iOS 7: What about the iPad? - CNET (blog)

The iPad was invisible at Apple’s WWDC, but hopefully iOS 7 will be a significantly different experience on it than the iPhone.

iOS 7 How will the iPad change

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There was a missing device at Apple’s WWDC 2013 keynote, and it’s one of Their most popular product lines. iPad, where were you?

iOS 7, a product of Jony Ive, Apple’s design mastermind, took the stage at WWDC – but the iPhone 5 was the featured runway model. Apple’s website shows app after app on the iPhone 5′s 4-inch screen. iOS beta 7 is available, but just for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPad was mentioned for all of a few seconds. Macs and iPhones ruled the day.

The iPad beta is coming soon, in the next few weeks. Will it be different from what we’ve seen on the iPhone? I really hope so. Not because I do or do not like the new visual aesthetic, but because iPhones and iPads are very different devices, and it’s high time iOS treated them both differently.

(Credit: CNET)

Something new, or another coat of paint?
“What did they show that’s really revolutionary? Did they show something that’s really revolutionary?” Those were the words of my wife after watching Apple’s iOS 7 video on their website. Not my opinion, hers. Unforced. She’s used an iPhone for about three years.

airdrop had some interest to her. But for the rest, nothing really stood out. In fact, she told me the whole video Reminded her of an airline commercial. The music, the tone, the pace. Those videos Like That play before takeoff. Relax, get ready to fly.

Maybe this is the mission of Apple and iOS 7: comforting Those About to fly with a new operating system. Relaxing the apprehensive. Comfort comes at odds with the new: change means uprooting, discovering, disrupting. But the iOS 7 video, and the whole mission statement, it seems that so much towards leaning into comfort that I wonder if the subtlety ends up lost on the average person.

But beyond

That, I can not see how aesthetics make a huge difference. Redesigning the look of iOS is not about the color scheme of the coat of paint put on it. It’s what’s underneath That counts.

What I want: iPad and iPhone-specific features
Control Center is my favorite new feature of iOS 7, because it’s the remote control and flip-up easy-access settings panel I I’ve wanted for years and admired for Android. It suits the iPhone’s shape and hand use. Airdrop is, Potentially, another tool to break away from iOS devices PCs forever.

The iPhone 5 has been the model for showing iOS 7 THUS far.

(Credit: Apple)

I hope I’ve

and iOS 7 have come up with separate and equally compelling use cases for the iPad. It’s time for the iPhone and iPad to flex Their wings and be different devices. They already are, but the operating system they share keeps the UI of both too similar, and it holds the iPad back. If the iPhone is a device meant for one-handed easy-access controls, the iPad’s a machine that’s the future of all computing. It’s the replacement laptop, e-reader, and very capable multitasker. And it has a larger, wider screen.

I’ve wanted truer

multitasking and even split-screen apps on the iPad, like other tablets offer. I’ve wanted support for bluetooth devices like mice / trackpads and universal game controllers (the latter is finally here in iOS 7). I want the simple clean pane of the iPad to be free to become what people need it to be: a true laptop alternative, a presentation tool, browser information and power. It does these things already, but I hope iOS 7 will do its best to Facilitate these tasks.

iPad’s golden opportunity to be different
I do not really care, in the long run, how iOS 7 looks. I care about how it works. How will it make using iOS appreciably better, and how will it make iPhones and iPads better at what each does? Hopefully, iOS 7 will acknowledge this and make the two more distinct than before.

I hope the invisibility of the iPad at Apple’s WWDC means planning a separate discussion of iOS 7 On That device, with other features and surprises.

Otherwise, iOS 7′s new design will not have changed all that much at all.