by Brian Sousa, Opinions & Editorials Editor
Just as soon as we thought we were used to our iPhones, Apple decided to change everything. iOS 10 was recently unveiled (along with the iPhone 7) and it came with a multitude of changes, both good and bad.
At first, the changes seemed awesome – the new visual features ranging from incoming text messages, to app notifications look great on our screens.
The fact that you can now reply to messages in any app (Messenger, Facebook, GroupMe, etc.) without having to close and return to the current app you are on is really convenient. The problems with this new visual update is the speed.
Now I’m not sure if iPhone 7 users are affected with speed, but I can assure you that all iPhone 5/ 5S users are affected, along with a majority of iPhone 6 users. The speed of basically everything we do is downright awful.
The apps that come with your iPhone are fine, but it’s the third party apps that are having a hard time adjusting to the new update. Snapchat is one of them.
For me, Snapchat is extremely important. I’ll admit that I don’t go even an hour without snapping someone. However, soon after I updated to the new software, my Snapchat experiences have been quite disheartening.
In the past, I could click my Snapchat app and it would be open within a second or two, waiting for me to capture that perfect moment. Now, I find myself waiting at least ten seconds to open the app, adding another five or so seconds for it to finish loading the camera.
Yes, I may sound like a whiny baby, but hear me out.
When you’re capturing a moment for Snapchat, every second matters. The funniest Snaps are those that are candid – having a slow starting app will ruin those candid moments.
At the time of this writing, Apple has already released a patch for the new update, which did relieve some of the speed issues, but it seems that Snapchat has not improved at all.
These issues aside, I think that this new update is promising. For example, swiping left on the home screen now gives you a different layout, and it’s completely customizable. This allows people to have a more personalized home screen compared to the last update.
Also, the new iMessage effects are awesome. If you haven’t downloaded the update yet, then you have no idea what I’m talking about when I say “iMessage effects.”
These are cool little effects which allow you to send texts just like any another, but now you can add a different kind of visual effect for each message.
Some include balloons, fireworks, and invisible ink. Messing around with the effects is fun, but I only see them being useful in a group message.
The single most annoying thing I have found with this new update is the fact that there is no longer a “swipe to unlock” feature.
For years, we have been accustomed to swiping our phones to enter our password or using your fingerprint to unlock your iPhone.
All of a sudden, Apple thinks it’s cool to get rid of that. They want us to press the home button to enter password mode instead of swiping to unlock! Guess what Apple? It’s not cool. You are confusing the hundreds of thousands of people who have been psychologically brainwashed to swipe our iPhones in order to unlock them.
With all of these changes in mind, there’s one thing I know for sure Apple wanted to do, as they have always done it in the past when they release a new iPhone.
Ultimately, their goal is to phase-out the older iPhones by making new software either ridiculously slow for them, or by making them unable to be downloaded at all. So for all you iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 users, watch out – Apple has put a death sentence on your phone.