7.1 Stories March 13, 2014
iOS 7.1 may have only been released this week, but it’s already got it’s own “gate”-worthy issue: battery life is abysmal. Reports on Twitter and Apple’s support discussion forums indicate that users are seeing significant drain on their batteries after installing the new update.
[tweet https://twitter.com/horwitz/status/444305435265220608 align=’center’]
7.1 Stories March 11, 2014
Following Apple’s launch of iOS 7.1, the first major update to the OS that featured CarPlay, iBeacon imrpovements, and more, mobile analytics firm Chitika has released some numbers regarding the software’s adoption rate. According to the company’s detailed report, the update saw a 5.9% installation rate during its first 24 hours of availability.
The numbers are a little bit BS because obviously a non-zero percentage of users were developers and Apple employees using the 7.1betas. Here are 9to5mac’s numbers for instance.
The data was collected from “tens of millions” of users in the United States and Canada, though the study doesn’t state the exact sample size. The full version of the report notes that the company typically employs a sample size of around 300 million devices.
That may seem low compared to the ridiculously fast adoption of iOS 7 last year, but Chitika reported similiar numbers for the previous update, iOS 7.0.6, which contained a critical SSL bug fix. Meanwhile, the entire set of 7.x updates has seen slowing growth in recent months, according to Apple…
7.1 Stories March 10, 2014
Apple launched iOS 7.1 this morning after what seemed like an eternity in beta, making the first major update to the mobile OS since it was redesigned last year. Included in the update are several key features such as CarPlay, but also a collection of smaller tweaks and improvements that make system more convenient.
Among those features are two very important ones that haven’t really gotten enough press: huge performance improvements on the iPhone 4 and something called “HFP prompts” in the Maps application…
As we previously reported to expect in March, Apple has released its iOS 7.1 software update for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. The software update delivers a number of user interface tweaks and much needed bug improvements and dramatically faster animations and transitions. Changes include a dedicated list and tray view button in Calendar, power toggle and phone animation and shape changes throughout the system, and animation speed improvements. The update also includes additional features including an indicator in Camera used when auto flash will activate the light as well as a new auto HDR mode and an indicator when HDR will be activated. Siri now supports a “push-to-talk” option for better speech recognition and CarPlay support is noted in the release notes. expand full story
7.1 Stories March 4, 2014
Expected iOS 7.1 likely arriving ahead of iTunes Festival at SXSW next week
Update: Didn’t happen. That “little birdie” is “for the birds”.
In a brief note on Daring Fireball, John Gruber makes a notable connection between Apple’s planned iTunes Festival at SXSW next week and the pending release of iOS 7.1:
Apple’s first iTunes Festival in the U.S. starts a week from today at SXSW in Austin. Apple is going to stream the performances to iOS devices using an app, but I’ve heard from a little birdie that the app requires iOS 7.1 (which explains why the app isn’t out yet). That means iOS 7.1 should ship any day now.
The fifth and most recent developer preview of iOS 7.1 was released four weeks ago from today, and we reported a few days later that the public release was slated for March.
