The Macalope: The reviews are in!

And iOS 7 is a dud!

 

Yes, it’s another Apple colossafail, so feel free to rerun all those “Apple doomed” stories you …

 

Wait, the reviews? Reviewing developer previews that aren’t due for general release for months is a thing the tech press is going to do now? Well, they practically try to review unreleased Apple hardware, too, so this is actually an improvement.

 

“Flattened Affect”

 

Subhead?

 

“I’ve spent a week with iOS 7 and I’m already bored.”

 

Farhad Manjoo says, “I think that subhead is unfortunate.”

 

Indeed! If only someone could do something about that!

 

Say, who wrote this piece, anyway?

 

By Farhad Manjoo

 

Oh, journalism. Why must you always be such a busted-up Rube Goldberg machine?

 

Beware: The OS is still in beta phase, so it’s annoyingly buggy.

 

UGH, THIS BETA SOFTWARE IS SOOO BUGGY. LAME, ONE STAR.

 

Because the software is clearly a work in progress, I’ve tried to give it every benefit of the doubt …

 

I TRIED BUT, UGH, IT’S GOT BUGS AND EVERYTHING.

 

… and I expect that a lot of it will be improved by the time it’s launched publicly in the fall.

 

He suspects there will be a lot of improvements to this beta product that’s not going to be released for months. Because he’s a tech journalist. That’s the kind of insight you get paid to come up with.

 

At this point, though, I’m puzzled by iOS 7.

 

Quick! To the keyboard!

 

For a redesign that’s so immediately jarring and radical, it comes to feel strangely superficial over time.

 

Uh, yeah, maybe because there aren’t any apps that take advantage of its underlying technological improvements. Why is that? Oh, that’s right, because it’s a developer preview. For developers. So they can update their apps to work with it.

 

In other words, does iOS 7 change how your device works, rather than just how it looks?

 

Huh. If only there was some way to find out.

 

OH, WELL.

 

It doesn’t add many new features to your phone.

 

Control Center. Notification Center improvements. Multitasking for all apps. Camera improvements. Photo gallery improvements. AirDrop. Safari improvements. iTunes Radio. Siri improvements. App Store improvements. Security improvements. Not many, no.

 

Look, it’s fine to talk about the design choices present in iOS 7. It’s even OK to critique them, if you happen to be an actual designer and have a clue what you’re talking about. But offering your review of an unfinished developer beta? This we do not need.