iPad November 1st is the big day.

[Faterson]

iOS 7 is awful compared to iOS 5 or iOS 6. My commiserations. I regret having upgraded.

I don't use Apple's ugly and lame default apps like Calendar and Safari. However, there is in-page search in iOS 7 Safari, too. They just put it somewhere else. (A Safari user might assist you.) I prefer using browsers like Atomic Web Browser, Mercury, Dolphin, and for calendars, Calendars 5.

There is definitely a new native YouTube app for iOS 7 directly from Google. Just make another App Store search. It has a totally different icon compared to iOS 5 -- now a red field with a white "play button" symbol. It's a low-quality, unwieldy app, but it's the official one from Google. Well, the YouTube app on iOS 5 was similarly low-quality and unwieldy. I hate there are no multi-touch gestures for forwarding/rewinding 5 or 30 seconds, etc. etc. That should be elementary functionality in a video app. As it is, it's just a crude app, but Google is apparently happy with providing crude, unsophisticated functionality.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Anything that can be downloaded again are not saved and were put in cache or something like that. It likely has to do with minimizing the size of iCloud backups.

That's only in theory. As discussed here, even what could not be downloaded again, was skipped in my iCloud backup, without warning the user. That's a fatal flaw.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Faterson

...I don't use Apple's ugly and lame default apps like Calendar and Safari. However, there is in-page search in iOS 7 Safari, too. They just put it somewhere else....

I don't doubt what you say, but I'm here to tell you that they've certainly hidden it well. I can't find it anywhere. Apple has a history of making changes they consider so obviously reasonable that folks are simply suppose to know intuitively how to get done what they want done.

Originally Posted by Faterson

There is definitely a new native YouTube app for iOS 7 directly from Google. Just make another App Store search. It has a totally different icon compared to iOS 5 -- now a red field with a white "play button" symbol. It's a low-quality, unwieldy app, but it's the official one from Google. Well, the YouTube app on iOS 5 was similarly low-quality and unwieldy. I hate there are no multi-touch gestures for forwarding/rewinding 5 or 30 seconds, etc. etc. That should be elementary functionality in a video app. As it is, it's just a crude app, but Google is apparently happy with providing crude, unsophisticated functionality.

I may not bother with it. I didn't like the way the one in my first generation iPad assumed that if I clicked on a YouTube video while in an Internet browser that I really wanted to to do was to open the app to play the video rather than play it from the browser. There were probably optional parameters I could have set to change that behavior, but I never bothered looking for them.

[Faterson]

I found the "instruction manual" for you:

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/artic...page-in-safari

What a horrible setup. I warmly recommend to anyone to give those other browsers a test drive, instead of Safari.

As to the YouTube app, you're right that it's utterly unpredictable as to when it opens or doesn't open a video. That's connected to another major iOS flaw: inability to set default apps for specific actions/file types.

A major deficiency of the new YouTube app is that Google cancelled the back button in it! That's right... if you watch videoclip 1, then videoclip 2, and would like to return to videoclip 1, it cannot be done. The History menu inside YouTube is extremely buggy as well -- skips around 4 out of 5 clips I watch, so you won't be able to go return that way, either.

In short, YouTube is an awful app, and iOS is an awful OS... but it's what it is. Notwithstanding all the flaws, I'm convinced iPad Air is still the finest currently available tablet, so I believe you made the best possible purchase decision, especially having upgraded from a non-Retina device.

[treadlightly]

I was shocked to discover that video playlists that are created in iTunes don't transfer to the Videos app. That was the main reason that I bought an iPad, to watch videos that have been organized in playlists. Luckily there is a third-party app that does this (not bug-free though) but I would have thought that all features in iTunes would be supported. That's my only complaint about iOS7 so far.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Faterson

I found the "instruction manual" for you....

That works, but you're right about it not the best setup. The old way was much more straightforward.

All in all, my experience with iOS 7 has been very positive, but then I'm leapfrogging to it directly from an iPad first generation that by design couldn't run any iOS later than 5.1.

