Apple's engineers reportedly in a race against time to get the radically overhauled iOS 7 ready for WWDC 2013

After patiently waiting for Jony Ive's reply to our open letter about our ultimate iOS 7 wish list for over two months now, we can only assume that it got lost in the post.

Or that Apple's SVP of industrial design and human interface overlord will just take to the stage at WWDC 2013 in June and proceed to answer all our iOS-related dreams there and then.

Hmmm.

According to the latest industry rumours circulating ahead of Apple's massive developers event, The Big A is planning a massive overhaul of its mobile operating system in iOS 7.

So massive, in fact, that Apple's engineers are reportedly racing against time to get iOS 7 ready for demonstration at WWDC 2013.

The biggest change to iOS will reportedly be the ditching of all those highly divisive skeuomorphic elements. You know, like the leather-bound edging in the Calendar app, and the slightly offensive felt-cloth table background in Game Center.

A 'flatter' look, more akin to the GUI in Windows Phone or Android (post-Ice Cream Sandwich), now seems to be the way forward for Apple. This will mean fewer colours and graphical effects, and will probably represent the biggest shake-up to the iOS ecosystem since the launch of iPhone 4 in 2010.

In a report published by The Verge, by the way, the author notes that Apple may be intending to introduce more gesture-based features in iOS 7.

This would, of course, mean older iOS devices may not be able to take advantage of these high-end features. On that subject - sort of - Apple is reportedly integrating fingerprint recognition tech into iPhone 5S.

Will we also see Apple rolling out a better notification system? Will Tim Cook finally allow iOS users to manually set their default web browser and email client?

We can only hope, though we have to assume that Apple will be mindful of not making too many radical changes to confuse and annoy its existing iPhone and iPad userbase.