FollowApple has had a topsy-turvy few months, with the company’s stock price continuing to loom around $500 and questions still surfacing about whether Cupertino is still the most innovative place on the planet.
Even with WWDC showing Apple has some new tricks up its sleeve, this iPhone event has been pegged as Apple’s 2013 showcase. A way to make sure Apple can continue to dominate the mobile market with its smartphones for the next year.
Apple announced the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, as almost every expected. The company also revealed the release date for iOS7 and that they would be selling the 700 millionth iOS device this month.
iOS7 Update
Apple confirmed iOS7 is coming to all users on September 18 and will be available through an over-the-air update. The company ran down the list of new features coming to the update, including Notification Center, Command Center, Photo Sharing, iTunes Radio and Open GL|ES 3.0 support.
App developers have apparently latched onto iOS7 quite quickly, with Apple announcing a few big name apps that have already developed different UI to complement the new operating system.
The update will be available for iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Mini and iPod Touch 5. Apple will also offer the iWork mobile suite for free with all new iOS purchases.
iPhone 5C
The iPhone 5C was the first smartphone on the list and it comes as most expected. Apple has made the iPhone with high-grade polycarbonate (plastic) with five different bright colors: white, blue, green, pink and yellow.
Apple will discontinue the iPhone 5 and offer the iPhone 5C as the alternative. It has similar specs to the iPhone 5, with an 8MP camera and A6 chipset. The iPhone 5C does have some perks, the battery life is slightly better and the front-facing camera has 1.9u pixels.
The iPhone 5C will start at $99 for the 16GB version and $199 for the 32GB version on a two year contract. Apple decided not to announce the off-contract price, we can see it dropping for somewhere around $399.
Coming with the iPhone 5C some new cases Apple has made, made with soft silicon rubber. The cases have rounded holes in the bottom and will start at $29.
iPhone 5S
The main event came with the launch of the new iPhone 5S, the newest flagship smartphone from Apple. The S model normally comes with some minor updates and settles some of the kinks of the previous model.
With the new iPhone 5S, we were treated to the same reformation of the previous model with no change to the size, design or display, however Apple has added some new internal features and the anticipated fingerprint sensor.
The new A7 chipset has been added into the iPhone 5S, giving more CPU and GPU performance. This comes alongside the M7 motion co-processor, measuring the accelerometer, compass and gyroscope to give a more lively reading of what the users is doing.
Apple has also fiddled around with the camera, it will not come with a megapixel upgrade but the sensor has 15% larger active area and f/2.2 aperture, alongside 15 new automatic functions, dual-LED and auto-image stabilisation. Users can try out burst mode, 120FPS slow-motion video capture and 28MP panorama shots.
The fingerprint sensor has also been announced for the iPhone 5S and will work multiple users. Users can unlock the smartphone by touching the home button and can automatically accept payments, instead of keying in the password every single time.
The iPhone 5S comes at the same price as the previous iPhone flagship, $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB and $399 for 64GB. Apple will launch both iPhones on September 20 and pre-orders will be available as soon as September 13.
In a little bit of worldwide news, this is the first iPhone coming to China and Japan on launch date. It will be available on China Mobile and three Japanese carriers. Apple should have both iPhones in 100 countries on 270 carriers by the end of the year.
