iPhone iOS 7 - Should I upgrade or wait?

iOS 6 on the left      iOS 7 on the right  

iPhone iOS 7 - Should I upgrade or not?  It depends.  Which iPhone do you have?  Do you like features or performance?   Are you willing to sacrifice performance for the new features?  

iOS 7 is full of fundamental changes and fantastic eye candy. Visually, it is better than iOS 6 or older versions of the mobile operating system. There are many new features that are bound to help you use your iPhone in a better way and you will undoubtably enjoy your iPhone more.  But there is no real basic new functionality that puts it ahead of the other operating systems such as Android. It's a great enhancement but not a big paradigm shift.

WIth that being said,  It IS more cool! 

Some of the new features that I like: 
If you swipe up from the bottom of the screen on an iPhone running iOS 7, you get Control Center that has options for accessing and changing frequently used settings like Wi-Fi toggle.

You can swipe anywhere left to right to unlock your phone instead of just at the bottom with iOS 6.   

The icons seem to float above the background which is pretty cool.  However my daughter complained about headaches.  There were also many others in the Apple forums who have also complained about headaches and have had to turn off the 3D features. 

There is a slick new keyboard that appears in many of the apps.  However if the developer hasn't upgraded the app, for example in Facebook, the older keyboard always appears. 

There is the ability to swipe back which is very nice.  Instead of just looking for a back arrow, you can back swipe anywhere. 

The Safari App has been enhanced.  There are new buttons at the bottom of the screen.  The Share button allows you to easily share web pages via Facebook or Twitter.  One thing that is inconvenient is that the buttons don't have a description so if you don't use them first, you don't know what they do. 

The photo gallery has been enhanced for better organization of your photos, making it much easier to find photos rather then scrolling through all the photos to find a photo. 

The new camera interface is awesome!  There are filters and effects built right into the camera. 

I like the ability to use folders with unlimited panels.  However, I had a hard time closing or leaving the folder once I was in the folder.  That needs to be fixed. 

New features that I don't like:
The icons have a more simple and fluorescent green look.  I like the older icons better.  But that's just me.  Others may like the new icons. 

I've talked with our staff and our friends about their experiences upgrading to the new iOS7.  I'm hearing about 50% love it and 50% wish they didn't upgrade.  

"iOS 7 is a bit buggy on the 5s. I've installed iOS 7 on an iPhone 5, an iPad 3, and an iPad Mini. It runs best on the iPhone 5 and iPad Mini. On the iPhone 5s, iOS 7 is prone to app crashes. Third-party app crashes aren't too awful, but when native apps such as the Settings Menu and Safari crash, you know something's not right."

One of our users complained that she could no longer print using a specific work related app on her iPhone 4s.  Other users have complained about frequent crashes.  Some have complained about decreased battery life.  "The battery just doesn't last throughout the day."  

If you have an iPhone 4 or 4s then expect to experience a performance lag after upgrading.   iPhone 4 is a three-year-old phone and lacks the hardware that can handle a modern OS like iOS 7. The amount of RAM is particularly an issue. iPhone 4 has 512MB RAM, which is just not enough for the full-blown multitasking that has been implemented in iOS 7. It is possible to upgrade and if you do upgrade you will most likely experience some lag.  iPhone 4 is now discontinued in the US, but there are a few still out there. However the iPhone 4s is still available for now.   We've had some friends upgrade their iPhone 4 and 4s to iOS 7 and they all experience a performance lag.  However some are very happy with the upgrade.  


My conclusion after playing with the new OS for two days, researching, and asking a lot of questions:

If it was me, and I had an iPhone 4 or 4s,  I would wait a little longer hoping that Apple fixes some of the defects in this first version of iOS 7.  But if you're willing to sacrifice some of the performance for the new cool features, then go ahead and upgrade.  I would probably upgrade now if I had an iPhone 5.  If you want mostly a phone and don't care about the new user interface and special effects then definitely do not upgrade.