The IT Nerd

iOS 7.1 was released to the world this afternoon. Instead of posting about it immediately, I took some time to update my iPhone 5 and try it out to figure out what changes have been made. Here’s what I’ve noticed thus far:

• So far, I haven’t noticed any crashes. Prior to this, I have noticed crashes inside apps that would kick me back to the home screen. Highly annoying. Good thing that this seems to have been fixed. At least so far.
• Siri now has a “push to talk” option. In other words, hold down the Home button while asking Siri a question and Siri won’t process your voice command or message until you release the Home button. That may be handy for those who have trouble using Siri.
• The phone dialer has been refined. It does look nice. Other areas of the user interface have been refined as well.
• I can tweak the reduce motion settings to have as little (which helps battery life) or as much motion as you want.
• Calendar app once again has a list option. Thank you Apple! I can once again view a single day and view a full list of my appointments. Ditto in month view.
• Answering a FaceTime call on one of your iOS 7.1 will clear those notifications from your other iOS 7.1 device(s). I noticed that on my iPad straight away. Clearly Apple sees that many users have more than one iOS device and those users will find this new feature useful.

Now there’s some other features that are listed in the release notes. Here’s the stuff that jumps out at me that may be of interest to you:

• CarPlay is now available for those who have a CarPlay compatible car.
• TouchID now works better.
• iPhone 5S users get the ability to turn on HDR for photos automatically.
• Better performance for iPhone 4 users

In terms of performance, I’ve not noticed any dramatic differences. But I wasn’t expecting any. And that’s fine with me. It’s truly an evolution and not a revolution.

What do you think of it? If you’ve upgraded to iOS 7.1, post a comment and share your thoughts.