Poll finds most users actually prefer the look of iOS 7 over iOS 6

The responses to the radical user-facing changes Apple has made in iOS 7 have been a mixed bag thus far. While some users welcome the new designs and like the way the software looks, others dislike the update so much they say it could kickstart Apple’s downfall.

But it looks like the voices in the latter camp are just the loudest, and don’t necessarily represent the majority. Because according to this online poll conducted by Input Factory’s Polar platform, most folks actually prefer the overall UI design of iOS 7 to that of iOS 6…

9to5Mac points to the Polar survey, which is actually a number of smaller surveys asking users which UI elements they prefer, those in iOS 6 or iOS 7. This includes on/off switches, pickers, alerts, sliders, search, the share sheet, the Lock screen, and the Notification Center.

And here’s how users have voted thus far:

As you can see, an overwhelming majority of folks who voted preferred the look of iOS 7 UI elements to those in iOS 6: 72% to 28%.

Now, you can argue that these results aren’t indicative of how the general population feels—and you’d be right, iOS 7 isn’t publicly available yet. But in the same breath you could argue that it’s not just developers using the betas right now, which evens the playing field a bit.

It’s also worth pointing out that these results match up with those from a previous poll, also conducted by Polar, which asked users for their preferences on iOS 6/iOS 7 icons. In that survey, more than 50,000 people chimed in, and a majority of them voted for iOS 7′s images.

But it’s not the folks in these polls Apple will have to win over with its new design this fall. It’s the 300+ million other iOS users who will update their devices in a few months, unaware of the changes that lay ahead of them, that they’ll have to impress. Can they do it?

What’s your take on all of this?

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12 words your iPhone won’t auto-correct

Apple’s implementation of auto-correct in iOS has long been the subject of criticism. When it works, it works, but it has the reputation of being inconsistent. Sometimes it won’t notice slight misspellings of a word, and others it’ll offer wrong suggestions.

And apparently there’s a handful of words that auto-correct won’t touch at all. The Daily Beast recently ran a few low-grade, in-house tests on the feature, and it found that there are at least 12 often-used, ‘hot button’ terms it seems to purposely ignore…

First off, lets take a look at the testing method:

“To find the list of excluded words, we came up with two different misspellings for roughly 250,000 words—including all of the ones in the internal dictionary that ships with its desktop operating system—and wrote an iOS program that would input each misspelled variant into an iOS simulator (a computer program that mimics the behavior of a factory-condition iPhone). We then made a separate program that simulated a user selecting from the menu of suggested corrections and recorded the results. After narrowing down the list to roughly 20,000 words that looked problematic, we tested 12 more different misspelling combinations. Words that did not offer an accurate correction any of the 14 times were added to our list of banned words.”

Now let’s take a look at the words. “Abortion,” “abort,” “rape,” “bullet,” “ammo,” “drunken,” “drunkard,” “abduct,” “arouse,” “suicide,” “murder,” and “virginity” were all ignored by auto-correct, placing them on what The Daily Beast calls the Apple kill list.

You can try these words on your own iPhone, but keep in mind that auto-correct learns from user behavior, and it’s unclear of these words are exempt from that too. It’s also worth mentioning that many of these words accurately auto-completed in iOS 3.1.3.

So what does all of this mean? Probably nothing. But some folks feel that this is just another way that Apple is dictating what users can and cannot do with blanket censorship. And honestly, even if that was the case, that should come as a surprise to no one.

The good news is, for those who aren’t worried about the above words, it looks like auto-complete as a whole has been greatly improved in iOS 7.

What do you make of all of this?

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iOS 6 Theme Preview: Aplo

While the iOS 7 betas are upon us, there remains a significant number of users that are still running iOS 6 on their iPhone or iPod touch. iOS 6 also happens to be the last software version with a publicly released jailbreak, which allows users to install themes, tweaks and other modifications on their devices.

Looking to cater to those users that remain jailbroken, graphic designer and concept artist Sentry has returned to the scene with a preview of a new iPhone theme called Aplo. The theme takes a simplistic approach to the stock and third-party apps, although with more depth and shadowing than the iOS 7 flat appearance. 

Sentry recently teased on Twitter that he will also be accompanying the theme with a custom lock screen user interface, which assumingly wasn’t in the cards at first. Look for Aplo to hit Cydia at some point this month.

