Decided to jump on the bandwagon and do my own version of an Apple Watch unboxing video.
To add some copy to this post (SEO juice) My quick verdict is:
It looks and feels good on my wrist
The screen should “wake” a hair faster when I raise my wrist
The battery life has not been an issue thus far
Stay tuned for my ‘1st Impressions’ and ‘full review’ posts on Apple Watch. In the meantime, check out the Apple Watch apps I’m probably messing with right now, some dope Apple Watch accessories that I will be ordering in the near future.
Side Note: You know I HATE those thick black bars when people shoot videos in ‘portrait mode’. I found out that the Periscope app does not support landscape mode. Imma need them to work on that…
I’m going to keep this short and sweet: If you have a Mac, but you’re not using Apple’s free (and easy) Time Machine to back up your computer, you need to be slapped. Now that I’ve got your attention, I’ve whipped up a tutorial video on how easy it is to set up Time Machine so you can back up your computer because…I said so.
In the latest update, Instagram for iOS fixed some bugs, added Cinema (stabilization) support for front-facing camera recording, yada, yada, yada. What really has me geeked about this update is the ability to shoot photos and record video in landcape mode.
Portrait Mode vs. Landscape Mode
It’s highly common to see video recorded on smartphones uploaded and shared everywhere on the web. Most of those videos I’ve seen are squeezed between black bars that seem to take up all the extra space to the left and right of the video. This is the case because people recorded those videos holding their phones vertically (portrait) versus rotating their phones horizontally (landscape mode) before recording.
When videos recoded in portrait mode are played back on slick widescreen TV’s, computers and other video devices, the dreaded black bars appear due to the difference between the format used to record the video and the device/platform used to playback the video. The simple solution is to rotate your smartphone so it’s horizontal to the ground before recording.
I caved to the peer pressure and installed the iOS 7 Beta not only on my iPhone 5, but my 3rd-Gen iPad as well. I decided to shoot a quick video of the before and after just to give you an idea of the difference between OS 6 and 7.
First, let me say that this is not an in-depth video walk-through. This is an early beta version of the upcoming OS for Apple mobile devices and things could change, so I didn’t want to show you features that may not be there come this fall when the production version is released.
Additionally, the beta version has its quirks. Scratch that, the iPad version is pretty buggy. The iPhone version more stable, but even it has some weird stuff going on. Since this is a beta release and buggy betas come with the territory, there is no need for me to trash something that will never come to market.
Design
Having said that, I will briefly focus on some things that will not change when iOS 7 is official. Based on using it for iPhone and iPad for the past couple of days, I will say that it is attractive – Like a Sistah walking down the street with a mean strut kind of attractive. You quickly glance, thinking that’s all the visual stimulation you will need. Shortly after, you catch yourself looking again, but longer this time. Before you know it, you’re breaking your neck to examine every detail.
iOS definitely needed some visual appeal to get out of that “natural textures” funk it was in for the past couple of years. Apple definitely delivered with iOS 7. It is colorful and definitely draws your eye in. You can tell that Apple redesigned nearly every inch of the platform: From the settings to the notifications, to the app icons, to the homescreen and background; Apple made sure it was all refreshed.
Functionality
I will admit that I was expecting more from iOS 7 in the functionality department. Outside of a control panel screen that gives you quick access to frequently used settings, WebOS-like multitasking control, and some extra gestures throughout the platform, nothing really jumps out at you that makes the OS more physically usable over its predecessor.
Additionally, I would have liked to see more personalization options. I kinda dig all the “widgets” capabilities found on Android. Apple had no problem “borrowing” other aspects from other platforms…which is cool, I think all platforms could learn a thing or two from each other. I would have loved it if Apple came up with its own screen personalization feature similar to widgets, that gives the user the ability to add their own aspects to the home screen versus just a bunch of pretty app icons.
That is my uber-early impression of iOS 7. We will just have to see what elements Apple adds, enhances, or nixes, when it’s released in the fall.
What do you think of iOS 7 – Will a radical design improvement be enough to keep fans happy and fend off other mobile platforms Android?