[WT Sharpe]

From "These 7 iOS 7 Features Make Us Want To Throw Our iPhones Against A Wall" at The Huffington Post, September 24, 2013:

The Battery Life Is Terrible: Many reports have cited a shorter battery life as one of the bigger issues plaguing iOS 7. It appears the problem is a product of a new feature that lets your apps download new content in the background using Wi-Fi or cellular. To turn this feature off, you can go to go to "Setting," "General" and then "Background App Refresh."

[Faterson]

Can't confirm that. Battery life seems unchanged for me. Which means, excellent on iPad, lousy on iPhone (just like in iOS 6). As to background apps refresh, I find it essential for it to be enabled for some of my most important apps, and it is. Disabled for not important apps. I see no adverse effects on battery life.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The only app I seem to be missing is the YouTube app. Not only is it missing, I can't find it in the iTune store; although there seem to be a number of 3rd party YouTube apps there. But as it was all restored from the cloud, perhaps the first time I connect to iTunes I'll be able to transfer it.

The only thing I'm missing in functionality so far is the ability to do an in-page search in Safari. I can do it in Chrome, however, and I don't believe I had that option on my old iPad's Chrome browser. And certain things function differently in iOS 7 than they do in iOS 5. For example, there's no delete among the edit options to remove calendar events, but you can press and hold to select them, then lift them off the page into cyberspace oblivion.

Did you find the Youtube app? If you didn't, this should be it.

[Quelch]

Just bought a 4th generation refurbished iPad, arrives tomorrow
Wi-fi and cellular 32GB, black
Bit reluctant to use iCloud as uploading stuff then downloading when needed uses up my data allocation

My wife is going to Japan with her siblings and will be hiring a iPhone 5, got the iPad so we can do Facetime while she is there

Found all the comments in this thread very interesting

So, what eReader app are you going to use on your nice new iPad ?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by TimW

Did you find the Youtube app? If you didn't, this should be it.

That's it. I wonder why when I first searched the App Store for "YouTube" it brought up everything EXCEPT the official app; including such items as iTube, TubePlayer, PlayTube, MyTube, etc.?

[WT Sharpe]

The customer ratings for the YouTube app are only so-so. 2½ out of 5 stars.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

That's it. I wonder why when I first searched the App Store for "YouTube" it brought up everything EXCEPT the official app; including such items as iTube, TubePlayer, PlayTube, MyTube, etc.?

Not sure. I pulled up the link by right-clicking on the app in iTunes "Show in iTunes Store." Of course, that only works if you already have the app.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by Quelch

Bit reluctant to use iCloud as uploading stuff then downloading when needed uses up my data allocation

I find iCloud to be an essential feature of iDevices. You can selectively enable/disable specific iCloud syncs. For example, I disabled syncing emails and calendar and contacts via iCloud, because it's useless if you use Google for those features. As to the supposedly comprehensive iCloud backups, I believe they are by default configured to work only via WiFi, never via 3G.

Originally Posted by Quelch

So, what eReader app are you going to use on your nice new iPad ?

I would recommend Marvin. It's not perfect, but miles ahead of iBooks, Kindle, Bluefire, ShuBook, etc.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

The customer ratings for the YouTube app are only so-so. 2½ out of 5 stars.

I'd give it 2 stars myself. The app is barely usable; its user-friendliness is very low. No back button, dysfunctional History, messed up comments section, no playback gestures, very cumbersome to skip or rewind a certain amount of seconds...

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

That's it. I wonder why when I first searched the App Store for "YouTube" it brought up everything EXCEPT the official app; including such items as iTube, TubePlayer, PlayTube, MyTube, etc.?

The search function, like so many things on the app store, works very badly. I use third party apps to find apps, mostly AppZapp which also lets me set up alerts on price changes and upgrades, or just create collections to remember some app I came across and that I may want to check out later. I think AppZapp comes in a free and a pro version, but the pro version's price is reduced to zero quite often, so I got it for free.