iOS7 Beta

The first point to make is this version of iOS 7 is in beta, it sounds obvious, but it's worth stating. It's like the preview nights at the theatre, designed to iron out the kinks, the first time for the audience to interact with it. So iOS 7 currently isn't the finished article. 

Strikingly and obviously iOS 7 is very different, Apple's CEO Tim Cook remarked, it's was the biggest change to iOS (iPhones operating system) since iPhone was launched just 6 years ago. 

Following Scott Forstall's departure as senior vice president of iOS, Apple has made improvements. 

Firstly Jonathan Ive, Apples design ledgend was appointed the leadership role of Apple's Human Interface with Craig Federighi of becoming the head of iOS software engineering. At WWDC it was Craig who was invited onstage to present to the world the first official glance of iOS 7. 

What's it like? 

It's different, a flatter, more modern, cleaner, simpler look and feel, with added functionality. 

It was Mr. Ive, who previously stated that we (Apple) take changing iOS very seriously because it's at the very heart of every iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. So to make a change and still keep it farmilar is magical. From hitting the power button the design ques are apparent. Insead of swiping across the bottom of your iOS device, in a finger width sized bar, you can now swipe left to right across pretty much the whole screen to unlock. 

 My first instinct, maybe because of the upwards pointing arrow, was indeed to swipe to unlock, but upwards. This of course is not what Apple users are used to, and therefor the upward swipe is not for this. 

Instead swiping upwards reveals the control centre, where some of the most popular and useful shortcuts are now available.

Super quick access to the likes of Alarms, Bluetooth, WiFi, Calculator, music controls and more. Having used iOS 7 from the off, I can say I love control centre. I future builds will users be able to configure its contents? 

Did you notice the down arrow at the top of the home screen, centre, to the right of the new signal strength guide? Swiping down from the top of the home screen or again almost any screen allows access to your updated notifications. 

Notifications are now split into today, all and missed, along with a preview message of what tomorrow looks like. Cheekily it can say stuff like ..."looks like you have a busy today tomorrow, not might be a good to get some rest."

Improvements to the stock camera app, brings live filters, reminiscent of those found on the iPad, but better. A square option for posting to your Sunday pub lunch snaps to your social media app of choice. 

The features of iOS7 listed here are by no means exclusive, and serve as an appetiser to the public release penned for this fall. Found a better feature, disagree or have your own take on iOS7, leave a comment for me. 

Never miss anything ever

Never miss a shared calendar event. Shared calendars are great, you a parent, sibling, co worker or friend can share events with you on iPhone.

The sharer can choose which calendars of course and weather they are read only (only viewable, but not changeable) or changeable and viewable. Once you've shared, make sure everyone's iOS device has the followings settings set to on. This way those shared calendar events once created, modified or deleted will generate a little notification on the shared iOS devices.

Turn on notifications for shared calendars:

Tap Settings
Select Mail, Contacts, Calendars

No one need be surprised by uncle Bob's surprise birthday party or miss wishing their sister a safe flight or forget that tonight you have to finish work early because its your son's parents evening.

Blimey, is that the time got to run!
Slide on Shared Calendar Alerts.

QUICK POST iOS6 UK Passbook vouchers

Harvester has on exclusive iOS6 offer. Navigate to SimplyHarvester on your iPhone, click on the passbook button to enjoy £'s off

QUICK POST: Apple Stores Update

The Apple uniform is measured for each member of staff, nothing unusual in that, all companies want to portray a professional image with staff in correctly sized uniform. With Apple there's more to it, more detail. The apple logo on the T's are of course exactly in the middle horizontally. But did you know that as part of the measuring the Apple logo is set to be vertically aligned with the wearers heart. Which I believe quite inspiring, taking Apple to your heart. Apples area team visually audit the accuracy and consistency of this.

