPad 4, and the iPad Mini.

Safari – The Safari browser for iOS gets a UI redesign as well and now features a unified smart search fieald and a new tab view.

iTunes Radio – iTunes Radio is Apple’s new free radio streaming service for iOS devices. Unfortunately this feature is only available in the U.S. Although I’m sure some will find a workaround for this.

Siri – Siri’s interface gets an uplift as well and comes in a new female or male voice. It now has search support for Twitter, Wikipedia and Bing, and can now accept commands to control settings.

For a better understanding of the features watch the video below:

iOS 7 will will be available as a free software update for the iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPad mini and iPod touch (5th generation) this fall (September onwards).