Skip to footer

Want an early peek at iOS 7? Here's how.

The launch of Apple's iOS 7 will likely coincide with the launch of the next iPhone. But why not take the operating system for a test-spin today? 

|
Apple
Apple new iOS 7 operating system, pictured here on an iPhone 5, is set to debut this fall.
  • By Matthew Shaer

Earlier this month, at the WWDC event in San Francisco, Apple took the wraps off iOS 7, the latest iteration of its mobile operating system. iOS 7 looks pretty different from iOS 6: The font is slimmer, the icons are flatter, the colors are different, and the 3-D shading is drastically pared down. There's also a centralized control panel, which slides up from the bottom of the lock screen, and lets you toggle Airplane Mode, iTunes tracks, and so on. 

The Jony Ive-designed operating system is expected to launch this fall, probably in conjunction with the release of the new iPhone. (TechCrunch has assembled a useful guide of which devices will be compatible with iOS 7.) Want to take iOS7 for an early test-drive? Well, you've got a couple of options. One is to download the beta developers' version of the OS, although the beta is reported to be pretty buggy and unstable, as betas usually are. 

The other way is to navigate over to this iOS 7 simulator, which was put together by the folks at the tech site Recombu. (Hat tip to 9 to 5 Mac for the discovery.) You don't actually get to hold an iOS 7-equipped iPhone in your hand, but you do get to use your finger (or mouse) to click through a reasonably good facsimile of the forthcoming OS, from the aforementioned control panel to the revised camera controls. Just to warn you: The demo works much better on a computer than on a phone.

Of course, as Recombu makes sure to note, the demo is based on the beta edition of iOS 7, and "there will potentially be a few more changes and tweaks before the final revision of iOS 7 hits consumer’s devices." 

Generally speaking, the new OS design has been received warmly by tech critics. Not that there aren't dissenters – PC Mag staff curmudgeon John C. Dvorak among them. "I personally find the new icons to be less compelling and almost vapid in their emotional impact," Dvorak writes. "A lot of Apple fanboys are raving about how much better and less pretentious they are. When you look at them side-by-side, some are superior to the old designs but most are not." 

Take that, Ives. 

For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Want an early peek at iOS 7? Here's how.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/0619/Want-an-early-peek-at-iOS-7-Here-s-how
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe