IOS & Hits today

Very excited about the new IOS operating system - looks extremely interesting and different and although I am an Apple Developer I took the decision at the launch in June not to download the beta version - my iPhone is too important a tool for me to run it with even slightly buggy OS.

My advice to owners of compatible devices is two fold.

First of all do not download it today immediately it is available. I made that mistake last year on IOS 6 - the upgrade comes obviously from Apples servers in the USA. There is limited bandwidth in and out of every country, their servers can only deal with so many requests at once and last launch day that particular information superhighway got totally blocked. To the point where, having started the download around 6.30 or 7.00pm (as soon as it became available in the UK) my iPhone ended up bricked for nearly 14 hours with the connection to Apples server dropping off part way through the update over and over.

The following morning it ran through in less than 20 minutes - so it's definitely worth waiting 24 or 48 hours for the millions of first day adopters to get it out of their system.

Secondly, if you already know what I'm about to say then this doesn't apply to you. But if you're a non power user of IOS devices consider carefully if you want to update at all. IOS 6 is a well thought out, fully mature OS - put simply and to quote Apple 'It just works'. You know where everything is and how it all fits in to your day and life.

IOS 7 is basically a total retool of the OS front and back - it doesn't just look different. Screens and settings are different and the way you interact with your device will alter subtly. There will also be issues in the first few iterations with things like battery power and data usage as there always are with new versions of the OS. Put simply, if you don't want to two to three week 'relearning' period on your device then I wouldn't bother updating yet. My advice would be to look at the Apple videos on IOS 7 to get an initial feel for how it differs from IOS 6 and importantly listen to two or three of the many (there will be thousands popping up in the next few days and weeks) You Tube reviews and guides to IOS 7 - they are a really useful way to get yourself up to speed on the new system and let others both guide you and make the mistakes so you don't have to.

I'm going to download IOS 7 over the weekend, have a play for a few days and then put a review up on my Tech 4 Biz vidcast in a little while so watch out for that.

In the meantime remember, you cannot rollback and downgrade from 7 back to IOS 6 - this means if you do upgrade it is binding !

Enjoy !