Despite how much people claim to like change, at the core we are creatures of habit. Just as we saw when Facebook introduced Timeline and as we will see when Twitter makes its next significant change, people are going to get up in arms about it. Apple’s iOS 7 was no different.

Described as the biggest change to iOS since the introduction of the iPhone, iOS 7 has been available to the general public for roughly two weeks at this point. That’s given everyone plenty of time to get accustomed to all of the changes and vent about them, but for us, it’s served as an evaluation period.

Looking beyond the flat UI and the animated background, has that much really changed in Apple’s mobile OS? What did Cupertino get right with the update and what areas or features are still missing? To help answer these questions, I’ve put together a list of the top six things that are still missing in iOS 7 as well as the six things that Apple nailed with the update.

The Good

1 Control Center Control Center is one of the best additions to iOS 7 even if it is a shamefaced adoption from Android. The panel provides quick access to toggle features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Airplane Mode as well as sliders to adjust volume and screen brightness. There are even shortcuts to useful apps like Clock, Calculator and Flashlight. To access Control Center, just swipe up from the bottom of the screen. 2 Block contacts It’s about time Apple implemented a way to block unwanted communications. There are two methods to block offending callers in iOS 7. If someone is already in your address book, simply tap on their profile, scroll to the bottom of the list and select Block this Caller. You can also add numbers to the block list by going to Settings > Phone > Blocked. Blocked contacts will not be able to call, send messages or initiate a FaceTime video chat. 3 Timestamps in Messages Timestamps in Messages aren’t exactly new as iOS 6 offered similar functionality. The problem, however, was that the OS would selectively provide timestamps – like when a new conversation was started or after a long period of silence. With iOS 7, that’s no longer an issue. Simply swipe to the left while in a conversation to see when each message was sent or received. It’s convenient that it the timestamps aren’t always there to serve as a distraction but can be accessed on-the-fly. 4 New Icons I was unsure whether or not to list this as a positive or negative as people seem to be split pretty evenly across the board. I ultimately see it as a pro simply because A) the old layout and icons were extremely outdated and B) Apple is teasing live apps. If you haven’t already noticed, the Clock app icon now serves as a watch face. Sure, it’s a little gimmicky and not entirely useful since there is a clock at the top of the screen but if Apple opens such functionality up to developers, we could see all sorts of things like live weather feeds directly on an icon without having to open the app. We’ll keep our fingers crossed on this one. 5 Improved multitasking Multitasking has been around on Apple devices since iOS 4 but it was really limited. Developers now have a bit more freedom in iOS 7 and the interface to switch between apps is greatly improved. The new system, similar to the jailbreak tweak Auxo, uses a card-based interface to see which apps are open and lets you get rid of them with a simple swipe up. Along the same lines, a new feature called Background App Refresh allows apps to refresh their content or use Location Services in the background. The feature is enabled by default although some (Apple included) say turning it off could improve battery life. 6 Automatic updates Previous versions of iOS would alert a user when a new update was available for an app with a small badge on the icon. The gesture was nice but it also meant you had to manually update everything. Not anymore. With iOS 7, app updates take place automatically in the background. The setting seems to be disabled by default so if you’d like to turn it on, navigate to Settings > iTunes and App Store and slide the slider for Automatic Downloads: Updates to the “on” position.

The Bad (or Still Missing)