Monday was a huge day in the tech industry. From the WWDC to E3, there’s plenty to talk about surrounding the new announcements. Spyder Trap has its share of Apple Fans. Together we spent our Monday lunch glued to the live stream of the Apple Keynote in the way others might watch (and celebrate) the Super Bowl.

During the keynote, Apple revealed some significant changes to iOS. As soon as the developer center servers came back online, I installed the beta on my iPhone 4S. So far my reactions have been similar to a sour candy. Sweet, then sour to the point I almost spit it out, followed by slow transition back to a lasting sweet.

Design changes, seen from a developer

While design is the biggest change in iOS 7, I’m not a designer. My observations are through the eyes of a developer. The new fonts and removal of UI elements make for a much cleaner lock screen. The 3d parallax effect on the home screen at first feels gimmicky, but it does reinforce the layered metaphor they’re trying to introduce through all the transparencies in the new designs.
To that point, iOS 7 uses a lot of transparency. Unless an app specifically overrides it, the keyboard background is a blurred transparency of the content underneath. Even some applications, like the phone app, have a hint of the home screen underneath them. Certain nested tables have the previous page underneath them. Transparency is everywhere.

The new font choice, and crisper icons in the top bar, leaves the clear impression this OS was designed for retina. Many non-essential UI elements are a fraction of the size they used to be. For example, the progress for a sending text message is just a pixel or two tall. The data activity spinner is noticeably thinner as well.

I’m not sold on the new icons. While I’m not a designer, I feel like the old icons could have been flattened and fit the new UI just fine. It feels like a petty move Jonny Ive made just to make sure every UI element of the OS was changed under his watch.

In addition, there’s a lot of borrowing happening. The weather app is a near clone of the Yahoo Weather app. At least they were kind enough to give them an Apple Design Award. Most system apps and menus borrow liberally from recent trends seen in Android and Windows Mobile. I’m sure they’ll cry fowl at some point, and their claim has merit, but I’ll leave that to the lawyers.

Control Center

By far, my favorite new feature is the Control Center, a quick access to music, airplane mode, do not disturb, flashlight, camera, alarms, and air play all in one convenient place. It has quickly become a feature I commonly use more than any individual app.

I’m also a fan of the new multitasking menu. I would regularly have to tell people how to switch between apps and force quit development software we are working on. It wasn’t intuitive. The icon, along with a view of the app itself, can be dragged off the screen and the app quits and disappears from RAM.

Upgraded Task Manager

Speaking of RAM, my 4S has just barely enough to provide a quality user experience. Many animations take longer, which at first lead me to believe the resources of my poor little 4S were being pushed to the limit. Since there’s no jerking, or “catching up” though, I believe these slower animations are on purpose, and I’m starting to appreciate them.

It’s a good thing they made the new task manager more user friendly though. If I get really carried away switching between apps, I can notice a small slow down. Usually there’s a bit of a speed up by the time a beta gets to the general release version, but I’m worried about what the experience will be like for regular iPhone 4 users.

That said, I hope Apple tweaks some of their UI before the general release. If you don’t have great crisp photos, the way transparencies are blurred can get annoying. Some UI changes feel like internal petty, ego-driven choices. The prevalence of white in the UI made my black iPhone seem out of place. The new UI makes me realize how much of the phone face is not screen. I find myself hoping the next iPhone is entirely screen on the front.

Bugs, as to be expected

There are still bugs. It’s beta software. While not as bad as the iOS 5 beta, I did have to reformat to get all of my previously installed apps to transfer over from my iCloud backup ok. As many apps start, the top bar looks funny. Siri, while better, is still not the personal assistant Apple tries to bill it as.

While I’m comfortable with the new design, I’m not sure other less digital-savvy users will. I’m already planning on a trip out to grandma’s this fall to help her relearn how to user her iPad. I haven’t been able to try the AirDrop functionality yet (not enabled on the 4s…), and I haven’t yet gotten around to trying the iTunes Radio, but those are really the only new “features.”
iOS 7′s success or demise depends on if you like the new design. As I was considering switching to Android just for a change of scenery, iOS 7 has me ready to stick with Apple a while longer. That’s it though. The new features are minor and will not be enough to win you over one way or the other. This one’s all looks.

Social Media Leaps Ahead With iOS 5

And now, Apple has announced iOS 5 will be out to the public this fall. I couldn’t be more excited! If social media wasn’t already deeply engrained in your every move, iOS 5 is about to make socializing bigger, better, and easier than ever. Faster, too. With iOS 5, your Apple product (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) integrates your Twitter account information into multiple applications, enabling you to tweet whatever you’d like, from whichever app you’re engaged with (Photo, Safari, Google, Maps).

Remember all those pesty push notifications, interrupting your work and play?

With iOS 5, the pop-ups will be replaced. Instead, notifications will appear subtly in your top banner. Also, with the new Notifications Center you can view all of your notifications in list form.

Notes will now be Reminders, integrated with iCal and Outlook, providing location-based reminders. That means when you’re at the grocery store, the list you wrote yesterday in Reminders will notify you to remember the milk & eggs.

Notifications just got polite, smart, and worth reading - all of the time. From the locked screen, the notifications you care about will now show in list form, providing access to one at a time or all at once. With a slide to the right, you can select to view a single notification and open that app directly from the locked screen.

That same locked screen can open up Photo for you, too. Access your iPhone’s camera directly from the locked screen. Take a photo, edit the image, and post it to Twitter without leaving the Photo app. Easy.

Consider the current route used to share photos with friends:

• Tap 1: open your camera app on your phone
• Tap 2: snap a photo
• Tap 3: save the photo
• Tap 4: select where to send the photo
• Tap 5: get ‘outta’ that app, you want to post this photo on Twitter!
• Tap 6: open your Twitter app
• Tap 7: create message
• Tap 8: select to upload photo
• Tap 9: choose photo
• Tap 10: upload photo
• Tap 11: thumbs hurt. Relax.

Now, consider the iOS 5 route:

• Click 1: take photo from your iPhone’s locked screen
• Click 2: edit photo
• Click 3: share photo
• Click 4: send to Twitter

More integration means fewer clicks. Fewer clicks mean more time. More time means more sharing. My smart phone just got smarter, and could probably even get me a few more friends.

What are you excited about with iOS 5?

Google Analytics iPhone App

Web geeks on the go can now keep tabs on their websites through a new Google Analytics iPhone app now available at the Apple App Store. The $5.99 app developed by http://analyticsapp.com provides 29 standard reports including overview reports, visitor reports, traffic reports, content reports, event tracking reports and custom reports. I have not used the app personally (I’m a BlackBerry user), but they appear to be getting some rave revews. Some notable ones are as follow.

“Now that Google Analytics is available for the iPhone, that addiction is only going to get worse.”
“Woohoo! Now I’ll finally be able to obsessively check my traffic stats from the palm of my hand.”
“Absolutely sublime! This is a ‘must-have’ for anyone running websites with GA. I can’t believe how well it works!”

If you have used this app before or one like it please comment and let us know what you think. Love it? Hate it? I am trying to convince myself to make the switch, and applications such as the Google Analytics app is making the switch that much more tempting.

Since we are on the iPhone topic, Apple announced today the App Store has reached over 1 billion downloads in nine months. Not surprising but quite a feat to say the least. Congratuations Apple!