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Apple releases iOS 7.1 with CarPlay support, performance improvements, UI tweaks, new accessibility options, more

ios 7.1

As we previously reported to expect in March, Apple has released its iOS 7.1 software update for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users. The software update delivers a number of user interface tweaks and much needed bug improvements and dramatically faster animations and transitions. Changes include a dedicated list and tray view button in Calendar, power toggle and phone animation and shape changes throughout the system, and animation speed improvements. The update also includes additional features including an indicator in Camera used when auto flash will activate the light as well as a new auto HDR mode and an indicator when HDR will be activated. Siri now supports a “push-to-talk” option for better speech recognition and CarPlay support is noted in the release notes.

Accessibility options have expanded in iOS 7.1 (Build: 11D167) (Apple’s newly updated page) as well with the addition of stark, button borders and a toggle to dim harsh white elements system-wide. Users will notice the intensity of the green color used in the Messages, FaceTime, and Phone apps have been toned down as well as in the call banner. Weather offers a new set of iconography. Parallax options for the lock screen wallpaper also have a dedicated toggle when setting the background. Speaking of wallpapers, iPad users will now notice the wallpaper Apple used when marketing the iPad Air as present in the system defaults.

The system wide iOS keyboard has also been tweaked between iOS 7.0 and iOS 7.1, something which saw many iterations between developer builds before today. iOS 7.1 first debuted to developers in a beta preview in November of last year, and went through various iterations in December, throughout January, and saw its last developer preview in early February. Previously, it was reported that iOS 7.1 would debut ahead of Apple’s streaming app for iTunes Festival at SXSW in Austin, Texas, but Apple released its refreshed iTunes Festival app on Thursday.

iOS 7.1 is available as a free update to all iOS devices compatible with iOS 7. Users can update OTA (over-the-air) to the latest version through Software Update in the Settings app or through iTunes on a Mac or PC. Documentation should appear here shortly.

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Comments

  1. waseefakhtar - 10 years ago

    Reblogged this on navigation stack.

  2. tilalabubakr - 10 years ago

    AWESOME

  3. Robin Schmidt - 10 years ago

    Your meme is bad and you should feel bad.

  4. Edas Haha - 10 years ago

    Apple TV also got update

  5. mpias3785 - 10 years ago

    A little creepy seeing Steve calling from beyond the grave.

  6. TrevorKTaylor - 10 years ago

    Staged release? Checked for updates in iTunes and it’s not coming up.

  7. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Dang those be some slow servers right now.

  8. Chris Dunn (@cjdunn) - 10 years ago

    “Improved performance for iPhone 4” Oh? Yes? Does that mean I can join in?

  9. Zoheb Khan - 10 years ago

    can’t update it OTA :(

    • This update is at least, if not more than, 1GB. I wouldn’t be updating OTA unless you plan on taking a good hit to your data plan.

      • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

        No reason why you can’t OTA update over Wifi.

      • That’s true. I was assuming he was doing cellular OTA.

      • OTA only works when the device is connected to WiFi… so no data plan needed. The servers are always slow on launch day.

      • Zoheb Khan - 10 years ago

        guys i am using iPhones since 3gs and now i am on iPhone 5 and i know how to update it OTA !! but what ever the reason is i’ve kept the update on iTunes freaking 1.36GB :P

    • Zoheb Khan - 10 years ago

      guys i am using iPhones since 3gs and now i am on iPhone 5 and i know how to update it OTA !! but what ever the reason is i’ve kept the update on iTunes freaking 1.36GB :P

  10. Antony Wu (@antonywu) - 10 years ago

    I suppose Apple neglected to mention that it has reintroduced the Geolocation bug that Life360 requested to bring back awhile ago?

  11. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    Wow, on iPad mini 1.5 GB download and wants 4.7 GB of free space to perform install. That will go over well with 16 GB devices.

    • PMZanetti - 10 years ago

      Edit: I’m thinking this is only for devices running 7.1 beta. Devices running 7.0.6 should not see such a large download (more like 250 MB) when updating.

    • Gur Talmor - 10 years ago

      That’s always the case when using OTA update.
      If you use a computer – iTunes will “help” the iDevice to shuffle files around.
      With OTA, you will have 2 installations of “iOS” (like 2 installation of Linux OS side by side) until the update is complete and then the old OS is being removed.

      That requires space.

    • driverbenji - 10 years ago

      You don’t need the free space if you do it with iTunes on computer.

      (I have 16GB devices (iPad mini/iPhone 5)…no way I have 4.7 GB free at any point in time).

  12. Edas Haha - 10 years ago

    After turning off reduce motion and perspective zoom parallax still is working…

    • jrox16 - 10 years ago

      Not sure what you’re seeing, but do note that Reduce Motion and Perspective Zoom on wallpaper are now two different and separate toggles. Perspective Zoom on the wallpaper turns the zooming for parallax on/off for the specific wallpaper. Reduce Motion turns off all the in/out zooming animations. On iOS 7.0, Reduce Motion did both, now you can control them separately. I tested this on my 5S and it’s working as intended.

