iOS 7 on iPad compared to iPod Touch/iPhone

A 9To5Mac story reports:

Many developers have noted that the iOS 7 builds for iPad feel unstable and unreliable compared to the iPhone-optimized betas.

Yep, that’s right.

My experience so far with iOS 7 on an iPad versus an iPod Touch, is that it is more unstable, slower and generally more funky 😉 .

But let’s get real – it is beta software after all, so we should all just chill.  There are some out there, especially Apple pundits looking to grab page views with over hyped headlines about iOS 7, that blow it all out of proportion and refuse to recognize that – IT’S BETA !!!  And therefore, not the final experience and subject to lots of change.

That being said… I’ll tell you a little bit about my experience with the iOS 7 betas.  I’m running them on:

1. iPad 3rd generation with 4G and 64 GB, has an A5X processor and Retina display at 2,048 × 1,536.
2. iPod Touch 5th generation with 32 GB, has an A5 processor and Retina display at 1,136 x 640.

How I Use iOS 7

iOS 7 Issues on iPad

For the record, I think iOS 7 is awesome !!!  The new UI is beautiful and elegant.  This time I’ll quote myself from a post in June:

iOS 7’s new UI design is an important and essential next step in iOS, and the mobile User eXperience (UX).  A bright style that is more like interactive paper.  A clean, mature and superior look that matches the superior style and quality of the Apple hardware it runs on.

So here’s a quick list.  Just to maybe give you a sense of the extra work that might be needed to get iOS 7 ready for the iPad.  These are issues that I’d seen in the first couple betas, that have been resolved in the last few.

• The task switching view (the view that appears when you press the Home button twice) has been very troublesome, until lately.  In earlier betas, it could almost reliably crash iOS 7 on an iPad every time.  Sometimes displaying previews in the wrong orientation.  In the last couple betas it is much improved and so far hasn’t crashed the OS.
• Displaying Photo Streams would always crash the OS in earlier betas.  Now it works fine.
• Composing mail would sometimes crash the OS, but was rare.  It’s been working fine for a while now.  A big upside is my email I was working on at the time of the crash, was saved in drafts, so I didn’t lose it.
• Graphics performance on the iPad is noticeably slower than on the iPod Touch.  But the iPad is also not the latest gen with the fastest processor possible.  However, both are based on the dual-core A5, and the A5X in the iPad is boosted by a quad-core graphics processor.  But the iPad still does have to push more pixels at 2,048 × 1,536.  While the iPod Touch has just 1,136 x 640.  I still hope the graphics performance will level out as iOS 7 gets it’s finishing touches, and they’ll be equal.  Because when the iPad 3rd gen with the A5X was launched, it was said to be just as fast as an A5 powered iPhone, even with the extra pixels to push, because of the additional quad-core graphics processor.

By comparison iOS 7 on the iPod Touch has been pretty smooth.  But I must note that I use the iPad a lot more and every single day, so I’m beating on iOS 7 on the iPad a whole lot more.

Happy Endings

iPod Touch in Blue

• A big upside is that most of the apps I use, work on iOS 7.  Remember these are released app versions from the public App Store running on a beta iOS.  So that’s pretty impressive.
• iOS 7 on an iPod Touch really shines and shows off the elegance of iOS 7’s new design.  The iPod is so amazingly tiny, thin and super rock solid.  The one I have has a beautiful blue metal shine.  So imagine the blue wallpaper in the iOS 7 photo above on this amazing, tiny little sliver of glass and blue metal.  It’s breathtaking to hold so much power and advanced tech in such a tiny gorgeous package.  No other hardware comes close to comparing to what Apple creates.
• iOS 7 is just beautiful.  The new UI style and all the new features make iOS 7 a pleasure to use.  I can’t wait to be able to put the gold version on my iPhone too.

iPod Touch is crazy thin at just 0.24 inch (6.1 mm)

Could iOS 7 for iPad Ship Later ?

The same 9To5Mac story in that paragraph, goes on to add:

The reason, as we’ve noted before, is that Apple started on iOS 7 for iPhone prior to building for the iPad. Perhaps as proof for this, Apple did not ship an iOS 7 beta for iPad until two weeks after the initial iPhone iOS 7 beta. A similar situation is potentially in the cards for the public launch of iOS 7. While iOS 7.0 for iPhone is locked for the iPhone 5S launch in mid-September, there’s chatter inside Apple about the potential of holding back the iPad version for an iOS 7.0.1 release between late September and October; perhaps alongside fresh new iPad hardware.

iOS 7 on an iPad is also more complicated to build, because of the different and dramatically improved User eXperience (UX) that the tablet allows and demands.  And Apple will absolutely want to make sure that they create an amazing UX designed to take full advantage of a tablet.  And I can personally attest that the iOS 7 experience is even better on a tablet.