iOS 7 will officially roll out on the 18th of September and will be compatible with a number of Apple mobile devices. While it’s still a little bit early to know how the OS will work on iPhone 5C, details have surfaced about older models. Among past devices iOS 7 will work with iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPad 4, iPad 3, iPad 2, iPad mini, and iPod Touch 5. All other devices will remain at iOS 6 (or older in some cases). Just because iOS 7 works on the mentioned hardware, that doesn’t mean that all features work.
We’ve broken down what is included in each iteration of iOS 7 for different hardware.
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iPhone 4 | iPhone 4S | iPhone 5 | iPhone 5S | iPod Touch | |
AirDrop | |||||
Siri | |||||
App Store | |||||
Camera | |||||
Control Center | |||||
Dynamic Parallax Wallpapers | |||||
iTunes Radio | |||||
Facetime Audio | |||||
Notification Center | |||||
Activation Lock throught FMI | |||||
Panoramic Photos | |||||
Filters in Photos | |||||
Filters in Camera | |||||
Square Photos | |||||
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iPad 2 |
iPad 3 |
iPad 4 |
iPad Mini | |
AirDrop | ||||
Siri | ||||
App Store | ||||
Camera | ||||
Control Center | ||||
Dynamic Parallax Wallpapers | ||||
iTunes Radio | ||||
Facetime Audio | ||||
Notification Center | ||||
Activation Lock throught FMI | ||||
Panoramic Photos | ||||
Filters in Photos | ||||
Filters in Camera | ||||
Square Photos | ||||
AirDrop
AirDrop is a Wi-Fi service to share files among both iOS mobile phones and Macs running OS X 10.7 or higher. This feature works on most devices, but not iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, or iPads of 3rd and 2nd generation.
Siri
Apple’s navigator and personal assistant. Siri’s voice interface allows users to request web searches, find directions, and adapts to user behavior. This feature works on many iOS 7 running devices with the exception of iPhone 4 or 2nd generation iPads.
App Store
The App Store is of course the place to download new apps. It’s included in all forms of iOS 7, considering it would be rather inconvenient to not be able to add in new apps.
Camera and Camera app filters
You’ll need your device’s camera to take and store new pictures. Once you’re done taking new photos you might to touch them up with filters right in the camera app. This is available in all devices with the exception of iPhone 4S and iPad generation 3. You can instead use filters in the Photo app, though this isn’t allowed on 2nd generation iPads.
Photos and Video
One of the cool aspects of iOS 7 is taking panoramic photos and turn them into dynamically moving wallpapers. Unfortunately this doesn’t work on iPhone 4, or 2nd and 3rd generation iPads. Another thing to note is that the new square capture for photos and videos does not function on 2nd generation iPads.
Control and notification centers
The control and notification centers can be found by swiping up and down on your device’s main menu. It’s one of the main ways of configuring your device and and getting import updates from your services. Because it is so necessary the features are on all devices running iOS 7.
iTunes Radio and other apps
Some of the new (or just interesting) apps on iOS 7 function no matter your device. This includes the new iTunes Radio for streaming music, as well as FaceTime Audio to make calls without using video. Additionally you can lock activation via Find My iPhone.
Improvements on the way?
The biggest features some devices miss out on are AirDrop and Siri, both of which are incredibly helpful and make it easier to connect with other Apple devices. If you have older devices that can’t support these it might be a good idea to upgrade. The other missing features aren’t nearly as important, making them less of an issue if you’re considering a new device.
As mentioned before this is the functionality of iOS 7 on different devices at the moment and it’s very likely that Apple may patch in some of these missing features later. It’s also interesting to know if the cost effective iPhone 5C will retain all of the same features of the iPhone 5 or 5S.