Apple pulled up the curtain on its buzzy iPhone 5S at Tuesday
launch event held here at the company's headquarters. Physically, the gold,
space gray, or white aluminum iPhone 5S closely resembles the iPhone before it
(bye-bye, basic black), but Apple has bulked up its flagship smartphone with a
fingerprint scanner, a faster 64-bit A7 processor, and high-end camera
features. What the iphone 5S does not have, though, is a larger screen: it's
exactly the same as last year's iPhone 5, and Apple's other new iPhone, the iphone 5C.
The iPhone 5S costs the same on contract as the iPhone 5 did at
launch:
$199 for the 16GB
$299 for 32GB, and
$399 for 64GB version.
Apple made Protective cases specifically for these devices will
price $39 each.
Along
with the cheaper, riotously multi-colored iPhone 5C ($99 for 16GB for a
two-year contract), the iPhone 5S goes on sale Sept 20 in countries like the USA,
UK, Australia, China, Canada, Germany , France, , Japan, and Singapore. Both
the iphones will come to 100 countries and 270 carriers in December.
Fingerprint scanner
The optional fingerprint scanner rescues Apple's honour as a smartphone creator
with cutting-edge features that actually affect how people use their phones.
The new scanner, called the Touch ID sensor, is embebbed into the home button
and adds some stylish materials with its sapphire crystal topper and
"stainless-steel detection ring." Now you tap to activate your phone,
instead of pressing the button (but the button still depresses for normal
navigation actions.
Touch
ID scans subepidermal skin layers, Apple says, and has "360-degree
readability," means it could be able to recognize your fingerprint
regardless of orientation.
In
addition to the Touch ID sensor doubling as your security key instead of a
four-key password, you can also purchase apps and other iTunes content with a
tap of your finger. Fingerprint information is never available to other apps,
Apple says, nor will it be stored in the cloud.
As
for guest profiles, yes, you can store details for multiple fingers -- yours
and someone else's.
In
classic Apple style, Touch ID is easy to set up as you tap and circle your
finger to capture multiple fingerprint angles. In fact, setup is a bit like a
video game that collects more prints the more you tap. After that, you scan
your fingerprint and voila, you're in. The entire setup process takes a minute
or less. Log-in is as quick as clicking.
How
did it feel during a brief hands-on session after Apple's event? Surprisingly
easy and fast. We were able to have Touch ID scan our fingerprint after about a
dozen or so tap-clicks. After the process is done, the scan happens
instantaneously: it feels just like clicking a home button. The scan becomes
unnoticeable. There is a little adjustment, though, to getting used to how the
button now works capacitively and as a click button.
If
you don't want to use the fingerprint scanner, you don't have to. There's still
the option to use the four-digit PIN password or no password at all. The
benefit? No longer having to enter your iTunes ID in order to make purchases.
Specs-a-palooza
Hardware design stays the course with identical dimensions and the same
chamfered edges as the iPhone (that means the 45-degree angles on the corners).
The "space gray" design with the silver and black colors has a look
that feels like a cross between the iPhone 5 and the 4/4S' silver-and-black
banded design, which is to say that it looks very cool and familiar. It
actually looks more distinctive than the all-black iPhone 5, and should be more
scratch-resistant (we knew more than a few people who had the all-black
previously and collected scuffs).
The
gold is pale and shimmery, just like champagne. It isn't an offensive shade by
any means. The white and silver version looks just like last year's model.
Apple's
$39 leather iPhone cases make the 5S look almost 5C-like from a distance, but
there are plenty of other cases the 5S should be compatible with: after all,
it's the same exact shape as the 5.
The
iPhone 5S has the same 4-inch screen as the iPhone 5, and Apple's Retina
Display, which has a 1,136x640-pixel resolution and a pixel density of 326 ppi.
(This isn't the highest around, but Apple maintains that beyond this so-called
sweet-spot saturation level, higher pixel density ceases to matter.)
Here's
something new: the iPhone 5S will have the first 64-bit chip in a mobile phone,
but will be backward-compatible with 32-bit apps. Under the hood, Apple's A7
processor promises to power the iPhone 5S with 56 times the graphics
performance of the very first iPhone, and about 40 times its CPU muscle.
On
the gaming front, the iPhone 5S features OpenGL ES 3.0, which has the potential
to make this phone the technically best-performing in the smartphone world.
(CNET mobile gamer Eric Franklin will love sizing this one up.)
New to the iPhone 5S is the M7 motion coprocessor, which joins the
A7 chip in processing. Specifically, the M7 chip keeps tabs on the
accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass data. At the end of the day, that makes
it possible for wearables like fitness bands and other accessories to tap into
that data faster and more efficiently. It's a fascinating idea, but was only
mentioned briefly during Apple's event. Keep an eye on this M7 processor: if
any chip ever makes it into a future iWatch, it
could be this one.
