iOS 7

I've been in New York City all week at the temporary Mobile Nations HQ working on some amazing stuff. We're not finished yet, which means I can't announce it yet, but I also can't wait to tell you all about it. In the meantime, here's some catch-up on the CrackBerry party, the Facebook event, and what Apple's up to with iOS 7 and the iPhone 5S...

MG Siegler instigated an interesting conversation on Branch today when he wondered out loud about Apple's plans for 2013. I've already posted several pieces on iMore about the potential for an April event, a potential summer release for the iPhone 5S, some stuff on the iWatch, bigger iPhone, and less expensive iPhone, and a bit about Jony Ive going hands-on with iOS 7. John Gruber added the following, which he's since posted on Daring Fireball as well:

Late last year Tim Cook reorganized Apple's leadership, placing Jony Ive in charge of not only hardware design, but all design across the company. This, of course, included iOS 7 and future versions of all of Apple's software products as well. Today, the Wall Street Journal's Jessica E. Lessin reports that Ive is, in fact, doing just that.

Absent fact, rumors run rampant. It's only natural. Secrecy breeds curiosity, and huge fall releases of almost every product in Apple's lineup leads to speculation about what, if anything, they have left for the new year. The broad strokes are probably obvious -- there'll be new phones and new tablets, but this year we're seeing renewed rumors of bigger and less expensive phones, and of watches and television projects as well. Like any year, we also have major newspapers publishing leaks, and financial analysts reporting nonsense. So what can be made of all of this?

Well, according to people who have provided accurate information to iMore in the past...

Louie Mantia, Dave Wiskus, Marc Edwards, Seth Clifford, and Rene Ritchie talk about the future of iOS design, from heavily textured themes and skeuomorphs to minimalism and digital authenticity, and the evolution of typography, icons, and more.

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There'll be an iPhone 5S and iPhone 6. There'll be a Retina iPad mini. There'll be a thinner, lighter iPad 5. There'll be an Apple A7 system-on-a-chip. There'll be an LTE radio that can do simultaneous voice and data, and eventually voice over LTE. There may be curved displays, biometric sensors and security, 4K AirPlay, onboard voice parsing, in-air gesture and face recognition, and much, much more. Apple's hardware will continue to tick tock its way towards the future, but for mainstream users, most of the time, the devices we hold in our hands today are more than good enough. And it's the stuff inside and around them that's become far, far more important.

Apple is working on iOS 7 and the next generation iPhone 6,1. Shocking, I know, considering Apple has released a new version of iOS and a new iPhone each year, every year, since 2007. However, the web being the web, stories are popping up today, and tips are coming in, helpfully reminding us all of just that.