…and the fun doesn’t stop with beta 1!  As it was with all betas, once you got in through some shenanigans, the system will allow you to continue even if the other betas are smarter than the first!

…or you can step out of the betas then step back in using an external UDID service like I did.

Anyway, what’s in this beta?  A new Tips app!  And what does it look like?

Well it’s pretty simple.  Just a few movies and pictures showing you how to do certain things.

There’s a few odd things though.  At least two of the movies actually have an audio track.  And the thing is, the movies aren’t supposed to have an audio track!  Take the Mail movie.  The movie shows that you can slide a mail entry to the side to expose some actions, and if you slide it all the way to the left, you can delete or archive it.  Now, if you put on headphones (because it only works with headphones for some reason), and turn the volume all the way up, you can hear something screeching (it sounds like a modern train slowing down or speeding up), then the sound stops and you can hear the hissing that most microphones have when there is no sound.

Another movie that has this is the Actionable Notifications movie.  This movie shows if you pull down on a push notification, you can expose a reply text field or buttons.  Now if you use the headphone trick, at the very beginning there is the sound of either something being put down gently on a wooden table or a button being pressed, a scooting sound, then nothing but hissing.

I found that extremely odd.  Especially since there really should not be a microphone active.  I’m assuming they screen recorded their iPads using a program, and that program also used any microphones attached.  Again, it is a beta, and some things are going to be a little weird until they finalize everything.

One thing I did notice is that Handoff doesn’t work.  It turns out I actually did get into the Yosemite Public Beta (legit this time), and I tried Handoff out, and…it didn’t work at all.  I tried it with Safari and Pages, and no matter how often I did it, neither device caused the other to do anything.

As I understand Handoff, the devices know when they are near each other, and create a local peer-to-peer network.  Then they use a specific library of functions to communicate the last used app and its state to each other (encrypted of course).

I’m thinking some of that isn’t working, and I don’t know enough to figure that out.

The other changes since the last time I talked about the beta, is a redesigned Control Center.  It now has filled in buttons instead of outlines.  Therefore it looks more finalized, some quirk of design that honestly I haven’t figured out yet.

It’s still lags for some reason, and sometimes I can get it to hang for more than 5 seconds.  It should really actually know when it’s hanging, and should kill the least important processes (although the reason it’s hanging is probably because it can’t get any instructions through…I wonder if Apple will be able to circumvent that).

Also another change that NO ONE has picked up on for some reason, is that the Videos app now actually displays something on the screen while the video is loading.  It displays the box art and the title, and also covers the rest of the screen with a blurred version of the box art (at least I think it’s supposed to be blurred…but I guess Apple deems the iPad 2 less powerful, so it only displays a really dim non-blurred image.  Apple is trying to keep the iPad 2 in the compatibility list, but I guess it’s a real stretch).

So the user experience continues to be incredibly laggy good, and the experience will continue to improve…I hope.

(Technically I should be on Beta 6 right now…but Apple has saved that version for the carriers.  AT&T has that version…not the developers.  Betas are weird.)

This might be a thing.  But if Apple comes to me and says “Screw you you can’t talk about this”, then it won’t be a thing.  (And I still have a reason:  No money.  Oh, and Education.com is a dick.)

That’s right.  Apple forgot how to Security once again and allowed iOS 8 Beta 1 to be downloaded to literally everyone.

I suppose before I get into the real OS I should talk about how these betas are not secured.

Every developer beta SHOULD have a UDID check inside the file.  This means when you go to install a beta using iTunes, iTunes verifies with Apple if the device has an approved UDID.  UDID stands for Unique Device IDentifier, and it is used by Apple’s services to find the EXACT device that is using the service.

iOS 7 Beta 1 and iOS 8 Beta 1, for one reason or another, does not have this UDID check.  So when iTunes goes to install the beta, it doesn’t matter what UDID the device has, because the check wasn’t performed.  Now, Apple’s services could have detected that the check wasn’t being done at all, and denied the install, but for some reason it doesn’t.

So yes.  I have Beta 1 in my possession.  On my iPad, but not my iPhone.  Even though the 5S would be way better suited for iOS 8 than the iPad 2…betas are almost always terribly unstable, and I need my phone to be working.  I don’t use my iPad very much anyway.

On to the OS itself!

—

One of the first things I tried out was the new photo editing features.  And while laggy, they were awesome.  One thing though…for extremely dark photos, both the Light and Color sliders wouldn’t work at all.  I could slide them up and down, but the picture wouldn’t change, and the previews didn’t have any difference between them.  Whether this was due to the iPad 2 camera or the software I don’t know.

The photo search function worked well too.  I have no idea why it wasn’t in iOS 7…or 6.  Or 5.  Or any of them.

