Shawn Blanc on iOS 7:
It is a stark contrast to what we’ve been so familiar with on the iPhone and iPad, but it quickly grows on you. And all of these little details that are sprinkled throughout iOS 7 — some obvious, some not so obvious — just go to show that even when doing a major overhaul of their most popular operating system, Apple still takes time to sweat the details and add in those little design decisions which surprise and delight.
I’ve been using iOS 7 since Apple released the gold master build to developers and it’s quite nice. It does take a few days to get used to — I’m still double tapping the home button to play/pause music — but most of the changes quickly become second nature.
All of the iPhone users in my life that don’t live and breath tech like I do have had much more harsh reactions to the changes, but I imagine it may just take them a few extra days to get used to the new design.
I’ve especially fallen in love with iTunes Radio. I was a huge Pandora user before iOS 7 but was always frustrated that I couldn’t thumbs up or thumbs down a song from the lock screen. Apple has added this functionality to the lock screen for iTunes Radio, and I couldn’t be happier because of it. Little details like this are what make me really love using iOS.