It has virtually no improvement to speak about. You will have no idea how Apple is stealing your money with a substandard device, simply by looking at the new iPhone website or the presentation below.
Already you may be seeing a lot of criticism directed at Apple for being stupid about this product. Steve Jobs wouldn’t have liked this.
We have the technical specifications of iPhone 5S here, compared to iPhone 5.
| Feature | iPhone 5S | iPhone 5C | iPhone 5 | |||
| Display | LED IPS capacitive touch; 4 inches | LED IPS capacitive touch; 4 inches | LED IPS capacitive touch; 4 inches | |||
| Resolution | 640x1136 (16:9); 326 ppi | 640x1136 (16:9); 326 ppi | 640x1136 (16:9); 326 ppi | |||
| Protection | Corning Gorilla Glass | Corning Gorilla Glass | Corning Gorilla Glass | |||
| Storage | 16/32/64 GB | 16/32 GB | 16/32/64 GB | |||
| Memory | TBA although expected is 1 GB | 1 GB | 1 GB | |||
| Card slot | NO | NO | NO | |||
| Camera | 8 MP; 1.5 µm pixel size; dual LED flash for true tone | 8 MP; 1.4 µm pixel size | 8 MP; 1.4 µm pixel size | |||
| Video shooting | 1080p HD @ 30 fps | 1080p HD @ 30 fps | 1080p HD @ 30 fps | |||
| Operating System | iOS 7 | iOS 7 | iOS 6 upgradable to iOS 7 | |||
| Battery | 1570 mAh Li-Po | 1510 mAh Li-Po | 1440 mAh Li-Po | |||
| SoC | Apple A7 dual core 64 bit Apple M7 motion co-processor |
Apple A6 dual core 32 bit | Apple A6 dual core 32 bit | |||
| Processing power | 1.7 GHz | 1.3 GHz | 1.3 GHz | |||
| Dimensions | Height | 123.8 mm | Height | 124.4 mm | Height | 123.8 mm |
| Width | 58.6 mm | Width | 59.2 mm | Width | 58.6 mm | |
| Depth | 7.6 mm | Depth | 9 mm | Depth | 7.6 mm | |
| Weight | 112 g | Weight | 132 g | Weight | 112 g | |
| Other features |
|
|
|
|||
The prices of iPhone 5S and 5C are as follows.
5S: 16 GB version available for $199; 32 GB for $299; 64 GB for $399
5C: 16 GB for $99 and 32 GB for $199
Unlocked contract-free devices are priced thus:
5S: 16 GB at $649; 32 GB at $749; 64 GB at $849
5C: 16 GB at $549 and 32 GB at $649
I have never seen a bigger rip-off.
What’s In the iPhone?
The question that one should ask is this. Is iPhone the best smartphone out there that you can buy? The answer is No, it is not.
Apple iPhone used to be the best smartphone until iPhone 5 was released last year. After that, immediately enough, a number of Android devices and BlackBerry Z10 came up, and the most important and popular among them include Galaxy S4, HTC One, etc. These devices have great features and power and have managed easily to overshadow the iPhone. Since iPhone 4S, Apple has not done anything significant with the device, and it just is not the best device you can buy in the market today. It is still a great device if the price is appropriate. The current iPhone doesn’t have features to command a price over 400 dollars.
With contract, you can buy really great devices below 299 dollars, AT&T sells HTC One at only 199 dollars with 2 year contract. That phone can kick iPhone at the bottom any day. Also, there are a huge number of devices that you can check out in this page.
So, why is the iPhone costing as much? Simply because Apple has its ego and it cannot ever command a low price for its creations. In 2007, when Steve Jobs released the iPhone, it was the best smartphone you could buy in the world. It used to be that awesome on all subsequent versions and iterative updates, tagged ‘S’ for ‘Speed’—iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone4S, iPhone5, and now iPhone 5S. The tradition stopped at around the time when iPhone 5 was released with a small screen, processor, battery, etc., to compete with smartphones eons ahead of its time.
In 2012 and this year, we have seen such a great development with Android that iPhone can no longer stay strong without some significant innovation. New operating systems have emerged; Windows and BlackBerry still hold a very low percentage of the smartphone market. At this point, coming up with a substandard device is going to kill Apple’s credibility.