  13. steverp - 10 years ago

    Updated and phone (5s) is feeling a lot faster and more responsive.

  14. hisdudenessman - 10 years ago

    Updated my original iPhone 5 and iPad 4. Animations/OS overall are snappier. I dare say it’s as good or better than iOS 6 now, but it will take time to see. The best part though is that animation stutters on my iPad are GONE. THANK GOD HALLELUJAH AND JESUS, MAN!!!!!

  15. My JailBreak is far more important. Many business tools only exist for JailBroken phones.

  16. Court Kizer - 10 years ago

    Did they include the SSL security fix? It wasn’t in the last 7.1 beta. Not a single author has mentioned this.

  17. Ed D (@MochaChai) - 10 years ago

    Hmmm. First impression on my iPhone 5…. I miss the lighter dock & lighter folder backgrounds. They gave up on the frosted glass, by the look of things. The darker grey seems more like a cloudy day than the lighter, fresher iteration that came before.

    • rettun1 - 10 years ago

      Everything is still frosty for me. In fact I haven’t figured out how to get the dark keyboard or folders. I switched the “darken colors” switch in setting but I didn’t notice a change

  18. Ian Kenney (@PSU_Kenney) - 10 years ago

    Too bad wifi issues are still rampant. Can’t connect at home no matter what I try.

    • verizon2828 - 10 years ago

      A friend of mine had that issue recently. We tried everything and couldn’t get it to work. Took it to the Apple store and they swapped it out for her. Must be a hardware issue.

    • Jake Behan (@jake0112) - 10 years ago

      Try setting your phone and computer to static IP addresses.

  19. Darren Sloper - 10 years ago

    The new UK Siri male voice is horrendous. Very digitised and sounds like a badly made 80’s movie computer voice.

  20. How do you get the dark keyboard?

  21. trombone1994 - 10 years ago

    i noticed that if you get a new message in an-already-open Conversation in iMessage, it gives a short buzz. Also, im noticing that it displays lock screen notifications while its vibrating, vs the past when it would display after the vibration. (no idea if that is new, or ive never noticed it before).

  22. rettun1 - 10 years ago

    Oh my gosh it’s so much better!! Hitting the home button takes me home much quicker. Same with control center. I liked the old big rectangular buttons on the call screen, but I’m sure the circles will grow on me. And the keyboard seems a little less translucent

  23. Joao Ricardo Machado - 10 years ago

    Is it just me or the “slide to unlock” shine effect now looks super weird?

    • Yes, indeed. However,its better than call dial, receive decline buttons.

    • Dave (@davemgunther) - 10 years ago

      I’m surprised that more people have not noticed this. Unfortunately, I have found only two solutions to this problem. One, which isn’t as much a solution but a work around and that is to simply change your background to a more “shine” tone (ie. gray’ish). The second which actually does help, is to turn off “Reduce Transparency” in Settings >> General >> Accessibility >> Increase Contrast (like that was supposed to be obvious). Just to be clear (due to the double negative), turn the slider to the off position. Hope that helps!

  24. Andrew Poecker - 10 years ago

    Who else’s iPhone shows the GPS icon all the time now?? It never did this before 7.1. I have quit all of my apps and even rebooted my phone and I still can’t get it to turn off.

    • nigelerpic - 10 years ago

      check in background app refresh, i had fire near me and it was causing the gps to be on all the time (well for 5 mins till i found the fix)….

    • Andrew Robulack - 10 years ago

      Totally. A couple of friends have commented on that too. Odd that it’s receiving no media attention, considering the kerfuffle that it causes when third-party apps affect such a change.

    • Gopi Reddy - 10 years ago

      My iPhone shows the GPS and network access icons all the time after upgrading to iOS 7.1. What’s more, those icons are shown even when there are no apps running (in the foreground or background).

    • Timothy Williamson - 10 years ago

      It’s not a GPS indicator, it’s a location services indicator, meaning some app or background service is using, or has recently used your iPhone’s location data. I believe you will even see it if a “killed” app has recently used location services.

    • Matías - 10 years ago

      I had the same problem.. I went to Settings>Privacy>Location and there, Nike+ Move was using GPS, so I just turn it off !

  25. Still won’t update to this until Apple seriously overhauls the UI, and improves the application icon designs. iOS7 is still brutally unfinished, and looks like a child’s toy.

    • charilaosmulder - 10 years ago

      This is how I thought about it when it was first announced. Now I think the opposite is true. I find iOS6 very childish in the way it guides us with fake textures, gradients, shadows and so on. It looks too busy, too crowded, makes the screen look smaller because all elements get less space, text is tiny, the animations and layers make no sense, elements are combined for no reason (app switcher and quick settings being an example), all the color in the UI bars is screaming for attention while the focus should be on the content, and so on.

      Not updating because you don’t like the icons is weird. Besides all the aforementioned disadvantages of iOS6, you’re missing out on tons of functionality. Home screen icons are a tiny fraction of the OS, and even if you happen to dislike them, at the very least they’re much more consistent than the ones found in iOS6.

