iOS7 is out for about a week. After playing it around for a while, I figured out my likes and dislikes of iOS7.

Features I Like

Black Lists

Previously, one choice is to jailbreak the iPhone and purchase a $15 app in the Cydia app store; or, go to the carrier and talk with them. Now things are just as simple as they are. To access the setting, go to Settings -> Phone -> Blocked, and add the contacts that you do not want to be contacted. The setting applies to messages and facetime too.

Swiping Anywhere on Lock Screen to Unlock

Things should be like this years ago. I know Apple has a patent on the slide bar and is sorta proud of this design, but that is not the reason not to move on. Glad to see this finally comes.

Automatic App Update

This is a feature that Apple copied from the Android world and did better than Google. With another Android device (first generation Samsung Galaxy Note), it almost always happens that the automatic app update starts when I picked my tablet and want to check something just for a second. What actually happens is that I have to wait for a painful couple of minutes for the device to become responsive due to the automatic app update. The so-called background update almost never happened to me. Apple has done this in a perfect manner.

Features I Hate

What’s somewhat sad about the mobile age is that, there is pretty much nothing you can do about a bad UI design and just suffer. For apps, you have to be cautious before updating, since sometimes the design team’s effort could really actually turn into dismal ashes. iOS7 is no exception.

Less Apps in a Folder Page

I am used to grouping apps of the same kind in folders. In the pre-iOS7 age, each folder can have at most six-teen icons and that’s the maximum. I liked it because that number is enough—except for games, in which case I have two folders. This works perfect for me, since it gives me a minimal average number of taps to access whatever apps I want. However in iOS7, since there are only nine apps in a folder page, very often I have to swipe once more for my apps.

Control Center

Swiping from the bottom gives access to many controls that used to be only accessible in the settings app. However, the point is, most of the are just things I probably would never change/use. It is simply a waste of screen estate.

Notification Center

In one sentence, all the information looks like an unstructured mess, compared to those in iOS6. In one more sentence, where did the handy widgets for tweeting and updating Facebook status go?—they are obliterated for an apparently bad reason, that they are not notifications, but actions.