iOS7 hidden features

If you've just installed iOS7 and like it as much as I do, you are probably interested in all the new features of it, and where to find them. On behalf of Apple, I'll be happy to point out where all those neat new features are, and share my happiness about this wonderful new magical market-leading mobile OS.

** **Remember how in iOS6, you can not just steal an iphone because of the "find my iPhone" feature? Thieves had to put your iPhone in a metal container so it could not tell the owner where it is. Because thieves are people too, we now introduced "Easy-Steal (tm)". When a thief wants to steal your phone, all he has to do is swipe up, press the little airplane button, and nobody will hear from your iPhone again. Want to disable that? Easy. Hand over your flashlight, calculator, timer, and iPod controls.

Separate is the new Integrate Remember how we beautifully integrated FaceTime with the Phone app? How Podcasts could be played from within iTunes? Well we think that's not the future. So we created a separate FaceTime app, and a separate Podcasts app. So you can have more icons on more screens, making it harder to find stuff. We'll let you in on a little secret. Our next big thing? A Separate device for each function. It will be great! You can just take the device you need and leave all the other ones charging on your desk.

New sounds. And Old Classic ones. Remember how software developers always say you should not use terms as "Old", "New" or "Classic" in your software because putting a "New" sticker on a banana will not prevent it from going stale? Well we're not so sure about that. So now, in the old (sorry, new) sound settings, you will find all the same behavior of the old settings, but with new sounds. We've even changed all the sounds your phone makes right from the upgrade. If you would like to revert to the old sounds, don't bother searching in the sounds list. Scroll through the "classic" list. You know, because on the first screen, there is a list of sounds, and in the second list, there will be... err... a list of sounds. But old. Get it? Did we say it was completely new? We lied. Sorry.

Camouflage

All icons are now devoid of those pesky shading and lining that made them visible on all backgrounds. So now, no matter what background color you use, there will always be at least one icon which will blend into the background. We even removed the shading on the text, so you can make that disappear with a simple white background. And did you notice the gradients? Some are light-to-dark, and some are dark-to-light. Why? Because at the new Apple, we hate consistency.

Square. A new picture mode. Because you want to make photos. videos, and... err... squares?

Look-at-Me (tm) To make the phone look faster, we made the icons zoom and pan to show how the operating systems moves to help you complete your tasks. It was tested on 500 Dwarf Hamsters and we are pretty sure we made a good job of making people look at your screen while you're using your phone. At least half of those people will get motion sickness within 15 seconds.

New Applications

The seasoned iOS6 user will have immediately spotted it: We've got new Applications! Get more accurate timing in your iPhone with the Tourbillon app. Make your own weather predictions with the Barometer app, and create stunning graphics with the Mandelbrot app.

New Puzzles

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You can now have hours of fun trying to figure out what is tappable or slidable. Is it the text? Is it the color? Is it the icons? Who knows? We've put great care in removing all visual clues, so start taping and sliding!

The update process has also become more fun. Because we love our non-US iPhone users, we've made the "Purchased" icon a letter "P". Level up! The dark arrow pointing down ads to the fun when you tap it and... it slides to the left, which reveals your purchases to the right.

And did we say one update? We'll list all the past updates too, so you can have more useless info on the screen. For good measure, we even added fun blue dots next to the updated apps you did not open already. How useful is that?

Progress indicators are now even more fun. During updates, your app is named "Installing..." Can you guess what this icon is? If you guessed the application was updating, can you tell if it is at 25% or 75%?

For the real advanced puzzlers, we've hidden some controls. Can you make the "Today" widget just display your calendar item without-arbitrary-text-around-it-which-makes-your-content-harder-to-view-at-a-glance? Can you slide your "Stock Options" widget below the "Tomorrow" widget?

A new lock screen People like lock screens. So they can put functions on them for which you don't have to unlock. Smart, right? Now, people can start playing with your phone without unlocking it, weather you like it or not. Because there is no option to disable that. To make everything easier, we've put more icons on the lock screen, making gestures more finicky. Because we know what Android iPhone users like.

And 6789 more features There is much more to discover. The camera app is on 2 locations in the home screen. The message center is as confusing and inconsistent as ever. The new "dots" signal strength indicator, the network operator name, the wifi icon and the new "gprs" icon are now even wider, so they'll never fit the top bar. Sliders switches look bulkier, slide less, but they do change colors as if they were a bulb. You decide what it's supposed to be, let your imagination run wild! A white dot? Is it a slider or just a dot? Who needs aluminum, Try it out!

And if you'll excuse us, we're going to sue Sony because they made their Xperia look like our market-leading mobile OS. See?

iOS7. Because when you paid for an iPhone, we know you actually wanted Android.

P.S. Jony, I'm not sure how much you're involved in the UI design, but if you need help, or a better sparring partner, or I need to come rescue you from the bozos that made you do this, the iPhone 5Cheap with it's non-right-angle old-school injection molded back and the gold iPhone, let me know. You're better than this, and maybe we can still fix things. You know how to contact me. Hang in there buddy.