Apple Inc.'s iOS 7.1 upgrade: Absolutely no shock

Apple iOS 7.1 is here. I have been looking forward to it, hoping that my iPhone 4, which slowed down dramatically in the weeks since I upgraded to iOS 7, would get a new lease of life. A couple of days after the upgrade, I think it is time to tell you if it is worth the effort.

Yes, it took the customary three tries to get this iOS upgrade through. It would be great if iTunes is able to continue an operating system download where it was paused, often due to an erratic broadband connection. The 150MB download is ‘fast’ and took me about an hour with Airtel’heys 4Mbps connection.

Shock and awe

There was absolutely no shock and awe. In fact, I was not even sure the install was done as everything from the wallpapers to the apps on the homepage looked the same. But the difference was visible when my phone rang for the first time. The rectangular swipe to answer bbutton had been replaced by a very Androidish-looking red and green buttons. The ‘Remind Me’ and ‘Message’ buttons on the call screen had also changed.

No big change in user experience here, but I can live with it.

The other big change is when you make a call. The numbers are laid out like before, but the call buttons is now a green circle instead of the rectangle before. Again, nothing great.

 Nothing  major, but the Weather apps is a bit different, so is the calendar. Mostly design changes that won’t impact your life much.

There are changes in Siri and the virtual assistant seems to have been reined in a bit. But I use a iPhone 4 and could not check what’s new.

Problems

I faced one major problem. I am in the habit of responding to calls with ‘will call back’ messages. I haven’t been able to send one succesfully since the upgrade and I have no idea why this is happening. I was expecting issues with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but both