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iOS 7 hints at growing interest in Apple pre-release software

Whenever Apple releases new software, consumers rush to give it a try. Now the average Apple user wants in on pre-release software once the domain only of developers and others paid to ensure everything is in order.

There has been such interest in the changes made to iOS 7 that this so-called ‘beta’ software is being adopted at a faster pace than test versions of iOS 6, one company noted Tuesday.

More than twice as many iPhones are online with the beta version of iOS 7 than was the case when the pre-release version of iOS 6 was made available to developers, according to a company which optimizes websites for mobile users.

Why the heightened interest in software declared not ready for mass use? How is Apple responding to this trend?

As of June 17, iOS 7 betas accounted for 0.46 percent of the firm’s total traffic, nearly double that of the iOS 6 beta which registered 0.25 percent over the same period in 2012, according to mobile web optimizing irm OnSwipe, via TechCrunch.

Individually, 0.77 percent of iPhones and 0.28 percent of iPads were detected running the test version of Apple’s mobile software. This compares to 0.38 for iPhones and 0.19 percent of iPads found to be running last year’s pre-release iOS 6.

Why the increase in interest in Apple’s pre-release software?

There are many possible explanations.

Firstly, with the introduction of so many new features, as well as a totally-revamped “flat” user-interface, developers are showing twice as much interest in retooling their apps to look best in the new digs.

Secondly, consumers have followed the twists and turns regarding this version of iOS in the most minute detail. As author Darrell Etherington points out, there was a record audience to hear Apple CEO Tim Cook and others describe software and products not likely to appear on shelves until this fall.

In response to the growing interest in its pre-release software, Apple is clamping down on its retail employees, ensuring the company speaks with one voice when it comes to iOS.

Some retail Apple employees have said they were threatened with firing if they showed the iOS 7 beta installed on their personal iPhones to customers. At the same time, Genius Bar workers were also admonished against servicing customers who had the beta installed on their handsets.

It’s a wonder how long Apple can continue this two-track way of marketing.

Hyping its next software while trying to control the message is a bit like poking a lion to prompt it to growl while making sure you’re not eaten.

Meanwhile, the third iOS 7 beta is expected to appear July 8.

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Cydia: ‘The Quick Brown Fox’ Enhances Your Stock iOS Keyboard

The Quick Brown Fox is a new jailbreak tweak for iOS that adds a number of new features to the stock keyboard on iPhone and iPod touch. For starters, Auto Twins automatically inserts a closing pair of the sign you type. If you type an opening bracket or parentheses, for instance, this tweak will automatically insert the matching closing mark right next to it.

Furthermore, enabling Auto Space will insert a space automatically following specific keys that you enable. This functionality is similar to the space that is automatically added after you finish a sentence with a period, but expanded for other characters such as exclamation marks, number signs or colons. 

Last, toggle on Jumping Keys to have the alphabet keyboard shown instantly after tapping selected keys. By default, the alphabet keyboard returns after you insert an apostrophe; with this tweak, that functionality is expanded to any key that you wish.

The Quick Brown Fox, which pays homage to the English-language pangram of the same name, is available for free on Cydia from the ModMyi repository. The tweak supports jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch devices running iOS 5 or later. If you give the tweak a spin, let us know how it works for you.

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Apple starts charting iOS adoption, 96% of users are on iOS 6

Apple has started charting the iOS adoption figures via a portal for its registered developers. While Google’s been doing this for quite some time now, it’s the first time Apple offered the continuously updated official iOS adoption data.

Key takeaway: a whopping 96 percent of Apple customers are now using iOS 6, as measured by the App Store during a 14-day period ending June 3, 2013.

There is a massive difference compared to Android 4.x versions that, according to Google’s dashboard web page, was on 58.6 percent of Android devices accessing the Android Play store during a 14-day period ending on June 3, 2013.

And with 39.8 percent of Google customers on the now outdated Android 2.2 Froyo and up to Android 3.2 Honeycomb software, Apple’s huge advantage in terms of platform fragmentation is undisputed…

Apple previously showed this chart to WWDC attendees, with engineers and executives not shying away from privately highlighting throughout WWDC sessions Apple’s key fragmentation advantage versus Google.

By the way, Apple is demanding that new apps and app updates be built for iOS devices with Retina display. Another requirement: iPhone apps must also support the four-inch display on the iPhone 5.