There is still no Weather app on the iPad.  I know it’s only Beta 1…but it really should’ve been in iOS 7.  Just my preference.

I’m not quite sure if Spotlight Search should use the internet or not.  If you forget to turn off Airplane mode, then you’ll have a hell of a time trying to figure out why Spotlight isn’t giving you Wikipedia entries (although I did find that it retains previous Wikipedia searches and info, so that’s good).

Handoff and Continuity obviously didn’t work because I had only one device running the beta.

No Siri though.  Sad Siri is sad for not catering to 1% more of the Apple fanbase.

Overall, the experience was incredibly laggy good.  The one thing the iPad was really bad at was splitting the keyboard in two.  For some reason it lagged MASSIVELY when trying to do that.

But my reaction to all these lags, omissions and general stupidness is a wholehearted MEH.  It’s the first beta.  It will be broken in some ways.  I don’t care.  Apple is just getting their feet under them with all these new things.  The problems will be fixed.

I’m not even supposed to have this anyway. (Unless Apple is cleverly actually opening the betas to everyone!  You must remember, Apple has already opened up the OS X Yosemite betas to the first one million people (I apparently didn’t make the cut)!)

Let me say first — I do not have an iPad Air. I have not held an iPad Air. But there are a few things I can already say about iPad Air.

Some people may say, if you have not held iPad Air, you have not experienced iPad Air. But since most people pay attention to reviews and blogs when deciding whether to buy products, I think I’m obligated to make a review without experiencing iPad Air. iPad Air.

So let’s start with the name. It’s a bit strange, seeing as Apple has already come out with a product using that tag…the MacBook Air. My dad thinks it’s ridiculous.

But what I think is that the name actually fits it to an extent. The iPad now is able to run at desktop speeds, meaning that the iPad can run as fast as a MacBook…or MacBook Air, hence the name iPad Air. The name also implies the flighty feel you get from how fast it runs…everything runs at the highest FPS, the iPad feels like it’s running with the power of air (that is NOT me getting soft, the style of the OS helps with that effect).

But this has a problem…what of the next version of iOS? Apple typically retains devices through 3 iterations of the OS, then they drop support for the device. If iOS 8-10 dosen’t have this glass/plastic/airy feel to it…I don’t think the iPad Air will hold up the name. Especially if there’s a monster update which requires the A9 chip or B7X2000 or whatever awkward name they can think up. The speed issues will really weigh down the Air (SEE WHAT I DID THERE).

Next, the weight. iPad 4 weighed 1.4 pounds, the iPad Air weighs 1 pound. In Apple-land, this means that the iPad Air is TEH BEST. But I’ve read one blog post where the writer is really disappointed with the iPad Air. Its name, its weight, its price, everything. And he already bought the iPad Air. In my mind, if one person is not completely satisfied with an Apple product, then Apple has lost that product battle already without even trying. Apple is supposed to make products sexy, shiny, intuitive, simple, and fun. If one of their customers feels the need to go buy an Apple product, and isn’t satisfied, I don’t care if Apple’s own board of directors puts Apple at 100% customer satisfaction, that product did not fit that one person’s needs, and that can get bad PR REALLY fast if the news spreads in the right direction. And Siri will get very angry about that (you can try telling her that…I don’t think she’ll react to it though…she’ll just look it up and cheerfully go “HERE RESULTS READ THEM”).

Overall…5/10 maybe? Sorry if that’s too low for you, ain’t too low for me. iPad Sulfur Hexaflouride…sorry, I’m just being silly now.

EDIT: I could have made a Pocahontas joke here…but that would’ve been overkill.

Despite what I said in my previous posts about it being really REALLY white and how it relied on some sort of psychological ninjutsu that no one understands (I.e. The blur effect)…it feels really good to use this OS.

“After what, Windows?” You ask. No…it just feels..it gives me feels…I have feels for this…not in a sexual way…I just have FEELS…

I think it’s the mental model it uses. A mental model is something that needs to be used more often something that a developer uses to help make the user experience consistent. For instance, the mental model for iOS 7 is (I think) glass panes in a 3D space.

It’s executed really nicely, and while I’m somewhat beauty-deaf (although I have a proficiency for it when I’m designing something and I can appreciate it), it just gets me in the right spot.

My complains still stand however. Just in case you thought I was brainwashed by Apple’s awesome shiny perfect happy…yeah.

[While I was writing this, I realized I was getting a case of burn-in on my iPad screen……weird. And it only happens when the area is covered with a solid-color blur effect? What?]

