Developers report redesigned Settings icons, more UI tweaks across the board

Aug 7, 2013 06:43 GMT  ·  By

Like the betas before it, iOS 7 Beta 5 includes numerous aesthetic tweaks and fixes, as well as new iconography and improved performance.

This, according to most developers who’ve already installed and tested the software.

The first reported change was a redesigned Settings menu which, to everyone’s delight, now sports better defined icons for the various services found within (Airplane Mode, WiFi, Bluetooth, Notification Center, etc.).

The Control Center settings pane got a new toggle to allow the (rather annoying function) to be turned off while in applications.

“Slide to power off” is more consistent with the entire operating system, and the reboot screen now matches the color of the device you’re on (white/black).

The Twitter icon has been tweaked with reversed colors. Previously it was a white bird on a blue background (which is the official Twitter logo), now it is a blue bird on a white background.

The buttons in the Phone application are now delimited by circles, making them more consistent with the OS, but also more visible / usable, while banner notifications can be expanded by pulling down on them.

The banners make this possible through a short bar, much like the one that sits at the bottom of the lock-screen (to summon Control Center).

A new ON/OFF toggle can be found in the Accessibility menu, and Messages only displays the first name and last initial of a contact in a conversation.

According to some developer reports, Apple has made performance improvements across the entire operating system.

Standing on the shoulders of iOS 7 Beta 4, the fifth beta runs even better on old hardware (i.e. iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S), according to these people.

iOS 7 Beta 5 is available to registered Apple developers as a free download from the iOS Dev Center, or over-the-air (OTA) on a device with an older beta installed.

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iOS 7 running on iPhone 5
Redesigned Settings menu (before/after)New buttons in Phone.app
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