News - Apple iPhone 5 unveiled today, so what's new?

[cameronlite]

The end of the world is nigh!

Apple have officially run out of ideas!!!!

No they haven't. They'll be inventing NFC for the iPhone 6.

A friend of my girlfriend said the iPhone 5 is amazing because a) it doesn't have signal problems and b) it has 4G.

I was hoping for something more; the camera on the Nokia Lumia 920 is stunning and several phones have had 4G for months! The same camera as in the 4S seems a bit lazy.

[Spud1]

Well I am really happy with the announcement - although the ONLY big feature here imo is worldwide LTE support. That is what I am excited about and looking forward to, the rest is just a bonus.

As has already been said, when they are close to the perfect smartphone (for many many people - clearly the haters and android fanboys in this thread will disagree!) you really shouldn't go for a mass redesign. I am so glad they didn't go for that stupid teardrop shape, didn't include NFC (pointless feature!), didn't go back to horrible cheap plastic, didn't include a fancy battery draining new home screen..

So I am happy with it and millions more will be.

However.

Lots of people are not, and the press in particular is taking the opportunity to have a right old go at Apple for the exact reasons above that I feel are positives! They are complaining that it's not a complete redesign like we have had before..people have started to expect that and if Apple don't deliver then suddenly that is an awful thing. It's an interesting reaction that may point to a different reason for people to buy Apple products than I originally expected.

LTE is a revolutionary thing in the mobile market at the moment, but because Apple are not the first to bring this out and LTE is in the early days, people don't seem to be getting as excited about that as they should. Faster broadband than most people's home broadband, in your phone? How is that not exciting?

Iphone (original) - truely revolutionary in almost every way, cracking phone (once app store was launched). Lots of innovation
iPhone 3G - Innovative design but was an awful distraction compared to the first phone. Nasty nasty cheap plastic back reminiscent of samsungs/htcs. However this was again a massive design change and people bought it.
iPhone 3GS - No design change but a few decent new features..still has the horrible plastic back. Not as many people bought this.
iPhone 4 - Radical redesign, and for many people pretty much smartphone *hardware* perfection. Lots of innovation, exciting redesign. Best selling iPhone of all time.
iPhone 4S - pointless spec bump, wasn't as popular as Apple wanted, but was more popular than it should have been.
iPhone 5 - Middle of the road - some massive new features (LTE, bigger screen) but because it's only a partial redesign (size + metal back again..yey for that bit!) people are not so excited.

Looking back at that history I think Apple are sadly going to have to come up with a radical redesign in the future in order to keep consumer interest. They won't fall apart with this one (unless Samsung/HTC succeed in blocking it) but I think they will really need a visible redesign for the 6 to keep interest. They have 2 years to do it (next year will be the 5 spec bump with NFC and something else thats useless most likely)..big challenge.

[cjs150]

A friend of my girlfriend said the iPhone 5 is amazing because a) it doesn't have signal problems and b) it has 4G.

So after several years and many designs and re-designs of the iPhone, Apple has finally managed to make a mobile phone that can make and receive phone calls properly!

At work we run both Samsung Galaxy II and iPhone 4 phones. The Samsung is clearly better (it is not even a close contest) at making and receiving calls, particularly when on move or in areas with weak signal strength. Whilst a smart phone obviously needs to do more than just make and receive calls, if it cannot do that well, what is the point of it?

[OilSheikh]

So, if I preorder it, when will they dispatch it, on the 21st ?

[TheAnimus]

didn't include NFC (pointless feature!), didn't go back to horrible cheap plastic, didn't include a fancy battery draining new home screen..

NFC really isn't pointless, its incredibly user friendly way of paring devices for one. The Nokia demo of a JBL speaker, simply bop the top of it, and its now pared, streaming all your compressed music to a cruddy speaker via Bluetooth.

The concept of NFC for paring alone is a good enough feature, not to mention the digital wallets and the like, I know a lot of people have never used a QR code, because ultimately QR codes are a bit user unfriendly on the iPhone, NFC solves those issues nicely.

To not include it appears lazy.

Lots of people are not, and the press in particular is taking the opportunity to have a right old go at Apple for the exact reasons above that I feel are positives! They are complaining that it's not a complete redesign like we have had before..people have started to expect that and if Apple don't deliver then suddenly that is an awful thing. It's an interesting reaction that may point to a different reason for people to buy Apple products than I originally expected.

Well considering how the press jumped on Nokia for not having anything interesting in their event, I can see why.

Then things like this are upvoted quite highly on reddit

And I have to kinda agree.

The glove touch system (all work by Synaptics I believe) is more exciting than anything the iPhone event has, that is something that is really useful to the people who say ride bicycles etc.

[crossy]

Quite disappointed by this launch - even though I'm not likely to be a customer anytime soon, I'd really hoped for something revolutionary, rather than "more of the same".

