“iOS 7 and iOS 8 feel like two halves of the same update, two equally necessary steps in the journey from Old iOS to Modern iOS. iOS 7 was a facelift, a new release that added some nice user- and developer- facing features but was overwhelmingly focused on changing the way existing parts of the system looked,” Andrew Cunningham writes for Ars Technica. “iOS 8 freshens up the underpinnings of the operating system, opening an unprecedented number of things up to third parties without sacrificing the things that define iOS. iOS 7 was transformative on an aesthetic level; iOS 8 is transformative on a functional level.”
“With this release, Apple is trying to make additions that developers and power users want without upsetting people who come to iOS specifically because of its consistency and simplicity. It’s telling that just about every major iOS 8 feature can be disabled or ignored, and that big transformative features like third-party extensions are hidden from view by default,” Cunningham writes. “A surface-level glance at iOS 8 suggests an operating system that isn’t all that different from iOS 7. Look just a little deeper, though, and you’ll see just how different it is.”
Reams more in the typically massive and comprehensive full review – recommended, as usual – here.
The source article has a 35 item Table of Contents. It’s 11 tall webpages long, effectively a small book. Outstanding!
Sometimes I think of Ars Technica as a friend with mania. Occasionally they have a horrific day. But you keep coming back for those glorious days. I seriously depend on their computer security staff, who are consistently excellent.
The iPhone debuted in 2007, so 7 years is what counts for “old” now.
Ars Technica also posted articles about iOS 8 on the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S. The have an interesting, telling observation about the aging process of iPhones that can be applied to tech devices in general:
iPhones have about a year to be top-of-the-line. Then they have a year to be the modest-but-capable midrange model. After that, they become the free-with-contract choice. And then, in their last year, they enter that no-man’s-land where they’re still getting software updates but are no longer being sold.
Five year old tech device? That’s an antique!
Want to visit an antique tech museum? Go visit a government office. As we were chattering around here last year, a lot of government offices are still shockingly dependent on, (hold your nose!), DOS.
:-Q*****
I agree. Are Technica is the closest thing there is on the web to an unbiased news source on technical stuff that I know of. Everybody else seems to have an agenda or a bias.
Ars. Ducking autocorrect.
Nerdgasm.
Now I know what I’ll be doing tonight (and probably tomorrow night, too).