iOS 7 comes with a bevy of new features and changes that will greatly enhance the mobile experience for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. Here is a rundown of some of the highlights found in Apple's new mobile operating system. iTunes Radio: Apple puts Pandora on notice Apple's long-awaited iTunes Radio is now an official service, available in the newly released iOS 7. The service's functionality and performance are virtual identical to Pandora, the company that has long been the king of Internet streaming radio stations. Users simply add a new station by searching for an artist name or song title. From there, iTunes Radio will intelligently assemble a mix of songs with a similar sound, allowing users to discover new artists. One of the key drivers for Apple and record labels alike is music discovery. All of the content streamed through iTunes Radio is available for purchase through the iTunes Store, allowing users to own the song and listen to it at their convenience. Users who subscribe to Apple's iTunes Match service for $24.99 per year will be able to listen to iTunes Radio without any commercial interruptions. That capability comes in addition to the scan-and-match cloud syncing functions already available through iTunes Match. Photos: Apple automates picture organization One of the biggest application overhauls in iOS 7 is the Photos app, which has been redesigned to automate picture organization and take full advantage of Retina displays. The Photos application is now divided into three menu options: Photos, Shared and Albums. The default is Photos, where pictures are automatically organized in a way that allows users to more easily find the shot they may be looking for. At the macro level, photos are presented based on the year they were captured. A summary of the year appears to the right, showing where the pictures were taken, and offering a nice recap of places the user may have traveled. Taking advantage of the iPhone's Retina display, tiny thumbnails of the images are presented with just enough detail to get an idea of what the picture is. Users can hold their thumb over the tiny images to view a larger thumbnail, and release their finger to pull up that particular image. Siri: Smarter with new system controls Siri, Apple's voice-driven personal assistant, has become even more helpful with iOS 7 by granting users the ability to control settings such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and even screen brightness. By holding the home button and invoking Siri, users can issue a command such as "increase the brightness," or "turn off Bluetooth." Users can also enable or disable the new built-in flashlight functionality. When asked to turn on "Airplane Mode," Siri will even warn users that it will no longer be functional, as the software requires an Internet connection to operate. Settings that are changeable are accompanied by onscreen controls that a user can manually change by tapping. For functions that Siri is not able to accomplish, such as enabling "Personal Hotspot", disabling LTE, or turning off location services, the system provides a quick link to the respective section in the Settings application. Siri has also gained new, more natural sounding voices, and the option to choose a male voice as well. App Store: Auto-updates and new discovery tools The daily routine of manually installing application updates will become a thing of the past, while discovering new software will get easier, thanks to the enhanced capabilities of Apple's App Store in iOS 7. Users annoyed by the seemingly omnipresent red update badge on the App Store icon will particularly appreciate iOS 7 when it debuts this fall. The App Store will automatically check for an install updates in the background, if the feature is enabled. Users can control the new auto-update functionality in the "iTunes & App Stores" section of the iOS Settings application. There, Updates, Apps and Music can all be enabled or disabled under the "Automatic Downloads" section. As in earlier iOS builds, users can also decide whether auto-downloads are allowed to use cellular data. Camera: New Instagram-like filters, square pictures Apple's new Camera app in iOS 7 adds some features reminiscent of Instagram, the photo sharing service recently acquired by Facebook, in an update that unifies and simplifies the user interface. Switching between modes is now a simply a Coverflow-like flick control of the various modes, positioned above the capture button. HDR capture is now activated or disabled by tapping on the blue onscreen HDR indicator, rather than being hidden in a menu (along with Panorama capture) as was previously the case. When off, the HDR indicator goes grey. And Apple's new Camera app photo filters, accessed by tapping on the grey overlapping circles, will likely remind users of Instagram, which popularized the idea of applying effects to photos to enhance them before posting to its social network of image feeds. Weather: Apple's updated app gets animated One of the most significant aesthetic changes in iOS 7 is found in the iPhone's native Weather application, which has been redesigned with moving three-dimensional graphics that illustrate the current conditions. Many will first notice that the Weather icon no longer has a static indicator of 73 degrees. That potentially confusing decision, which lasted for years on the iPhone home screen, has been removed, and the new icon simply shows a cartoonish sun partly covered by a cloud. Upon opening the application, the changes are immediately apparent: The entire background is an animation mimicking the current weather conditions. On a mostly sunny day, clouds will slowly drift by, while thunderstorms will bring down strikes of lightning from the virtual sky. The animations even reflect the current time, with darker nighttime animations and brighter conditions during the daylight as clouds float or snow falls. Messages: New group chat user pics, hidden timestamps While it wasn't given as drastic of a redesign as some other native iOS 7 applications, Apple's new Messages app sports a tweaked look and some subtle but useful new features. The feel of messages has changed in iOS 7, as each text bubble seems to have its own "weight" when scrolling. As the bubbles move when the page is scrolled, they will pull apart, only to come back together when scrolling is stopped, with a gravity-like effect applied to the items on screen. A new Contact button in the upper right corner of any text messages quickly brings up options to call or FaceTime the person being texted. This is a change from iOS 6, when users had to scroll to the top of a conversation to access those options. When using group messaging, if a person has a picture associated with their contact information on the iPhone, it will appear in a small circle next to their chat bubbles. Users who don't have pictures will have their first and last initial displayed. More detailed message timestamps can also be viewed through a hidden new feature in iOS 7. Simply swiping and holding to the left will push sent messages to the side, and bring in specific message-by-message timestamps from off the screen. Letting go of the screen releases the page and throws the timestamps back offscreen. Mail: New gesture support and reworked UI Although not as striking a change as some other first party apps in iOS 7, Apple's
