Should I upgrade to iOS 7?

My advice has consistently been "If you rely on Equipd, then my recommendation is to wait until I confirm full compatibility before upgrading to iOS 7."

What is the current status of Equipd and iOS 7?

At the moment Equipd "mostly" works. There are two known issues:

  1. The Navigation Scroller has some issues when you try to scroll - as you hit the bar to scroll it, it actually activates the buttons you are hitting with your finger as you move it across the screen as opposed to just scrolling across. So you end up hitting buttons that you don't want to select. This is more pronounced on the iPad where the scroller is larger.

    Tip: You can get around this issue by using the newer Bible Picker to choose scriptures instead.
     
  2. On the iPad there are a number of mis-aligned interface elements. These elements still work, but they look noticeably out of place.

ios7-misaligned.png


So are you going to fix these issues?

Yes of course. Hopefully that is a foregone conclusion! However the challenges do not stop with the issues itemised above.

Newer apps compiled for iOS 7 need to be compiled with the latest version of Xcode from Apple. And when Equipd is compiled with Xcode 5, low-level changes to the interface for iOS 7 are enforced. i.e. A number of the screen elements in Equipd get changed quite radically. Apple is basically forcing apps to adopt the new visual standards in iOS 7 - which are dramatically different from any previous version of iOS.

And so ... rather than trying to "hack" around these new changes in iOS 7, I am adopting the new UI guidelines from Apple. Their recommendation is to basically drop all existing styling for an App, and adopt the UI guidelines for iOS 7 and move towards the "new look" ... and then re-introduce compatibility with previous versions of iOS.

So that is what I am doing. Equipd for iOS 7 will not look anything like Equipd did in previous versions. I am totally adopting the new visual standards, the newer color scheme and UI guidelines. Some users will not like this. And they will not like the newer look of iOS 7 either. But iOS 7 is the start of a new world and it is not going away. My expectation is that users will learn to like the radical changes in iOS 7, and they will learn to like the new look of Equipd.

I will ensure that Equipd will continue to look how it did for previous versions of iOS. And that it continues to work in iOS 5+ as has been announced with the past few App Update notices. But users of iOS 7 will be getting a much more modern, and iOS 7 compliant look and feel.

This work does not take place overnight. I have been working on it flat tack. I hope to be able to release an update to Equipd within a couple of weeks all going well.

So to sum up.

Go ahead and upgrade to iOS 7 if you want to enjoy the new world - but be aware of the issues you will face in Equipd. My advice remains the same. If you rely on Equipd, then I recommend you watch this page for updates, and only upgrade once I have released the next update to Equipd and have confirmed full compatibility with iOS 7.

As always, thanks for your patience.

Matthew

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