things hasn’t been the same with Apple. it used to be, anticipation never fails to brew before the next smartphone announcement, but not this time round cos’ all the leaked ahead of its announcement already kind of tells us what to expect. gone are the days of closely guarded secrets and how do say that? mojo? the first iPhone was a beauty. the 3/3s was a surprise design change (and one heck of a durable phone). the 4/4s was a huge leap in design advancement, albeit being plagued by antenna issue. but the 5? that’s where some fans started questioning the post-Jobs era Apple. seriously? an elongated 4″ phone? yes. the Cupertino folks couldn’t be more serious and to make the point, the new Apple iPhone 5s and 5c smartphones are sticking with the 4″ retina display. so eat it, non-adopter. anyway, those are just my rants. by now, the Internet must be swamping with reports about the newly announced duo, however, in case you haven’t heard, Apple has two smartphones, the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, that they want to exchange for your hard-earned dough.
the entry-level phone – iPhone 5c
the iPhone 5c ($99-$199) is Apple’s entry-level offering that, as Jony Ive puts it “unapologetically plastic” and so yes, it is a phone of polycarbonate construction, reinforced with steel that doubles as the handset’s antenna. other features include an A6 chip, supports up to 13 LTE bands, a 8MP iSight camera, and Full HD videoing with 3x zoom and video image stabilization, and has most of the previous phone’s innards. but the 5c is really, the iPhone 5 in plastic. and oh, it also marks the first phone from Apple to sport colors other than black and white.
the flag-ship phone – iPhone 5s
the iPhone 5s ($199-$399), on the other hand, is the flagship that bears resemblance to the iPhone 5, but with improvements in the performance, imaging, as well as security. the 5s is powered by an A7 chip – making it the first 64-bit smartphone in the world – and featuring a M7 coprocessor. coprocessor, as the name suggests, is a loyal aid to the A7 that takes over the task of analyzing data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass and it (the M7) is clever enough to know if you are walking, running, or driving, which allows, for example, the maps to switch from driving to walking turn-by-turn navigation after you parked your car and set off on foot. the attention to your movement does stop there: since the M7 can sense if you are in a moving vehicle, the phone won’t ask if you want to join WiFi networks you pass by and if the phone hasn’t moved for a while, M7 will cut networking pinging to conserve battery power.
on the imaging side of things, the iPhone 5s boasts a 15 percent larger sensor, a larger f/2.2 aperture, an improved flash (dubbed as True Tone flash) that offers over 1000 unique combo of intensity and color temperature, auto image stabilization, slow-motion videoing, up to 3x live video zoom, square mode imaging and more. the security enhancement is by the way of a fingerprint sensor, known as Touch ID, integrated into the seemingly regular home button. it offers one-touch access to the phone, thereby negating the need for entering security pin, and also serves as a password replacement for your Apple ID. the fingerprint information is store onboard on the hardware (not software, not the cloud, or anywhere else) and so there’s virtually no risk of stolen fingerprints.
naturally, the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s will be running on the latest iOS 7. both the iPhone 5c and 5s will be officially available on September 20 in several territories including the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK.
