iOS 7 is Dumb

When I first held the iPhone in my hand back in 2007 it never felt cheap to me. It was solid, it was aluminum and, despite people’s grouch regarding a lack of customizability, it felt like a professional, slick device. I was proud to own one and I felt like, to use a Maine saying with a wee bit of profanity, King Shit of Turd Island.

I never fully understood the switch from the aluminum back to plastic with the 3G and 3GS, but they were still solid phones. I had two at the time – for work and home – and the one I used for work took a beating. I dropped it on cement, I kicked I across marble floors, I dropped it down some stairs. It never broke, though I’m certain that it should have about twenty or so times. I was impressed.

Then there was the app store. Prior to that, I admit, I had done the whole jailbreak thing on my phone until the app store appeared. At that point, I didn’t really feel a need to jailbreak. I could get anything I wanted and I felt that the people who designed the apps deserved my money (and I HATE ads). Given the oportunity between paid or ad supported-free, I’ll pay for what I want.

There’s a progression after the 3GS. There’s the 4, then the 4S and finally the 5. With each iteration of the phone, there’s a major update to the OS as well, signaling the advent of new and exciting features. Meanwhile, Android sat on the sidelines with a piece of crap OS jumping up and down saying “Me, too! Me, too!”

Apple should have been paying attention to the little pipsqueak on the sidelines because he was going to hit the gym and come out, yelling back at Apple, “Catch up! Catch up!”

Well, that time came with the release of Android 4.2 (pardon me for not being so much of a geek that I remember the candy-themed names for the Android updates). No longer was Apple leading the way, it was Google headed, mostly, by Samsung at that point (though I think the Galaxy S4 is a waste of time and effort on Samsung’s part) who was pushing the envelope and flying past Apple in too many ways to count.

Now it was Apple’s turn to start borrowing some features from Android – like a pull down notification center – though they didn’t copy it well.

iOS 6 was fantastic and offered a slew of useful features. It was pretty, it was simple and it still had that slick, professional look to it even though some were starting to call it dated.

The only thing that iOS 6 was missing was widgets – which I still don’t understand. In what way does a widget that displays your email or calendar appointments on your home screen without having to go to Notification Center or open your email have a negative impact on customer experience? How does forcing the user to make use of a single, clunky virtual keyboard make the customer experience brighter and more robust?

So here comes iOS 7 touting all these super neat features, and I will say that some of these features are actually pretty cool and useful.

Swipe up from the bottom and you get a number of handy little tools right at your thumb. Notification center has gotten a much needed overhaul and no longer feels like a crowded list you want nothing to do with.

The integration between 10.9 and iOS 7 looks pretty neat as well, but I think SkyDrive or DropBox or SugarSync do it better between non-platform specific devices.

The biggest issue I have with iOS 7 is that it no longer looks like a slick, professional device when you open it up, instead it looks more like a child’s toy with the pastel colors and bright red alert badges that you just can’t look away from. Those stupid alert badges just invade every possible corner of your field of vision like the freshly spilled blood of the innocent. You just can’t look away!

The effect of the icons moving slightly when you tilt the phone back and forth is geared towards middle school and high school students who think that’s cool. I don’t think that’s cool – it’s a waste of processing power and potentially eating into my battery.

I just don’t care! I haven’t looked to see if I can turn it off or not, but I hope I can. It’s just dumb.

I’m almost embarrassed to pull it out and start using because of how childish and whimsical it seems. Johnny Ive might design good hardware, but his software needs a serious overhaul.

I believe I posted in my last update that without Jobs, Apple is going to fade into just another big tech company. In that void somebody will rise to take the place that Apple once held regarding innovation and forward thought.

Unless something drastic happens, for me, I’m done with Apple for now. My iPhone 5 will be the last iPhone I purchase and I’ll go pick up another HTC One so I have one for work and one for home. Maybe I’ll get the black one just so they’re different.

My challenge to all the developers out there is to write more for Android, write more for Windows 8 and Windows Phone and start paying attention to Ubuntu because you may want to consider designing for them – they just might be that quiet, upstart little tech firm that grabs that spot for innovation that Apple once held.

But I’m not expert.