Previously the land yards, which are worn approximately 3 fingers or so above your heart contained the Apple credo which had to be carried at all times. Now the thinner land yards carry Apple business cards (black), so businesses can get calls back and a whole raft of unpressidented support, personal business cards (white) for retail staff and other items like the latests promotions like back to school app purchases.

The front of the lanyard displays the employees first name and underneath that the country logo, which also could be which languages they are fluent in?

Play tables

Each group of products are aligned by the lines on the table iPads on one line, MacBooks on another and magic mice on another. A naked iPhone is used to set all the MacBook screens to the now updated number of degrees to make viewing easier and the displays uniform via an app.

Life under Tim cook, is slightly more open, store staff are sent emails monthlyish on how things are going with thank you's. I am told that the business still misses the loss of Steve Jobs.

For product launches store staff are told approximately 24hrs before, they will be needed for a long shift. The excitement and atmosphere in store for such events would I am sure partly make up for this. It seems store staff learn about new launches and products refreshes from the keynotes, just like the rest of us do.

QUICK POST: My first Apple Workshop

After downloading the Apple Store App, from iTunes I discovered that my local store, like all Apple stores, regularly run free workshops on everything Apple from iTunes surgeries to setting up your iPad or mac. Open the Apple store App, click on the stores tab at the centre bottom of the screen. Allow your location services or type in your location and let the App find your local stores. Click on the store you're interested in. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on "workshops and events" to see what's on offer. See something you might like tap, to see more info and tap the big blue make a reservation button, and boom your done.

With Olympic fever running rampant in the UK, this weeks workshops had a sporting feel. Arriving a little early outside the store my iPhone flashed up this message (see photo.) From the welcome screen you can choose to check in now, by doing this your name automatically appears on the concierges iPad. It's like being on the VIP list outside a club, you get get looked after and fast tracked.

Seated on a stool provided to me, while other customers stand I wait briefly for other work shoppers. The workshop starts in the centre of the store while business continues around us. Using an iPhone connected to a Mac cinema display. Informative and engaging it lashes around 30 mins and gives me ideas to try later and encouragement to keep coming back to the Apple store.

This engagement is what Apples about. It wasn't about getting a sale, it's about getting the most out of your Apple products, providing solutions and helping people be their best.

Unlike other retailers the sales is not the end of Apples customer interactions.

What Fuji's news means for iPhone Apps

Recently Fuji has announced it is making public it's photo finishing API's.

What could this mean for iPhone customers?

It could mean If a smart app developer applied these API's to there app you could theoretically, snap a pic on your iPhone edit it, remove red eye, sharpen the foreground, lighten the background, remove the unwanted fence post, ect. This is then, the potentially brilliant bit, sent your enhanced photograph straight to a Fuji branded minilab, where it would be ready for you to collect.

Walk in, give your name, collect and off you go. And if the retailer has a SMS system liked to their point of sales, as soon as your photos are printed you could be texted their ready for collection.

This could be the real world equivalent of sending your photos to the cloud, only this way you "automatically" obtain a physical print to cherish.

The problem with digital, unless your incredibly disciplined is most casual snappers wait until there memory card is full, panic and print everything or even lazier than that purchase a new card. If your online you may have tried uploading your photos to an online printing service like Bootsphoto or photobox, these are fine but can be quite slow at uploading your pictures.

Where an app may trump these services is in not necessarily in the speed of upload, as this maybe even slow if connected to 3G, but it it's ease of use. And if the app was Snapspeed for example you could edit the alright shot and make it a great before you send it for printing. This would be quicker then going home and editing it on the Macbook, more time intense still than using the very limited cumbersome editing functions on the instore kiosk.

Imagine taking a handful of shots on your iPhone of your little protege on their sports day, moments after winning a medal those pictures are sent to the lab and printed. Later that same day while you pick up something for dinner, before you pick up your champion, you pop in and collect your triumphant shots. Collect your mini Bolt from school and share his success in the playground with some great pictures.

An app with these API's beautifully done would bring back the joy of holding prints again.