"Apple has officially taken the wraps off of iOS 7 at its Worldwide Developer Conference today. iOS 7 is the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system that debuted back in 2007 on the original iPhone. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, iOS 7 is the biggest change to the platform since the iPhone was introduced five years ago. The new design is evident in everything from sharper, flatter icons, slimmer fonts, a new slide-to-unlock function, and a new control panel that slides up from the bottom of the screen for frequently accessed settings. The stock apps have all been redesigned — including a major revamp of the weather app with new animations that are scarily reminiscent of Yahoo's great-looking Weather app graphics.
Apple's head of design Jony Ive notes that the new icons feature a new palette of colors — gone are the bold, primary colors of old, replaced by modern shades and tones. Flat design is very prominent in iOS 7 — everything from the buttons to the switches to the chrome surrounding apps has been modernized and flattened. Apple says that the new design makes your phone "appear bigger" because each app makes better use of the screen real-estate available to it. The calendar, phone, messages, Game Center, and others have all lost their skeuomorphic designs and now feature clean, flat layouts. The signal bars in the upper left corner of the phone have also been replaced with a series of dots.
The new built-in apps all feature sliding, gesture-based navigation. Folders can now support hundreds of apps — the 12- to 16-app limit is a thing of the past. Notification Center has been redesigned with greater control over how many notifications you can view at once and the ability to view Notification Center from the lockscreen. You can now drill down to just your notifications for today, which gives an "at a glance" view of upcoming calendar events, weather, and traffic for the day.
