Apple unveils 'radical' software redesign

Apple unveiled what its chief executive Tim Cook called the most radical redesign of its iOS software since the introduction of the iPhone six years ago, as the company looks to prove that it has not lost the advantage in innovation to rivals.

The new iOS7 has a minimalist new look and user-interface improvements that Apple's design chief, Sir Jonathan Ive, said would define "an important new direction and, in many ways, a beginning" in the smartphone revolution.

Apple also sought to distance itself further from rival Google in iOS - emphasising integration with Twitter rather than Facebook - and introduced a new internet radio service, iTunes Radio.

iTunes Radio will be free, either with advertising - making it Apple's first ad-supported online service - or without ads for subscribers to its iTunes Match cloud syncing service.

The iPhone's new software will adapt to reflect the colours of the wallpaper that users upload and sway as the device itself rotates. Photos will be automatically organised according to the time and location they were taken and "Airdrop" will enable easier sharing between Apple devices.

New approaches to multitasking and quicker access to WiFi or Bluetooth controls match capabilities already offered by Google's rival Android software. Improvements to Siri, Apple's voice-activated assistant, will use Bing, Microsoft's search engine, rather than Google as it has in the past.

"We wanted to take an experience that people know very well and actually add to it to make it more useful and more enjoyable," said Sir Jonathan in a video introducing his first foray into software design at Apple.

"True simplicity is derived from so much more than the absence of clutter - it's about bringing order to complexity. iOS7 has a whole new structure that is coherent and applied across the entire system."

Earlier in the keynote at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple showed off a new MacBook Air with improved battery life and a new Mac Pro, its desktop computer for professional designers and creatives.

The high-specification Mac Pro will be made in the US, a first for a Mac product in many years, and offer advanced hardware capabilities in a smaller, cylindrical casing.

"Can't innovate any more, my ass!" declared Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller to cheers from the thousands of developers in the audience, addressing a common criticism directed at Apple over the past year.

© The Financial Times Limited 2013. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation