After much hype and anticipation, Apple finally officially announced its new iPhone 5S along with release date, specs, and price. The next-generation flagship smartphone absolutely supercedes the current-gen iPhone in nearly every aspect, from specs to features to price, and will be made available to Apple users on September 20 for only $199 with a two-year contract subsidy.
Tim Cook and company took the stage per usual, first describing in detail the popularity of Apple’s mobile devices (it’ll ship its 700 millionth iOS device next month) and how they took that into account to make it even better. Despite the innumerable photo and spec leaks, Apple has plenty more in store for its loyal user base. Here’s the iPhone 5S in detail.
Design
Though not boasting the colorful spectrum of neon of its low-cost iPhone 5C brethren, the iPhone 5S will come in gold, silver, and slate option. We’ve already witness what many were calling the champagne and graphite options, but it seems Apple is dropping white from this version. The shell is made of high-grade aluminum with chamfered edges and offers an overall better mobile computing performance that Apple users are used to.
A7 & M7
As expected Apple’s iPhone 5S will run on the Cupertino-based electronics giant’s latest A7 processing chip in tandem with what’s being dubbed the M7 chip. The A7 is the first 64-bit SoC of its kind, coming complete with a modern instructions set, 2x general purpose registers, 2x floating point registers, and 1 billion transistors.
The seamless developer transition forced all built in apps to be completely re-engineered for the better as the A7 runs roughly 56 times faster than the original iPhone and 5 times faster than the iPhone 5.
M7 works alongside the A7 as a motion co-processor, measuring motion data continuously via accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass support. This will help to enable new fitness apps like Nike’s Nike+ Motion to GPS track and monitor user movement based on contextual awareness with the help of the new CoreMotion API.
All that’s missing is an iWatch…
Camera
One of the main focuses for Apple was in the imaging technology department. Apple designed and created a better and smarter camera using its 5-element lens with f/2.2 aperture or a 15% larger active sensor area. As noted on stage, bigger pixels mean for a bigger picture.
iOS 7 automatically sets the white balance, exposure level, and creates a dynamic local tone map. Further, the mobile operating system also picks the sharpest image from a series or photos or an album. The new True Tone flash tempers any clashing color temperatures and provides automatic stabilization.
Burst Mode can snap up to 10 frames per second while the shutter button is continuously held won, and conversely Slo-Mo supports shots and video at 120fps and allows for customization. For example, a user can break down a video frame-by-frame and decide which he/she wants in regular motion and Slo-M0. That video can be shot in HD 720p.
Fingerprint Sensor
As rumored Apple will be including a fingerprint sensor as an authentication measure in favor of a homescreen password lock. Using the 170 micron thin Touch ID sensor, the iPhone 5S can sense 500ppi and scan sub-epidermal skin levels to make sure the 5S is secure to the user.
The sensor is built into the sapphire home button to prevent any scratching and is surrounded by a detection ring to activate the Touch ID sensor.
Simply touching the sensor unlocks the handset. As I predicted, users can employ the sensor for aspects like buying apps in the iTunes store, but the user’s fingerprint isn’t saved to a single piece of software, server, or iCloud. It can also handle multiple fingerprints for those who share a device.
Battery Life
The 5S, in part to the A7 chip, comes with great battery life that includes 10 hours of 3G talk time and 250 hours of standby.
Launch date & Price
As with the iPhone 5C, the iPhone 5S will be made available for pre-order on all major U.S. carriers on September 13 and will hit the retail shelves on September 20. The 16GB variant will cost an industry norm $199 with two-year contract and the 32GB and 64GB will run you $299 and $399 respectively.
