My week with the iPhone 5s and iOS 7 in one word: Boooooo!

Last Friday I got the 5s.

Rather the job got me the 5s.

A gold one.

One of the benefits of working in tech.

Anyway, with the 5s, I’ve been able to check out two things.

iOS 7 and the latest iPhone.

Since my phones are always jailbroken, I hadn’t updated the operating system on my former iPhone 5, so I wasn’t really up on iOS 7 quite yet.

Even though I played with a few of the devices in the office that we updated to iOS 7, I wasn’t in a position to critique it fully, as I wasn’t rocking it day to day.

But with my new phone, with iOS 7 baked in from the door, I had no excuses.

So since Friday, I’ve been all 5s and iOS 7.

What do I think?

Underwhelmed is the first word that comes to mind.

There were no great leaps from the 5 to the 5s.

Yeah, it’s gold-ish and has a cute ring around the home button, and that fingerprint authentication is interesting (= totally unsecure).

But considering that Apple is known for coming up with dope shit, this falls well below the standard I’ve come to expect.

From the moment I took it out of the box, I’ve been waiting for that “Aha!” moment, when I could actually see what all the fuss with iOS 7 was about.

Almost a week later and I’m still waiting…

A month ago, when I reviewed iOS 7’s features, I was genuinely intrigued.

Jony Ives’ LSD inspired color palette redesign (which I’m not particularly fond of) aside, it looked like Apple was really trying to get back to their core – innovation.

Although all the updates looked very Android-esque, I was willing to reserve judgment until I held (and rocked out with) the genuine article.

Now that I have, I can’t help but feel gipped.

Why? You ask?

Well, it’s simple.

The new stuff isn’t really new.

I mean it is new.

There is a new color scheme, new icons, new gesture-based commands, new buttons, new transitions and new ways to access and remove apps running in the background, but none of this is anything to write home about.

So yeah, there are new things in it, but I was expecting more.

Is it just me?

Do I expect too much?

But seriously, some of the changes they’ve made are just annoying.

Safari? Boooo!

Can I just get to the browser bar? Please?

What’s with the unnecessary steps just to input a URL or search query?

Quitting apps running in the background? Boooo!

Why does it seem like there are more screens than icons?

And why is it all loosey goosey?

And what’s with all this zoom in zoom out stuff?

Apple, your transitions are giving me vertigomotion sickness.

Chill with all the unnecessary animation!

Things used to be so simple.

Mind you, this is not to say that there aren’t features in iOS 7 that I like.

There are.

For example, where you used to be able to swipe to the right from the home screen or click the home button to access search, you can now simply swipe down in the center of any screen.

See? That’s something right?

But there are more things I don’t like, than I do.

What can I say?

I’m a critic.

All jokes aside, one thing that I can say I am unequivocally NOT fond of, is the number of times iOS 7 has crashed.

It is by far, the most unstable OS release to date.

I can count on three fingers the number of times I’ve had my iPhones (plural) crash in the past.

But I’ve had the same number in less than one week.

I wish I could say that these crashes occurred when I was doing something exotic, like trying to jailbreak my phone.

But no. In the course of ordinary use, the joint will just fail.

I’d heard grumbling a of iOS 7’s instability, and I’m not one to take naysayers at their word (being one myself).

But this joint WILL crash on your ass.

There. I’ve said it.

All in all, the iPhone 5s gold, is cute.

The vanity of the the upgrade was enough for me – especially on a company dime.

And the updates are enough to satisfy the undiscerning masses.

So you’ll probably be impressed.

But not ole Stephen Chukumba.

You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to impress me.

And Apple clearly overslept with this.