After a day with iOS 7 B3, I do see some changes to the eye jarring UI. Although the changes are minor, it does show. The UI is somewhat less hurting on the eyes, but, it still needs a lot of work. Some of the completely atrocious icons remain as they were as also the colours in various apps. Most of the “translucent” nonsense of the UI are gone including in the notifications and the control centre making them more visible. All “visual” UI elements, like buttons etc, which are actually non-visual in iOS 7, still remain in the form of plain text.
The UI and the UX remain as inconsistent as earlier. If I go into the normal spotlight search, I see a dark background keyboard, but, if I am typing a message etc, it’s still the white background keyboard. The inconsistency shows even within a single app. For instance, if I search for an app in the AppStore, I get a white background keyboard, but, when entering the password for the AppStore in the same app, I get a dark background keyboard. Interestingly, it did not ask me to switch stores this time, only the password for the other store.
I got a couple of calls while the iPhone was locked and this part of the UI seems to have become worse. I simply could not see any visual clues. The text on the “slide to answer” was invisible. The only reason I could pick the call was because I am used the overall iPhone UI.
Still no photos in the contact list, only in the favourites. iMessage, and perhaps other apps, have a changed drill down to reach the actual contact detail. I was not able to send/share a vCard on iMessage even though typed text messages went out fine.
Some more apps now work with B3, although a lot of the beta kind of bugs remain. The notifications can still be a bit off at times. Still no “home” or “lock device” or any custom options for the control centre which would would make it far more useful. No notifications for GMail as yet either.
The overall UI remains the same, talking up far more space than iOS 6 to display the same amount of data. The visual clues still remain absent.
The biggest, acknowledged disaster, of the so called “maps” by Apple remains as it was, nullifying most of the applications dependent on location and actual maps.
Let’s wait and see if B4 has any more improvements in the UI/UX and if Apple will actually try and fix the first biggest disaster to hit iOS…the so called “maps” from Apple.
Nitin Chandra's Blog 