App of the Month: Upcoming Features of Apples iOS 7.1

With newest update for iPad, iPhone, and iPod getting closer, we got a firsthand look of what’s to come in the new iOS 7.1, the first major update since iOS 7 was released.

While the current build includes a number fixes for big issues, it also features several superficial improvements that could make your Apple device more enjoyable overall. Below are detailed more functional features rather than the interface design that had the big outcry when 7.0 was released to the public.

So lets take a look at some of the new features and tweaks below:

The New Dark Options in iOS 7.1

If reading your screen is difficult at all, or you just like a darker style on your device, you can now dig into the Settings on your device to darken the keyboard, dock, notification center, and folder backgrounds in order to make everything easier to see and read.

You Can Now Bold Text Without Restarting

Previous versions of iOS have allowed you to bold your text for a better viewing experience, but it required you to restart your device before the setting would apply. Now, in iOS 7.1, you can enable Bold Text without having to restart your device. All you have to do is switch it on and check out any application on your device—it’s pretty much instantaneous.

There’s an Automatic Flash/HDR Indicator

If you open the Camera, you’ll now get a small yellow indicator at the bottom of the device letting you know whether or not your automatic flash or automatic HDR is on or off before you take a shot.While it may not seem too drastic of a change, it really helps me in knowing if the feature is being used, so as to not waste precious time taking two pictures. This way you know if your flash is going to be used for the picture you take.

Note: Automatic HDR only works on the iPhone 5S.

Burst Mode

There is also a way you can auto-upload your Burst Mode photos to your Photo Stream, but like Automatic HDR, it’s only available for the iPhone 5S right now.

New Button Shapes for Menus

The biggest addition to iOS 7.1 is Button Shapes, a feature that allows you to enable indicators for select Apple apps on your device, creating shaded backdrops for certain menu options.

Once enabled. you’ll see dark grey buttons form around certain selectable options, in apps such as Camera Roll, Mail, Messages, Calendar, Settings, and more.

New Calendar List View Toggle

If checking your events was a hassle, Apple has now added a list view toggle to the calendar application. If you want to easily view the events of the day you’re currently in, just tap on the icon at the top left of the icon list, which will turn the bottom portion of the screen into a list of your daily events.