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| http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/videos/?cid=CDM-US-DM-P0015766-309981&cp=em-P0015766-309981&sr=em#video-touch
It looks identical to the iPhone 5, except for a silver ring around the home button, and a redesigned camera, but don’t let that fool you - internally, this is a huge step forward from the 5.
There are also two new colours to go along with the white and silver of the 5, a champagne (which is surprisingly classy and un-bling in the flesh) and a space grey, which was my favourite.
Fingerprint recognition
The first thing you’ll notice is the home button, and its new fingerprint sensor, which Apple has named TouchID. Training takes a few minutes, as you’ll need to repeatedly tap the sensor from different angles as a ‘map’ of your fingerprint builds up on screen.
Once that’s done, simply putting your finger on the sensor unlocks the phone instantly, and worked flawlessly, and you soon become entirely used to simply holding your thumb on the button for an extra second for the handset to unlock. Each phone can have up to 5 users, although they all see the same handset once the it is unlocked, so no separate menus for the kids - yet, anyway.
Much has also been written about the security of the fingerprint data, but in reality its stored in a secure area of the chip which no other apps have access to - and there’s no image at all stored, just a mathematical representation of the fingerprint. Your fingerprint data is also never backed up onto Apple’s server, remain safe on the handset. At the moment, it’s only used for unlocking your phone and making iTunes purchases, but expect Apple to expand that to mobile payments in the near future.
Processor
The 5s processor is a big leap forward for Apple, in several ways.
First of all, it’s a 64-bit chip, compared to the 32-bit architecture of all Apple’s previous designs. What this means is that the 5s is stunningly fast. Scrolling around menus is noticeably smoother, and expect apps to run far more quickly - and also a new breed of 5s only apps optimised for the hugely powerful processor. The interesting thing about the 5s is that we really haven’t seen what it can do yet.
Because of Apple’s veil of secrecy surrounding the new processor, developers only saw it when the public did - so expect a lot of app updates in the coming months (which thankfully in the new version of iOS happen in the background).
The 5s also has something of a hidden secret, and one that point’s squarely to Apple’s much-rumoured iWatch. As well as the A7 processor, there’s a little chip called M7, which allows your phone to capture a huge amount of data about your movements through a variety of sensors
- and without draining the battery as current apps do. In a nutshell, it puts the internals of something like the fitbit into your phone.
More importantly for Apple, it gets app developers thinking about how to use this kind of data in a phone, or a wearable computer in general. Although Apple hasn’t even acknowledged it’s working on a watch, we’d put money of the M7 being inside it.
Camera
The camera is the 5s has also got a huge overhaul, and it’s superb.
Which still an 8 megapixel camera, Apple has increased the size of the sensor and the pixels, giving pictures a really noticeable boost in quality. The huge amount of processing power in the phone has also been put to good use, and the camera actually takes four images in quick succession, taking the best bits from each to form a ‘master’
image with all the best bits. In use, it’s great - and pictures are sharper, with more clarity and depth than those taken with the 5c or 5. The flash is also a vast improvement, as it now uses smart software to create a coloured flash designed to look images look more realistic.
There are also some neat new tricks, such as burst mode, which captures a quick succession of pics, and for video, a slo-mo mode which looks superb, capturing video at 120fps.
The Verdict: 5/5
Overall, while it’s definitely an evolution of the 5, the 5S does more than enough to warrant an upgrade. The fingerprint sensor alone is a huge timesaver, and also an added layer of security desperately needed on modern devices - as Apple itself admitted that 50 per cent of iPhone 5 owners don’t even have a passcode.
When combined with the huge speed boost, and dramatically improved camera, the 5S is set to become a huge seller - and leapfrog Samsung and the other Android handsets is terms of features, design and build quality. This is, without doubt, the best smartphone ever made - and puts Apple squarely at the top of the industry.
The Evening Standard. Review Roundup: The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5CBy BRIAN X. CHEN Jim Wilson/The New York TimesApple’s two new iPhones: the 5S, left, and the 5C.The consensus among reviewers was generally very positive. They agreed that even though the fancier phone, the iPhone 5S, looks almost exactly the same as its predecessor, it’s the insides that count: a smarter computing chip and a new button with a fingerprint scanner. They also liked the iPhone 5C, even though it is essentially an older iPhone repackaged in colorful plastic.A small number of technology journalists have had their hands on Apple’s new iPhones for about a week. And this time they had two phones to evaluate instead of one.
Following is a quick roundup of what some prominent technology writers had to say.
Walt Mossberg of AllThingsD called the iPhone 5S the best smartphone on the market. But he said it was a better upgrade for those who have an older iPhone, like the iPhone 4S, not last year’s iPhone 5:
Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech was impressed with the upgrades inside the iPhone 5S: the faster processor, improved camera and the fingerprint sensor for security:
Rich Jaroslovsky of Bloomberg News was jaded. He said that most of the improvements in the iPhone 5S were minor, and that the iPhone 5C was nothing to be excited about:
Lauren Goode of AllThingsD said the cheaper iPhone 5C was a solid phone that is better than the older iPhone 5:
Alex Kidman of ABC questioned who would buy an iPhone 5C when the iPhone 5S is so much better:
David Pogue of The New York Times said both the iPhone 5S and 5C were great phones. And he said that even though the iPhone 5C is not all that innovative, it will probably still be a big seller:
NY TIMES |
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