3D Printing, How to

How to get started with iOS 7

Brett Haggard

18th September 2013

It’s been a busy month for Apple. Not only has it launched two new iPhones, it’s managed to get a completely revamped version of its iOS operating system out of the door, too. The new iPhone 5S and 5C will come with iOS 7 installed, but don’t worry. If you have an iPhone 4 or up, or an iPad 2 or newer, you can get iOS 7 for free.

Go to the Settings menu of your phone and tap General, then Software Update. From this menu, you can download and install the latest version of iOS. Be warned, though, it’s a massive file to download, so you’ll want to do it at a time when you’re connected to a WiFi network and don’t need to use your phone for a while.

The alternative of course, is to plug your phone into your computer and initiate a sync with iTunes. iTunes should pop up a message to let you know there’s an update for your phone and that it can download it and install it.

What’s new?

New Icons: iOS 7 has had a complete facelift. All the icons are new, and shun any faux 3D appearance.

Facetime Audio Calls: As a rival to other services like Skype, FaceTime works smoothly and well. It’s even better now, thanks to the ability to place audio calls over the internet, reducing the amount of bandwidth you need to use with video.

Multitasking: The new multitasking screen gives you thumbnails of all running apps, rather than just their icons, and allows you to close apps by swiping upwards on their image.

Better notifications: Dragging from the top of the screen to bring up the Notifications panel is also different now. In iOS 7, notifications are full-screen and your alerts are divided by three different timescales. There’s now also a live calendar view in there.

Control Panel: Functionally, this is probably the most important change. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and you get Control Center – a hand dash that controls music playback and turns features like the radio on and off.

Parallax Backgrounds: As well as new icons, there’s also a new way of handling them on top of the background. The icons are on a virtual layer above the background, and have the effect of being able to move the background independently. When you tilt the phone, the background moves at the same angle while the icons above look the same.

Parallax Backgrounds: And from a slightly different angle…

But, that’s not all…

There are loads of smaller new features in iOS 7. Here are our four favourites:

Better syncing across all your iPhones/iPads/Macs

iOS 7 uses iCloud to make sure all your information is exactly where you need it: directly in front of you. Notifications are consistent on all your iOS and MacOS machines, and so are your passwords and form- filling data if you wish.

Activation lock

One area in which Apple has always had the edge over its rivals is in the ability to find a lost phone using its built-in GPS chip. With iOS 7, you can not only disable a lost phone, you can leave a message on the home screen for the finder to contact you.

FaceTime audio calls

As a rival to other services like Skype, FaceTime works smoothly and well. It’s even better now, thanks to the ability to place audio calls over the internet, reducing the amount of bandwidth you need to use with video.

AirDrop

At the bottom of the Control Center is an option for AirDrop. This is a new way of getting files from one iOS phone or tablet onto another – just tap the button and you can transfer to other iPhones or iPads in the near vicinity. Beneath this, there are also new options for turning on a flashlight, a calculator and so on.

Guide New Features

About Author

Brett Haggard

Brett is the founder of Hypertext. He's been covering the technology industry for so long, he's seen old technology be 'respun' as the next big thing one too many times. He started Hypertext in 2002 and quite frankly hasn't looked back (although he often longs for the days when a steady salary, sick days and leave were a given). Currently uses: 13-inch Macbook Air, iPhone 12 Mini, iPad 8.