64 Bit, A Marketing Hype?
If you ask the straightforward question, whether 64 bit computing incorporated in iPhone 5S is a marketing hype or has some level of significance, the easy answer is it is just a marketing hype. It has absolutely no significance whatsoever, in the current market, that is.
Let me clarify.
Apple iPhone 5S is the first ever smartphone to introduce 64 bit computing. What about Android? Android OS, the current Jelly Bean and upcoming Kit Kat are still in 32 bit edition. You will not be seeing an Android 64 bit any time soon. Samsung has already announced an upcoming 64 bit smartphone right after Apple iPhone 5S launch.
What is 64 bit computing? In desktop computing, we started off with 8 bit systems, and then moved on to 16 bit, and then 32 bit, and now 64 bit with almost all desktop operating systems. In 2005, Microsoft upgraded the OS to 64 bit, and Apple changed the Mac OS X to 64 bit in 2009. This is an upgrade to the basic computing architecture in which the computing power can be enhanced significantly by incorporating more resources, such as RAM.
However, the catch is the applications running on the operating system should also be capable enough to take advantage of the architecture. In the current app market, and also in the foreseeable future, there is no way you will be inundated with 64-bit apps. You are going to take advantage of and use only 32 bit apps until developers have managed to create 64-bit versions.
In such a world, Apple’s A7 processor is not going to bring you any computing advantage. You will of course see a speed boost in loading your 32 bit regular apps because this A7 processor is 1.7 GHz dual core as compared to 1.3 GHz A6 on iPhone 5. However, the Android competitions, HTC One with Snapdragon 600, LG G2 with Snapdragon 800, Galaxy S4 with Exynos, will continue to overwhelm you in performance. There is no way Apple iPhone 5S is going to match the performance benchmarks of those devices.
Also, Android is soon going to upgrade to 64-bit computing in the very near future. In such a time, what Phil Schiller said about the architecture is mindless marketing gimmick at best.
Other Stuff
Apple has the other stuff on the iPhone, including the iPhone’s touch ID sensor. It is a clever implementation of fingerprint security. It is one feature that is worth bragging about. It makes the device be tied to your bioinformatics, making it ultra-secure. And they have implemented it perfectly too, by putting it right behind the home button at the bottom of the phone. This is something that we will get to see on upcoming Android devices.
Camera on iPhone 5S is another thing that they bragged about in the keynote, given below.
The camera in fact is not that advanced as compared to the shooters on any other device, such as HTC One or Galaxy S4. The camera uses the larger pixel concept revolutionized by HTC One. iPhone 5S camera uses 1.5 µm pixels, while iPhone 5 has pixels as large as 1.4 microns. HTC One is still the king in pixel size with nearly 2 micron pixels.
With other major features, including Optical Image Stabilization, HTC One’s camera is far superior than iPhone 5S’s. Also, it has to be mentioned that the best camera in the market today has 41 megapixels. It belongs to Nokia 1020. Other devices, Lumia 925, 920, etc., also have better cameras than the existing iPhone 5. iPhone 5S does not improve a lot on the camera side, although Apple makes you believe it does.
One thing that I have to mention is the dual LEDs on iPhone 5S camera that help in maintaining proper lighting on poorly lit scenes. It is a perfect improvement over iPhone 5 camera. It does indeed help in making the images better when the LED flash option is turned on.
Another improvement is the new processor supplement known as motion co-processor, M7. It is also a clever way iPhone 5S can measure and adapt to motion. This co-processor is a weak supplement to the A7 chip that measures just the motion data, from such sensors as the gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass. Since these sensors are controlled by M7, A7 is not engaged to rotate the display and measure the distance traveled when running. This helps you run fitness apps better on iPhone 5S.
Conclusion
Other than a few minor improvements, Apple has done nothing with iPhone to be able to command a large price tag. In essence, it is a substandard phone by today’s standards, and it deserves no attention from the consumers. This is a faltering step by the company, and if it doesn’t remedy immediately by bringing out an innovative device sooner, Apple’s iPhone business may soon be in jeopardy.