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© CreativeBits
I’m guessing Apple is taking a page from Microsoft on how to create an OS that people won’t like. Considering the drastic changes they should have had a link to the equivalent of patch notes.
Force closing apps has changed. Instead of double-clicking the home button and getting the stuff to pop up from the bottom of the screen you get something more akin to ATL+Tab in Windows. However, it’s not immediately obvious that I need to grab the window (vs. the icon) and ‘throw’ it off the top of the screen vs. pressing and holding the icon, then clicking a whole bunch of (x)s. Now that I know, I get it, I think I even like it more than the old way, but having to google it was the pain point.
PodCasts removed from iTunes. This actually really irks me! Not only is it an extra app to switch beteen – generally at work I either listen to podcasts or music. In one app it was no problem. Not that switching to a second app is all that painful, but why make this change? And, I had to go download the app after syncing my iPad which has PodCasts, if you’re going to move podcasts to a different app then at least auto-download that app.
PodCasts don’t proceed to the next when complete. If the last bit irked me this irritates the hell out of me! If I’m driving I often will plug my iPhone or iPad into my car to listen to the podcasts I listen to. Well, once one ends I then have to manually start the next. There is no reason for this. Might as well have made the change to music so I have to start each song individually.
Edit: PodCasts do proceed to the next podcast when complete, but in reverse order!
Group folders show fewer apps at a given moment. On the pro side it seems they can hold an unlimited number of apps which you just scroll left and right between, but for such a large screen (on my iPad) why am I limited to nine apps? I have yet to do the update to my iPhone so I can’t say how many it holds, but I’m sure it will be lessened similarly to the iPad. I really liked that my iPhone 5 groups could hold more than my iPhone 3GS groups.
Background images can’t be the full image size. Why am I complaining about this? Why did they take the effort to make the change? I liked finding perfectly sized images in a particular app (Paper if you care) of people’s beautiful artwork. Now, I lose 30% or so of the image, which also pixelates some of the images. Just to be sure this was for any image I tried to use pictures I had taken with my iPad and sure enough, it feels it has to zoom in to all. While selecting an image you can zoom in a little so you aren’t losing 30%, but I want the whole picture, not 80% of it.
Edit: The background image can be the full image, but by default they have a new feature turned on which means your image isn’t full size.
At first glance I saw some things changed in other base apps, some seem good, some seem bad. I’m not likely to review anything more about the new iOS unless I really hate it on my iPhone. And yes, there are some things that already bother me about iTunes 11.
Take away: Apple, learn from other companies mis-steps <cough>Microsoft</cough> when changing an OS: Change for change’s sake isn’t always a good thing and sometimes the current method is the best method (or at least the new idea for a method isn’t necessarily better).