Apple introduced the much anticipated new version of iOS this week at the WWDC 2013 conference in San Francisco. The new operating system features a completely overhauled user-interface that changes the look and feel of the entire user experience. Key new features include a control center panel that can be accessed at any time, updated notification center, overhauled multitasking, AirDrop, improved Siri, and application improvements to camera, safari, and mail. There are loads of additional changes as well. Overall iOS 7 looks to be a very significant update for Apple and it should be available in the fall.

For developers, WWDC 2013 proved to be a very informative week and Apple announced a new set of tools and technologies for developing apps for the upcoming iOS 7 platform. The beta version of Xcode 5 has been released along with a beta version of the iOS 7 SDK. After watching the keynote and a bunch of the developer sessions I’m definitely excited by what I’ve seen. It looks like Apple has added some really nice features to the new version of Xcode that will make development faster and easier than before. In addition, they have added a bunch of great new functionality to the SDK that can be used to add some really cool functionality and interactivity to iOS applications going forward.

Due to the extent of changes being made to iOS it looks like some work may be required to get existing applications adapted to the new user interface guidelines and APIs but nothing too extensive. We’re currently wrapping up development on our first iOS application which is targeting iOS 5 but once that has been completed we look forward to making the changes needed to take advantage of iOS 7 and having it ready to go by the time it releases in the fall.