Battery
life is a big issue in the smartphone world, and Apple remains coy with actual
milliamp hour capacity. Apple takes the iPhone 5S to 10 hours of talk time over
3G (but what about LTE, Apple?!), 10 hours of LTE browsing, and 10 hours of
video. You also get 10.4 days (250 hours) in standby mode, a full day longer
than on the iPhone 5 (225 hours).
Once
again, the iPhone is without NFC, which makes it the only major platform to
exclude the short-range protocol. Apple has stubbornly used workaround features
like the wallet and perhaps this new Touch ID scanner to circumvent NFC's
specific brand of device-to-device communication.
Camera and video
When it comes to camera territory, Apple has traditionally been a gold
standard, highly consistent in all scenarios without fussing with controls.
This has been slipping with competitors' improved cameras in rival phones like
the Samsung Galaxy S4, Nokia Lumia 925, and
especially the Nokia Lumia 1020 (and its 41-megapixel camera).
Here,
Apple once again challenges the field with a lot of built-in logic that makes
for automatic adjustments of everything from white balance to the color
temperature of the new, dual-tone LED flash.
In
addition, Apple gives its iPhone 5S a five-element lens that Apple designed
in-house. Its sensor size is 15 percent larger than before, and it packs in a
f/2.2 aperture. The result? More light for theoretically better pictures.
You
won't find more megapixels in this version of the iSight camera, which means
images top out at 8 megapixels. However, you'll find an all-new burst mode that
snares snaps at a rate of 10 frames per second when you hold your finger down
on the shutter. Burst mode is very fast, and the iPhone 5S automatically picks
the best of the bunch, nesting the rest in a sort of digital subfolder. A
subtle gray dot designates the best one, but you can easily scan these and pick
your own to save.
You can also take shots that span a 28-megapixel panorama. Apple
will now automatically adjust exposure as you move, which is a nice touch.
There's auto image stabilization as well.Read even more about the
iPhone 5S camera here.
Yep, the iPhone 5S comes in gold.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)
The iPhone 5S once again ups the ante with 1080p HD recording for
the front-facing camera. The rear captures video at the usual 30fps as well as 120fps
for slow-motion video (as do theHTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.) In the app, slow-mo can be selected for
various parts of the clip you shot by sliding little markers, much like editing
a video clip in iMovie.
It's hard to tell camera quality in a brief
hands-on, but the 5S burst mode is speedy, much more so than the iPhone 5's,
and the autopicking of "best shots" in bundled photo collections
within the app should avoid a sensation of filling your Camera Roll with
identical retakes.
In many ways, Apple's camera functions are still
in catch-up mode, with Apple just now getting around to features like burst
capture. However, Apple's strength is in bringing consistently great photos to
the mass market, and the new baked-in camera features seem to integrate quite
nicely with iOS 7's new software.
Operating system
Calling it "the most forward-thinking phone anyone's ever made,"
Apple ships this new iPhone with iOS 7 software inside, which Apple previewed earlier this summer. A
brighter, more colorful interface is one major cosmetic enhancement. A Control
Center you can call up from any screen for one-touch settings, and new camera
apps are more substantial features.
Outlook
The iPhone 5S is a little same old, same old when it comes to the design and
features, which isn't going to give flagging-but-hopeful supporters much to get
excited about when it comes to the phone's looks -- that is, unless they've
been clamoring for a champagne-gold phone all along. (That being said,
actually, "space gray" might be our favorite new color and name in an
Apple product.)
In other ways, Apple's fingerprint scanner does
add a shot of technical intrigue that we'll need to take a closer look at to
see if it's more gimmick than game-changer. If Touch ID ends up being a
standard that app developers can tap into to make purchases easier and log-ins
more self-contained, it could be a wonderful time-saver...and something that
could find its way into the rest of Apple's product line.
How good the camera and A7 processor are,
really, remains to be seen. The real question in our minds is this: will more
people pick the 5S or the 5C, or another phone entirely? It looks like Apple is
using this year to refine peripheral technology around the iPhone rather than
heading in a bold new direction. That said, if Touch ID makes the iPhone 5S
more secure, it'll be no small feature. We'll also be keeping an eye on the M7
chip: Apple might be making a play for iOS health-tracking apps and gear to
beat competitors to market, or, failing that, to just plain beat them.
How large a leap the iPhone 5S is over last
year's 5 remains to be seen. Will it be a bigger leap forward than the iPhone
4S was over the 4? We don't know yet, but that new home button's pretty nice.
