I am really pleased to hear that Apple released iOS 7.1 today.
There are a lot of features that improve services that I like, and we have waited a long time for this update to mature to the point where it could be released.
Some of the improvements that stand out to me are:
- Improves Touch ID fingerprint recognition This is a big one for anyone with an iPhone 5S. I hope it resolves some of the relearning issues that seem to cause TouchID to degrade over time, and make users less confident in using it.
- Manually control when Siri listens by holding down the home button while you speak and releasing it when you’re done as an alternative to letting Siri automatically notice when you stop talking I don’t know how many times Siri has decided I’m done talking before I truly am.
- Accessibility, New options to display button shapes, darken app colors, and reduce white point I think is going to get used by people who just don’t like the borderless buttons in iOS 7. I think the borderless buttons are fine. I just want to try this feature so that I know how and when to recommend using it.
- FaceTime call notifications are automatically cleared when you answer a call on another device Making FaceTime more integrated with iCloud syncing is a huge step forward.
- Fixes display of Mail unread badge for numbers greater than 10,000 All I can say is no Inbox Zero at A6, so we need it.
I can’t wait to see what they mean when they say “Continued user interface refinements”.
Full disclosure: Although I am an active iOS developer, I have not been testing iOS 7.1 while it’s in beta. Virtually all of the changes in it will be new to me when my iPhone and iPad are updated.