12 great new settings in iOS 7
In all major operating system updates, there are usually quite a number of unsung improvements that don't get press attention. These are usually hidden deep in the Settings app, where it takes a while for bloggers to find the new features -- usually by accident. Dave Hamilton over at The Mac Observer has thoughtfully provided a list of a dozen new settings in iOS 7, and you're sure to find at least some of them to be quite useful. Here are a few to ponder:
Dynamic Wallpaper -- finally there's a way to get an animated background on your home and / or lock screen. Visit Settings > Wallpapers & Brightness, select Choose Wallpaper, and you're greeted with a choice of "Dynamic" wallpapers or "Stills." Those dynamic wallpapers are all variations on the same thing -- floating, glowing "bubbles" that brighten and fade as they move around -- but they're attractive and hopefully point to a future where developers can create beautiful, moving wallpapers.
Background App Refresh -- Hamilton notes that this feature allows "apps to work together with the OS on coalescing their updates. This is a great thing and should vastly improve network efficiency as well as battery life." If there are apps that go out to grab data way too often, you can disable them on an app-by-app basis. This is done in Settings > General > Background App Refresh.
Burst Mode for Photos -- Did you think that Burst Mode was only available on the new iPhone 5s? For some reason, I did. But, as Hamilton points out, it's actually possible to use the feature on any device running iOS 7. Just hold down the shutter button when taking photos, and you can fill up a lot of your iPhone's storage with multiple copies of the same image.
There's a lot more where those hints came from, so I suggest you point your browser to The Mac Observer for more settings tips.