  26. Omar Olmos - 10 years ago

    WHERE IS THE DARK KEYBOARD

  27. Keyboard remains white when you switch to private mode in Safari.

  28. I can’t believe that they decided to get rid of the caller photo in the Phone app. Now we have to read who is actually calling us, instead of looking at a photo.

    I remember back in 2008 it was one of the greatest features of iPhone, having fullscreen caller photos. Now, for some damn reason they decided that a plain grey screen is better for everyone.

    Sometimes I think that Apple misses a person who would provide a definite opinion on these new features before releasing to the public. Someone who could stop that nonsense and said: “This is a crap, don’t do it”.

  29. exvidious - 10 years ago

    is there any way to make the keyboard dark like in beta 1?

  30. Why did they change the dial buttons?!! circle buttons look extremely ridiculous :(
    The power off button too. Slide to answer too. Answer call button too. Decline call button too.
    O gosh! hell lot of things looking bizarre!

  31. Pablo Zaremba - 10 years ago

    Download is proceeding soooo slowly than projection tells me it won’t be ready until 6 hours, at least here in Europe. I guessed there was something big being released by Apple while trying to download applications from the Mac Store

  32. The weather app has some tweaks too. The cloudy image is darker and more pronounced.

  33. These updates are simply EPIC. Absolutely MIND BLOWING.

  34. Abraham Villanueva - 10 years ago

    Where can I find the option to set keyboard to the dark one?
    Or is exclusive in bold and native apps?

  35. Edas Haha - 10 years ago

    Anyone noticed this?
    -At settings/sound/sent mail- listening any ringtone while vibration is turned on, only works ringtone, no vibration reaction

  36. Wiss Issa - 10 years ago

    The best thing they did was Fixing the iPhone 4! My iphone 4 is like new again =) thx LOVELLY UPGRADE =)

  37. iPhone 5s r-sim activation blocked after the update iOS 7.1

    my iPhone carrier Orange UK and i’m using r-sim 9 which working perfectly on iOS 7.0.6.

    i updated to iOS7.1 now its not working what to do ? please help me.

    Thanks

  38. chudman85 - 10 years ago

    I get confused with the new keyboard layout especially with caps I see white and think I’m in caps or caps lock haha just have to get used to it I spose

    • Dave (@davemgunther) - 10 years ago

      I’m right there with you chudman85. I am always tapping on it thinking its in caps mode. And yes, you are right, its just another thing to get used to along with all the other changes (ie. end call button is so small – always pressed on it anywhere along the bottom, now I have to find it with my thumb). Oh well.

  39. While I like the new call screen, I loved the fullscreen display of the caller’s pic in iOS7.

  40. thebums66 - 10 years ago

    The calendars app now has holidays listed. I’ve always had to trust the free bank calendar to check which holidays were coming up.

  41. Epic John - 10 years ago

    this is no fun! i hate when apple forced their new ‘ideas’. I can even go back to previous appearance. I did like very much when receiving a call i had a bic picture instead of stupid small circle showing somebodys’ photo. god damn it! i hate it. and i would like to be up-to-date all the time! what an irony!

  42. Yugavarathan Ganesh - 10 years ago

    i jus updated my 5s to ios 7.1 and my fingerprint is not working properly..nyone having the same problem??

  43. Ulysses Rodriguez - 10 years ago

    I turned off perspective zoom, but the background wallpaper still moves…

  44. Ryan (@scrapdog22) - 10 years ago

    Any idea how to get rid of the notification update that I have lingering over my settings icon? I updated to 7.1 and dont see anything to make it go away!

  45. Ben Thomas - 10 years ago

    I really like the sound of CarPlay, but until it becomes more widely available I’ll continue using “Harken For iPhone” in the car. It’s much easier to use than Apple’s music player (bigger text, large buttons/touch areas). There’s also “Harken” on the iPad but I need a new cradle for my iPad so I can’t use it at the moment.

    http://appstore.com/HarkenForiPhone

  46. thatssoninaa - 10 years ago

    I like the new update like the keyboard mostly but other than that my feels weird to me, Since the green for the icons for the phone etc has been dimmed makes the phone lose its vibrant colour uniqueness . But what aches me the most that made me cry when I updated my phone was the calling buttons. I hate the circles, I miss sliding to answer calls, not to sound lame or like I have no life but the sliding was fun, the little buttons are hard to press for not only being so little but being so close to the ignore and the remind me later buttons. They’re also very boring in a way. I hateeeeeeeeeee the fucking buttons apple!!! And bring back the vibrant colours!! Make shot bigger !! And let us swipe rectangles!!

  47. Alexandru Chiru - 10 years ago

    After this update I can`t hear the caller speaking or my music playing without headphones ! Please help me I`m getting depressed :(

  48. Jaqueline Bishop - 10 years ago

    Latest update managed to remove all my bookmarks and bookmarks bar in safari. Any idea how to retrieve?

  49. Lisa Morgan Chapman - 10 years ago

    Who in this world thinks its a good idea to remove the full screen caller ID?? Terrible idea. I hope an update comes soon to bring that feature back. Just look at the screen shot above!

Author

Avatar for Zac Hall Zac Hall

Zac covers Apple news, hosts the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and created SpaceExplored.com.