Earlier this month, an image teaser spun out to the masses. An image that was to spread around the world as fast as internet resources can allow. The news that the iPhone 5 was soon to be released!
The iPhone 5 has been speculated for some time, with countless posts of rumored looks/features, you name it.
Well, today is the 12th September, and we can announce that the iPhone 5 has indeed been officially announced!
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I know you want to know all the specs and such, so I will leave you waiting no longer.
The iPhone 5 looks-wise, hasn't changed all that much over previous versions. Like with the car maker Porsche, the design has stayed pretty much constant throughout its life. Whether this is a bad thing or not is up to personal view, but they could have certainly have changed it… slightly.
It looks like a taller 4/4S, as the display is now a 4" Retina display rather than the 3.5" display offered in previous iterations, and will offer a true 16:9 aspect ratio due to an additional 176 pixel lines resulting in a resolution of 1136×640. It is still a very high quality IPS LCD display with 326 PPI (Pixels Per Inch).
Phil Schiller has announced however that the extra pixels will mean that existing apps will have black borders until app updates are released catering to the new display.
The actual phone will be 18% thinner and 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S, in a 7.6mm thin frame made entirely of glass and aluminum weighing 112 grams. This of course in a phone that doesn't have a removable battery, but more on that later.
It has however got a smaller display than offered in rival units like the Samsung Galaxy S III, and HTC One X which offer up to 4.8" displays.
Powering the new device will be the A6 processor, capable of speeds 22% faster than the 4S, with Mr Schiller saying it should offer double the speed in certain situations. We have learned that it is in fact a dual core, and not a quad core as we initially thought it would be.
Maybe it is simply the new IOS6 that can be thanked for the speed?
The camera will have an 8MP sensor. If this sounds similar; it is. The camera offers nothing more in resolution than the 4S. The camera does have some features that should enable it to perform a lot better though.
It has a faster aperture, rated at f/2.4 which will mean less blur in fast moving situations, with shots took in dark situations looking a lot brighter and vibrant as more light has chance to hit the sensor in the short time the shutter is open for. Also improved should be the ability to produce better DoF (Depth of Field) where objects appear very sharp where focussed, but fall softly off with distance, with backgrounds appearing soft. Experts call this Bokeh.
To further enable more light, especially in darker situations, it will offer backlight illumination to the sensor, and all this should allow for shots to be taken up to 40% faster, so you should never miss an opportunity for a shot! It seems semi decent.
More features of the camera includes a Panorama function for taking multiple shots at once which are then stitched together to produce a wider picture, and will of course offer 1080p shooting. This is the area in which Apple play catch up to other devices. Cameras have been able to take panarama's for as long as I can remember, and have also offered 1080p support for a good while. Improvement? Yes. Innovation? Surely not.
The camera at the front has also been improved, with the ability to shoot at 720p, which should be good for Facetime calls.
4G LTE support as rumoured is indeed true, and the UK carrier offering 4G support exclusively for the time being will be Everything Everywhere. How good EE will perform isn't yet known, but 4G is a whole lot faster than 3G, and enables speeds that match, or even excel speeds of home broadband networks.
You probably wouldn't have thought that using a device conected to 4G, you could download a 320kbps song in under a few seconds, or a full HD film in a few minutes.
Fancy downloading an episode or film for playing on the tube or on the bus on your way to work? Not a problem at all!
For voice communication and recording, 1 microphone isn't enough for Apple, with the iPhone 5 using no less than 3 for improved call quality, video recording, and no doubt will offer better noise cancellation for the likes of Siri, etc.
The biggest change actually comes from a new dock connector, away from the standard they have used for years. A new 'Lightning' adapter will allow you place it in upside down or the right way up. Though you could consider it has no 'right way up', as each way up is the correct way up… Moving on.
This may anger some Apple fans, as it means older docks will not be compatible with the new device, and will mean either adapters will have to be made, or entirely new products if you ever use your iPhone in all kinds of iPod docks for music listening. These will at the moment be simply incompatible…
So, we have a thinner, lighter iPhone, with a slightly faster processor, better camera (though no resolution increase), and 4G support. What else?
We haven't mentioned battery life for one. Again, Apple have slightly improved matters from the 4S, with the iPhone 5 enabling up to eight hours of 3G talk time and 225 hours on standby.
Again though, the battery is not removable. One reason for the decreased depth of the device is due to the battery being internal, and this has always been the case for Apple devices, so isn't exactly the biggest shock in the world.
Now, in my opinion, this new Apple 'flagship' product is in no way on par with other devices already on the market. I already know though, that this new phone will be jumped on by Apple fans looking to upgrade, but does it really offer something new for someone looking to by a new phone, when the Apple 4S could typically be enough? It just doesn't seem to shine…
It misses for example NFC offered in similar devices, which is actually a pretty useful feature if you have ever used it. Want to transfer files over to another phone? Easy, simply place the device on top of the other and 'boom', done. Want to use the phone as a form of contactless payment? Again, easy. This is one feature I was thinking would be onboard.
This is simply not possible with the iPhone 5…
I'm glad it offers 4G support though. That is something that people were hoping for, but I'm not sure if that is yet worth an upgrade. The UK will take a long while to catch up, even with Everything Everywhere taking it on its shoulder.
So what exactly does it offer over other phones? I can't say I'm at all impressed by the announcements. If you compare it to every other phone out there (apart of course from their hyper marketing words), it doesn't do anything different, or better.
External storage? Forget it. I can think of a few reasons why having an external micro SD card would be a great feature to have.
The new SIM card design will also cause a few headaches, and isn't even the new micro SIM coming to other phones. It is Apple's own.
The new OS should help add to the pleasure of using the device, as IOS 6 is announced, which will offer many improvements including a new mapping system (Apple have ditched Google Maps in favour of their own), Siri enhancements, and the ability to make Facetime calls over a 3G connection.
The device will come in black or white, and will come in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions, costing £109 for the 64GB model for 2 years, and £40 a month (Three Network). Expect Pay as You Go versions to cost many hundreds of pounds (at least £500). I personally however wouldn't like to pay extra if I'm already paying for a contract, but that's me.
The release date is confirmed for September 21st (This might have pushed back to the 28th due to high demand), with UK pre-orders starting this Friday, so get to your nearest phone retailer if you wish to upgrade or buy the iPhone 5 when it arrives here as I suspect that the pre-order list will be pretty long (…)
(It indeed was op)
So, what do you think of the new features? Will you be pre-ordering the phone for when it releases? Is it as good as you thought it was going to be?
Sound out, down below.