Touch ID is awesome. No, it’s not just a marketing ploy to describe multi-touch (I am ALMOST sure that Apple would do something like that, as blunt as that sounds). It is a fingerprint sensor. While it is kind of overkill because the average user is not a flipping SPY, it’s just…it recalls those spy films and futuristic films where everyone talks to each other on watches and there’s flying cars and everything. It’s really cool…it just FEELS good to unlock a phone with your fingerprint. *cough*LGismakingaphonewiththesensornearthesimcardslotwhy*cough* You can enroll multiple fingerprints as well, so your friends can unlock it…or you can make the phone learn both your hands, thumbs and all.

THe new chip voodoo it has makes this phone the fastest frickin’ thing I’ve ever seen. You know that GTA Vice CIty app? Remember how it took a really long time to load or maybe it was just me and my iPad 2 but shut up? THe load time is nuts on the 5S…it loads instantly. I am not kidding. Even when you exit a building into the main world, the loading screen dosen’t have time to display itself on the screen, it’s that fast.

—

Now the bad. I’ve gotten this thing to bluescreen. I didn’t say crash, I said BLUE SCREEN. THe Windows BSOD of death (that was redundant but shush). That thing Microsoft did that turned the screen blue and Windows said something about an error that nobody including their mother and their kitchen sink understood.

Now the iPhone dosen’t display any text when it does this…the screen just turns solid blue and then it crashes to the Apple logo. It kinda looks like that screen debugger in the iPod nano when you tell it to display solid blue.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “You got the phone to freak out and now your iCLoud/iTunes syncing will be messed up or something!”

Nope. My phone is fine. ANd it isn’t just the phone freaking out and displaying blue because that color is first in the color hex table or whatever.

It’s an honest-to-god Jony Ive design choice. Why the hell is that so? Because I’ve gotten the blue screen to act like a panel and slide over the rest of the screen.

Little techno-jargon to explain that:

Every 2D container that is not affected by the gyroscope has to be defined as either a bar, which is an unchanging set of elements usually used for menu buttons, or a panel, which is the main content window and can support gestures like scrolling and swiping to the right to go back a page.

Panels can have slightly different behaviors depending on how it’s coded. Panels can slide different directions and support different gestures.

THis “bluescreen” panel slides down from the top of the screen with an underlying shadow. So it has to be defined as a panel in order for it to work like that, so since it’s defined as something the phone can understand, it is not simply random signals as the CPU dies.

I don’t know why Jony Ive decided that a bluescreen would be good…but I guess it’s better than the phone instantly switching to the Apple logo for seemingly no reason.

Although I have gotten it to switch to the Apple logo without even displaying the bluescreen…but then it didn’t even seem to know it had crashed because then it didn’t ask me for my passcode (which it usually requires you to do after a restart). I don’t know how I did that though, so eh.

UPDATE 11/03/2013: I’ve been told that Apple has completely removed the bluescreen from the OS. Good. Now people won’t be shouting about how Apple is turning into Microsoft or something. Or maybe they still will because it was there in the first place. They probably will…oh well. Here’s hoping the iWatch will crush/hide/mute/sort-of-obscure that claim.

Imagine you were sent to Heaven. All those white clouds, white-robed old guys with beards, golden gates and walls, and blue skies…now take out all of the gold, most of the blue, and ALL of the shadows and black and everything to do with not-pure-white colors, and you have iOS 7. And a very good excuse to have a low battery.

Well okay, it’s not ALL white, but you can really mess up your eyes if you stare at this stuff too long.

AND, also, warning, technical alert: It takes a little bit more power to display a white pixel than a black pixel. When a pixel is black it is basically off…it’s activated, but none of its red, green, or blue components are on. When a pixel is white, all three of the components are going full blast, and it takes a lot more power…but on a small scale. For a single pixel. If you scale up the number of pixels, that exponentially increases the amount of power needed. Now scale that to an iPad screen (with a Retina display), and you have a very good method of stealing power from your battery. I am at 4%. After nary a month. Less than half a month. I have no idea if it’s supposed to do that but it does.

Also iOS 7 is supposed to detect the color of your iDevice. If you have a black iDevice, the UI will be mostly black. If you have a white one the UI will be mostly white. I have a black one, and the UI is mostly…white. So far, even with the other aspects of iOS 7, I am not that impressed. Even with Control Center.

And whoever thought up the blur effect and attempted to connect that with having “a sense of your context” needs to get a life. You can have a person in front of a yellow background, and the exact same person doing the exact same thing in front of a deep red background, and you have a completely different feel, even without the blur. What context are we talking? People? There’s no people in blurs, figure that out, Apple, please!

As for where the UI is going next, I actually have a specific answer! Just turn toward the Game Center, where you tap bubbles, yes, honest-to-god single-color LIGHTED bubbles. They look exactly as if you blew bubbles with soapy water with food-coloring mixed in. Giant colored 3D bubbles. Look forward to it…maybe?

I am at 2% battery life. Time to end this before my iPad dies.