Amazon.com Widgets

iPhone 5S

iOS 7: A Brief Visual Gripe

Below are a few reasons why I can't love iOS 7. It's a good operating system and I want to love the OS, as discussed in 'Why I Prefer Mavericks as an upgrade to iOS 7'. However, there is this looming feeling during use that Apple went too far or didn't go far enough. After several months of using iOS 7 I finally understand what irks me the most about the OS: iOS 7 is a bit of a digital oxymoron. It manages to be polished yet unpolished, a little too gaudy yet a little too simplistic, very systematic in instances and not not at all systematic in other instances. 

What do I mean? Below is a brief visual guide of a few of my gripes.

2013 iPhone (5S / 5C)

2013 iPhone (5S / 5C)

It looks as if there will be an iPhone announcement on September 10th this year. So far it seems all but certain that a fingerprint scanner will be built into the home-button of the next iPhone, at least the premium model. This has fostered a lot of talk about a convex home button, so designed to house a biometrics sensor. However, a convex home button seems wrong. It just doesn't seem to go with the aesthetic of the iPhone. Perhaps if it was flat, or just barely convex to the point where it is not discernible I could understand. Otherwise, I would think Jony Ive would not build in the equivalent of an obvious "outie" belly button into the iPhone for any reason. No offense to all the beautiful people with "outie" belly buttons.