It should be noted that Google measures only devices which access the Play store, excluding forked Android versions such as Amazon’s Kindle tablets and a plethora of basic devices from no-name Chinese vendors.

Just like Google, Apple’s numbers are based on the App Store logs. Because Apple exclusively makes iOS devices and given it doesn’t allow third-party stores, Apple’s stats are an accurate representative of the market.

Some of the stats Tim Cook mentioned during the WWDC keynote are rather impressive. Despite Android’s market share and unit sales lead stemming from the fact that anyone can take Android for free to build devices, the App Store has a clear revenue advantage.

The App Store, which next month turns five, has earned developers an astounding ten billion dollars thus far, which is more than all other platforms combined.

Apple now has 575 million iTunes accounts, most of them with credit cards enabled for one-click shopping. The App Store has amassed 50 billion app downloads (excluding re-downloads and updates) and is home to 900,000 apps, with more than 375,000 programs specifically designed for iPads.

Last, but not the least, cumulative sales of iOS devices have crossed the 600 million units threshold. Taking a moment to crunch those numbers, it isn’t terribly surprising six million developers signed up to write iOS apps.

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Saurik: 18M devices running iOS 6 visited Cydia during evasi0n’s 6 week run

Yesterday, we bid farewell to one of the most infamous jailbreaks of all time: evasi0n. Born on February 4, it lasted nearly 6 weeks before Apple finally disabled it by way of the iOS 6.1.3 software update it issued yesterday.

It certainly served its purpose though. According to Jay Freeman, aka Saurik, Cydia saw more than 18 million unique iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, running iOS 6 (or later), visit during the jailbreak’s 6-week long run…

Forbes Andy Greenberg, speaking with Freeman, reports:

“In the six weeks since evasi0n was released, however, close to 18 million devices have already been jailbroken, according to data from Jay Freeman, the administrator of the Cydia app store for jailbroken devices. He says he’s counted 18.2 million unique devices running iOS 6 visiting Cydia, including 13.8 million iPhones, 3.4 million iPads, and 1.1 million iPod Touches.”

It’s worth noting, though, that it’s quite possible evasi0n isn’t responsible for jailbreaking all 18 million devices. While they have their caveats, both RedSn0w and Sn0wBreeze have the ability to jailbreak older devices on iOS 6.

But even if it only accounted for 17 million, that’d still be impressive. As Greenberg points out, Comex’s popular JailbreakMe 3 hack was only used around 2 million times during its life cycle—remember, though, it only lasted 9 days.

The evasi0n jailbreak lasted for 43 days, and through 2 software updates. Apple finally took it out yesterday, patching multiple exploits used in the hack. Four of the update’s six security fixes were attributed to the evad3rs.

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YourTube update for iOS 6 now available in Cydia

If you’re a YouTube user, or dare we say “power user,” then you’re no doubt already acutely aware of YourTube. A jailbreak tweak from the folks over at CocoaNuts, YourTube takes the already impressive YouTube app and turns it into the app Google would no doubt like it to be, if it wasn’t for all manner of licensing issues!

Amongst other features, YourTube allows users to download their YouTube videos for playback later, with adjustable quality settings and the option to have the downloaded files added to their iPhone’s built-in media apps. Oh, and they’ll get synced back to your computer that way, too.

That’s just scratching the surface of what YourTube can do, so here’s a handy bullet point list of features for your easy perusal…

• YouTube video downloading for offline viewing
• Accelerated download speeds
• Ad-blockers for video ads, banner ads, and brandings
• Ignoring restrictions for videos
• Always enabling AirPlay
• Importing downloaded videos to the media library with Gremlin (now 20x faster)
• Import video or just audio to music library
• Reverse syncing for syncing downloaded media to iTunes
• Selecting playback quality
• Selecting download quality
• An interface built into the YouTube application

Our personal favorites? Well, there’s the obvious win of being able to avoid watching YouTube ads while waiting for that little “SKIP” button to appear, for one. Importing music into the Music app, rather than the video is also impressive. All in, the entire tweak gets our seal of approval, and we’re sure you’ll agree.

Owners of previous versions of YourTube can get a free upgrade to YourTube for iOS, or if you’re just getting on board now you’ll need to hand over $3.99. Be quick though, because that price is only valid for three days. After that, you’ll need to snag an extra dollar from the depths of your sofa cushions

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