Perhaps the most forward thinking phone everyone has ever made, as Apple’s spokesperson described the device, the iPhone 5s will be coming in multiple color variations of the company’s aluminum brushed shell, unlike any other occasion. Moreover, Apple took the time to re-think their entire design and even though this model highly resembles the last Apple flagship, it’s unique in many ways.
Meet the iPhone 5s
In a world where innovation is considered at the most importance, Apple’s traditionally aluminum design has been preserved in majority and somewhat tweaked, in a beautiful way. For instance, the newest phone is now made out of a high-grade aluminum alloy with chamfered edges. The home button now comes with a small stainless-steel detection ring around it, which acts as a border for the fingerprint scanner and also, as an activator. Built using a sapphire material, this new-age home button vouches to keep all scratches away while allowing Apple to retrieve important details about the person hold it. When assessing performance we truly want to note that Apple make a breakthrough by introducing the very first 64-bit powered chip in a smartphone. This latest addition into the mobile world will surely show the advantages seen in the desktop environment, where 64-bit applications run more smoothly. Speaking of apps, we also want to bring into foreground that the upcoming iOS 7 platform is optimized for this architecture and that all most Apple apps are compatible. Moreover, the new system is also capable of playing classic 32-bit software when asked.
Comparing this major change with Apple’s last platform we find out that the new SoC (called the A7) is over twice as fast in speed, a change seen dramatically in CPU and GPU cycles as well. Speaking of graphics, the iPhone 5s will run Open GL ES 3.0, just like the new Nexus 7. As Google bragged it few weeks ago, this will allow mobile phones to play exceptionally good software at better standards. In fact, the new iPhone is said to be five times faster than the iPhone 5, when it comes to gaming. Besides the main processor a motion co-processor called the M7 has been added to support continuous calculation of motion data, while coordinating the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass. As you’ve probably hinted, this will surely take developers to a new word of health / fitness apps. New level development will also be taken upwards through the use of a new CoreMotion API. Sparse details were mentioned about the battery life, but we do know that the iPhone 5s will be able to offer around:
10 hours of LTE surfing 250 hours of stand-by 10 hours of 3G talk time 8 hours of 3G browsing 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing 10 hours of Video playback 40 hours of Music listening
The iPhone 5s Camera
I’m more than sure that the wide majority of Apple users are directly interested into camera performance. It’s not the most used camera on the Earth for nothing. On that bombshell, the latest sensor mounted on the iPhone 5s has lens designed with five-elements and can capture light in an F2.2 aperture. With a 15 percent larger active area, the new device can capture pixels as small as 1.5 microns. Given the fact that iOS 7 will soon hit the scene, Apple has taken the time to optimize its platform for extreme camera performance. And when I’m saying extreme, I’m referring to a wide range of functions being performed automatically, whenever someone is taking a shot: white balance setting, exposure, dynamic local tone map, auto-focus matrix metering with 15 zones and more. Moreover, a new feature called True tone flash will automatically tweak the flash color with the color of the room, so pictures will fail to appear extremely bright and eye-gauging. On top of that, we have to add the auto-image stabilization feature, a new burst mode with 10 frames per second, slow-motion capturing with 120 FPS and 720p quality and more.
Other interesting tidbits
Well, the first one we can list here is Touch ID. As it was rumored, Apple has the pleasure of being the first large-scale manufacturer to include a sensitive fingerprint capacitive sensor that captures the pattern of the finger and uses it as a pass-code. Originally smart, this sensor can read your finger in any direction and it’s built directly into the home-button. It’s around 170 microns thin and can scan even sub-epidermal skin layers using a staggering 500 ppi resolution (CSI?).
iPhone 5s specifications list:
Size: 4.87×2.31×0.3 inch Weight: 112 grams Display: 4-inch panel with 1136×640 resolution at 326 ppi (800:1 contrast) Processor: A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion co-processor Camera: iSight with 8-megapixel, F/2.2 aperture, Hibrid IR filter, 1080 HD video recording at 30 fps / FaceTime Camera on the front, with 1.2 MP quality Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n , Bluetooth 4.0 Battery: 10 hours on LTE browsing Sensors: three-axis gyro, accelerometer, proximity, ambient light, fingerprint LTE: Yes
Price and Availability
As we’ve hinted above, Apple has decided to sell its creation in three color variations: Silver, Gold and a new type of Gray. In matters of pricing, the new iPhone 5s will sell for $199 (the 16GB version), $299 (32GB) and #$399 (64GB). All these numbers include a two-year contract attached. The iPhone 5s release date was set for September 20th for US, UK, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan and Singapore, with pre-orders starting on Friday, Sept 13th.
