At today’s WWDC Apple revealed a much anticipated re-design of their iOS.  This new flat design is a complete overhaul to the look and feel of Apple’s mobile operating system.  It’s a more simple design, focusing on improving user experience and functionality.

It has a new structure, applied across the whole system, that brings clarity to the entire experience. The interface is purposely unobtrusive. Conspicuous ornamentation has been stripped away. Unnecessary bars and buttons have been removed. And in taking away design elements that don’t add value, suddenly there’s greater focus on what matters most: your content.

With this new update, Apple changed more than just the appearance of the OS.  They also added new functionality that will appeal to many.  Some will say that some of these changes are just Apple trying to play catch-up with Android and others.  While this is true, they have actually done more than catch up, in some ways they have leap-frogged over what competitors have to offer.

Control Center

Control Center is one of the main new features that Apple is introducing.  Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and you have quick access to important controls and apps that you need to access right away.  Controls such as Airplaine mode, Wifi, Brightness, Bluetooth, and even a native flashlight to name just a few.  This will even be available to access from the lock screen.

Notification Center

The Notification Center is not a new feature but it’s gotten an overhaul with this new design.  Like their Control Center this is now available from the lock screen and gives you options to view notifications for today, all, or missed.  This in itself is a nice upgrade since you can easily review todays date, time, weather at a glance as well as any appointments or reminders for today.

Multi-Tasking

Again, this was another feature that was already available, but it wasn’t very good.  The new multi-tasking feature is reminiscent of the way Web-OS (Palm) handled it.  You still double-click the home button to show you the active applications, but now you simply swipe the app up to close it.  Very simple!

I focused on just a few of the major updates to the new iOS 7.  They have also updated the camera app, photo app, siri, Safari, added functionality to iCloud, introduced iTunes Radio (a competitor to Pandora and Spotify), and AirDrop.  This is a lot to review so if you want to see the full list of features you can do so on Apple’s site here.

It’ll be interesting to see whether Apple get’s sued over any of these updates.  To me, it seems they copied a lot of these features from Android, Web OS, Chrome, and Yahoo!.

So what do you think about this update?  Are you excited to see how it performs on your iDevice?  Unless you are a developer you’ll have to wait for the official update this fall.