Today I will instal iOS 7 on an old iPhone 4S. There are a few things I would recommend before getting started. The first would be to back up your photos and videos. You can do so by connecting your iPhone to your PC. Disconnect the USB cable from the power cube and connect the phone to the computer. Your computer will ask what you want to do with the photos and videos; leave them on the phone and do not allow Windows Photo Gallery or any other software to automatically delete your photos.
It takes about a good three hours to install iOS 7. The simplest, preferred method, is to go to General, then Settings, then look for software updates. If your phone has less than 2.9 GB available you’ll need to either delete applications, or delete photos, videos, or other media in order to gain the amount of space necessary to get this to work.
When your phone finally comes to, you will end up with a white screen that says Hello, in various languages. Slide to the right to turn on your phone and set it up. The first prompt asks you to enable location services, something you’ll want to do if you use your phone’s GPS. The next prompt asks you to sign in with your Apple ID. The next step is to create a passcode.
The first thing you’ll notice is that your keyboard is now all white, with black letters. There are a few slight changes with the system apps; the camera roll is now underneath “photos.” Click on photos and you’ll see that you can either access your pictures under the camera roll, or your videos. Go to the camera roll and click on the photos icon on the bottom of the screen and photos are categorized into “collections,” separated into individual albums by location. For example, I have one album for pictures taken in Chesapeake, Virginia, between April 6 and April 27, another for pictures I took in Nassau, Bahamas, still another photo for pictures taken in both Virginia and West Virginia on July 6 and July 7. Click again and I can see all of my photos for the entire year. This is a pretty neat feature, one that I have not seen on the Android.
There are a few disappointments I have to mention before I go. iTunes Radio is not a separate application; it is actually an extension to iTunes , so you’ll have to download iTunes onto a computer and connect the phone, synchronize, etc. I may do a separate article when I have more information as it takes a while to install iTunes on a PC. This update to the OS, while pretty, does not add to the speed of your iPhone and might actually perform some functions at a speed that is slower than what you’re accustomed to with iPhone 6. Sliding up from the bottom of the screen to access the WiFi functions, calculator, timer, flashlight and camera quickly was not as smooth as I would have liked for it to be. This isn’t a reinvention of the wheel, and it is not revolutionary. Android still has a slicker, more sophisticated interface; though iOS 7 does make the iPhone a bit more intuitive when it comes to changing settings, the true power of this iteration of iOS will be unlocked by third party apps, as Apple has just provided a basic framework of what this system can do.
