I guess I'm watching this through different lenses than others, but this was an epic fail in light of the hype. There are some UI changes, that oddly enough make it look more like ICS/JB from Android. There are feature updates from ICS/JB added, lock screen widgets, control panel, improvements to multitasking, photo and music sharing, etc. But it's still a shiny app drawer that's struggling to keep up with being 1-2 years behind. iOS 6 was a full 2 years behind, being stuck somewhere between GB and ICS. Now a year later I'd put it approximately on par with ICS with some JB flavors included, maybe 4.1.
Giving iOS a holo-esque UI update and features that we've all seen available to 80% of the smart phones in the world since 2011 is not called innovation. To Apple's credit, iOS 7 looks like a MAJOR update when compared to iOS 6. It's huge. But it's not competing against itself. But we have to keep in mind, it's not here to compete with 4.0 or 4.1, it's here to compete with 4.3 and 5.0. In that battle, since it is a year behind 4.2 innovation, we should fully expect it to continue to lag behind throughout the 4.3 and 5.0 reign and maybe next year they'll show us something we've never heard of.
In the end, that's what matters. I don't care if you can take Android or Windows features and make them more shiny. I want something that makes me rethink how devices are used. The "wow!" moment. If you're already in Apple's ecosystem, you're in for a great refresh. Today a user said, "Apple has shown me they can and will fight to stay up top". To that I have to disagree. They've shown us they'll fight to catch up to 2012. But it's the middle of 2013. Being 2 years behind is a MAJOR problem in technology.
I guess I shouldn't care, there was no chance of me becoming an adopter, but I really wanted something to push competition and maybe this company is just out of their league.