September 20 marked the release of the iPhone 5S and 5C, the newest generation of Apple’s flagship product. The new 5S features include increased speed, a higher quality camera, and a fingerprint sensor, making it the most technologically advanced iPhone yet and giving it huge potential for what it will be able to do.
The 5C was released the same day as the 5S, serving as a sidekick of sorts, but in reality, it ends up being a more colorful version of the iPhone 5, last year’s model. Apple sells it as a phone “for the colorful,” but this refers solely to the color of its outer case, with the option of green, blue, yellow, pink, or white plastic casings. This is the first time Apple has introduced colors other than black and white, and this is first time they offer a plastic casing since the iPhone 3GS ended production.
The 5S also features new colors, a metallic silver or gold back casing with a white front, and a “space gray” back with a black front. Senior Trey Guckian comments on attempting to purchase a gold iPhone, saying “I got there the first day it came out, at 3 o’clock, and they were already sold out.” Mason Amelotte, also a senior, had a similar experience: “I got there two days after it came out, and they were out of white (silver) and gold, and they were out of the 16 gigabyte and 32 gigabyte so this (referring to his gray 64 GB phone) was all that was left.”
Guckian, who upgraded from the iPhone 4, says the first thing that jumped out at him when he got his phone was the fingerprint sensor, and he “basically sat there, locking and unlocking it with my finger for 30 minutes.” This fingerprint sensor is part of the new stainless steel-ringed circular home button, lacking the typical white rounded square from previous generations.
Amelotte says, “the fingerprint sensor is probably my favorite part, honestly,” and “it makes unlocking your phone so much more efficient.”
Even though it only works on Apple designed applications so far, this feature could be the beginning of a more secure way to protect phones and passwords as a fingerprint is more unique than a sequence of letters and numbers.
The biggest difference in the new iPhone, however, is not on the surface, but in the internal technology of the phone.
The 5S features higher resolution front-facing and back-facing cameras, and Amelotte, who also upgraded from the iPhone 4, says “even the front-facing camera is probably better than my old back facing camera.” This is a huge improvement from the iPhone 4’s front-facing camera, which both Guckian and Amelotte called “grainy.”
Another internal improvement is Apple’s new 64-bit A7 chip, which claims to double the processing speed and graphics performance and is geared towards running iOS7.
“This is the fastest iPhone I’ve ever played with, including with my friends’ [iPhone] 5’s,” Amelotte said of the new processor, adding that it contributes to iOS7 giving the phone a “cleaner design overall.” Guckian agrees, saying “even playing games, the games are faster to load.”
A 64-bit chip will increase the phone’s ability to easily run applications that require more memory, for example making the phone better able to process and play higher quality video. At the present, however, the 64-bit chip is just a look towards the future, simply because there is nothing high-powered enough to take advantage of it yet, and Apple is just able to say that they are the first to include a 64-bit processor in their phone.
The other new chip is the M7, a motion processor that will extend battery life by reducing the workload of the A7 through the processing of motion data from the gyroscope, accelerometer, and compass.
When asked about the battery life, Guckian said, “I charge it every night, and it’s usually at 30%, which is the same as my iPhone 4.” This isn’t overly impressive, but very good for a phone that holds much more power than any of its predecessors.
Apple’s motto for the iPhone 5S is “Forward Thinking,” and it certainly is, giving app developers an improved platform with new features to utilize and the ability to run more memory-intensive applications. Game developers will likely take advantage of this in the near future. Infinity Blade III, featuring very high quality graphics, has already taken advantage of the performance improvement, and there will likely be more graphics-intense games to come.
This is a huge step in the right direction for the iPhone, and the fact that the 5S isn’t being sold as the iPhone 6 implies that there are bigger things yet to come from Apple.
