The New iPhone 5

As expected, Apple today revealed the iPhone 5.  The new iPhone 5 is the first significant update to the iPhone line in 2 years, after last year’s incremental iPhone 4S release and just in tine for iPhone 4 users’ contracts to expire. Perfect timing again, Apple.

Just in case you’ve had better things to do with your life than follow iPhone rumors, we’ll recap what’s been old news at this point. The new handset ditches the previous generation’s 3.5″ screen in favor of a taller and thinner, 1,136 x 640 4″ retina display (326ppi) that boasts 40% more color saturation and allows legacy apps to still run letterboxed (i.e. with black borders) in their original resolution. After nearly 10 years of service, Cupertino has redesigned the iPhone’s connector as well to create a reversible, 9 pin “lightning” port that makes older accessories worthless without an adaptor. A global LTE antenna finally brings true 4G LTE speeds to the iPhone, both in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. Externally, the iPhone 5 features the same slabe form factor but it’s 18% thinner at 7.6mm and 20% lighter than the iPhone 4S. It also ditches the uniformed colored (and extremely fragile) glass back of yore in exchange for an aluminum back strip which should be more durable. Style-wise, the plate appears as a contrasting aluminum panel on the white version of the phone and as anodized black plate on the black version. More iPhone 5 specs here.

Well, now I’m gonna tell you the very basics of what is important and forgetting about the extra junk. These things are kind of importantish:
–You’ve likely already heard that the new phone is lighter, faster, has better life and is thinner and taller. It’s taller so it can better fit things above the pop-up on-screen keyboard, as well as better display 16:9 widescreen video.
–You’ve maybe heard the camera is better, with a more scratch-resistant sapphire crystal (second only to diamond in hardness) lens. It is able to shoot panoramic shots and take stills while you’re recording video and has a microphone on the back so it can better capture audio. It also takes better photos in low light.
–It supposedly has not-terrible earbuds that were modelled to sound like high quality speakers in a listening room. Apple says they can sound better than headphones that “cost hundreds of dollars more” and these earbuds were refined through 124 different prototypes.
–Unimportant but majorly hyped: It has faster wireless, but I never notice wireless speeds–I only notice if I have a signal and connection or not.
–Unimportant, indirectly–Part of how they made this phone smaller is by giving the new iPhone a new slimmer dock connector. It also has the side effect of making existing physical iPod docks and car stereos maybe useless without a $30 adapter, and at the moment Apple is the only one making these things. Monoprice, please save us with some cheap versions!

Even without noticeable new bells and whistles, the iPhone 5 is still going to be an amazing device that most will likely be overjoyed with. It will still be the phone that other companies seek to dethrone, and it’ll still break records for units shipped in a day, week, month, quarter…millennium. That’s because it’s focused on handling the things people actually do with their phones like using apps, surfing the web, consuming media, and taking photos. Sure it won’t replace your wallet or communicate with nifty accessories via a simple touch, but in the year 2013, do you really care?

#geekstuff