With Android 4.2 providing plenty of new features and the big threat of the Samsung Galaxy S4, it's no wonder that Apple is looking to revamp its OS. The new OS should help with its upcoming products, the iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2.
iOS 7 FEATURES
While it's generally easy to use, iOS is rather basic and hasn't changed much since it was launched. For iOS 7 Jonathan Ive is said to have been given a free-hand, allowing him to completely redesign the OS and interface. That will mean something completely different to what we've seen so far.
The first rumour is that iOS 7, codenamed Innsbruck, will ditch the 3D and skeuomorphic design of its predecessors. A skeuomorphic design is where one object is made to look like another, such as the digital Notes app being designed to look like a real notepad.
Instead a flat approach will be used instead. This will make the OS more streamlined and cleaner.
While the appearance of the applications is going to differ dramatically in iOS 7 - the Notes app is unlikely to look like a yellow pad of lined paper, for example, and the Calendar app won't have a 'leather' binding - their usability is thought to be unaffected. Users upgrading from a previous iOS release should adapt to the new interface rapidly, according to sources who have used pre-release versions of the software, while the core functionality of the operating system is unchanged.
Apple is also rumoured to be looking to overhaul the notification system in the software, providing more information and actionable notifications to the pull-down bar - a similar approach taken by Google for recent versions of its open-source Android mobile operating system. Rumours of OS X Mountain Lion-inspired swipeable gestures are also spreading, although it's not yet known how such functionality would translate to a mobile device.
One of the big rumours about the upcoming iOS devices is integrated NFC and the ability to pay for goods with your phone. This would most likely require an updated version of Passbook that supports these kinds of payments.
iOS 7 CONCEPTS
All of these rumours of a complete change has inspired some people to visualise what the OS could look like. One of the most interesting is the app-switcher concept, which you can see in the video below. Rather than switching between apps using plain icons, the concept shows what the iPhone would look like if it had large live-preview thumbnails of the apps. It's certainly impressive to watch, although it is completely unofficial.
Another video (below) shows another concept of how iOS 7 could work. One of the key things is quick settings, which lets you access common settings from the home screen (or any app), without having to delve into the settings menu. It's something that's needed, as it's currently quite annoying having to pile through lots of menus to make a change or connect to a wireless network.
iOS 7 RELEASE DATE
We'd normally expect a new version of iOS to come hand-in-hand with a new iPhone or tablet, which could mean the iPhone 5S or iPad 5. However, the most recent information seems to point to iOS 7 being unveiled in June at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). According to date from Onswipe, which uses HTML5 to create mobile-friendly websites and reported by TechCrunch, there has been a massive spike of traffic from iPhones and iPads running iOS 7. In particular, the traffic came from the area surrounding Apple's offices.
Apple usually tests new operating systems internally, before releasing them to developers, with consumers following a few months later. The increase in web traffic from iOS 7 devices suggests that Apple is getting ready to unveil its next-generation operating system.
With WWDC just round the corner, it would be the ideal place to show-off the OS, followed by an official launch in Autumn to coincide with new mobile devices.
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