Says something when the only plus point I can see (versus my S3) is that power/dock connector - kudos for designing something that doesn't have a "right way round".

If I was grading this, I'd give it a C- with the comment "must try harder in future". (no additional comment about possibly copying the other kids in the class though)

Unlike android which compares better to peugeot, the car company, who churn out crap, and never learn their lesson, and keep churning out more random crap that breaks all the time, is cheap to repair or replace, yes, but it breaks, ....Apple is a lot more refined, thought through, improving steadily, not jut churning out more of the same old crap, they had a genious idea and stuck with it, as true innovators do, not letting go of their ingenious creation Old quite: if it aint broke, dont bloody fix it P.s. death to samsung, that is all.

Blatant trollery - and plain wrong - there is no "Android" phone for a start. And if I'm going to approach your (low?) level then this Apple announcement puts them firmly in the Morgan camp (to continue your misbegotten car analogy). Oh, and if "Android" is a car company then it'd be Ford - global brand currently selling a lot of product and pushing the "innovations" advertising line.

In future, please put your fan boy rants elsewhere - although on the other hand if you've got a reasoned argument to put across, then feel free to share it. For example, I don't happen to agree with Spud1's post #18 - but it's well reasoned and clearly explained posting - I can see his (?) point of view, and I'd hold it as equally valid as my p.o.v.

[HalloweenJack]

notice how they failed to mention talk time via 4g? cnet rumour mill is saying it doesnt use 4g for voice.....

[alpha channel]

I can see that connector, unless made solidly, snapping or breaking with relative ease, though I do like the idea of not having to worry about the orientation of insertion.

I'm just waiting for Samsung (and possibly HTC) to let rip with the inevitable lawsuits against Apple for the use of LTE without coughing up for the licences to use the patents own by the two companies (I'd say, oooh twenty four to forty eight hours).

[HalloweenJack]

swiped from the other thread

[crossy]

NFC really isn't pointless, its incredibly user friendly way of paring devices for one. The Nokia demo of a JBL speaker, simply bop the top of it, and its now pared, streaming all your compressed music to a cruddy speaker via Bluetooth.

The concept of NFC for paring alone is a good enough feature, not to mention the digital wallets and the like, I know a lot of people have never used a QR code, because ultimately QR codes are a bit user unfriendly on the iPhone, NFC solves those issues nicely.

Interesting to hear a JBL speaker described as "cruddy".

Opinions here on NFC are mixed: yes, I like the idea of it being used for (SECURED) micropayments; and that one time I used it to transfer a picture it was a no brainer (c.f. Bluetooth - as as it's known here ... "PUB" - short for "pair you bas*ard!"). Also like the idea that the very short range means that - unlike BT - it can't be used for pushing out adverts when you're out and about.

On the other hand, I'm still a little suspicious that the security controls are properly in place. Both of the NFC capable phones in the house currently have it switched off. Then again Sony are proposing some interesting uses of their "SmartTags" and I believe Samsung/LG are also working along the same lines.

Arguably Apple were correct to leave out NFC this time around, although surely it's a dead certainty for iPhone5S/6 (whatever next year's version is to be called).

[shaithis]

As has already been said, when they are close to the perfect smartphone (for many many people - clearly the haters and android fanboys in this thread will disagree!) you really shouldn't go for a mass redesign. I am so glad they didn't go for that stupid teardrop shape, didn't include NFC (pointless feature!), didn't go back to horrible cheap plastic, didn't include a fancy battery draining new home screen..

Are there 1.3million fanboys a day buying and activating Android phones? Or could it be that most people are starting to see through the over-priced, marginally-changed, small iPhone with more expensive apps?

Even the Apple fanboys I know aren't that interested by the latest iPhone any more....and even a couple of the graphic design guys I know have switched to Android (HTC One X's) for the larger real-estate and better customisation.....and I personally think that trend will continue as more and more people become au fait with tech.

[DeludedGuy]

4" is "just right", so does that mean all previous iPhones were all just wrong?

I wonder if current iPhone users are beginning to get bored of the same old OS? Apple haven't made any significant changes to their OS since the first ever iPhone and there are clearly better phones on the market in terms of hardware and software.

I find 4" screens to be too small for browsing websites and I'm baffled by the the fact they have ditched their propriety connectivity port but haven't conformed to a USB port, this just screams suicide, its bound to annoy a lot of current users who will have to fork out for an adapter and ruin the seamless, sleek look of whatever it is they are connecting it to.

Anyway, I'm happy with my current Sensation XE but will be jumping on to a Nokia/Windows 8 phone eventually.

[TheAnimus]

Interesting to hear a JBL speaker described as "cruddy".

It is purely judging a book by its cover, but a speaker designed to play music from a phone via bluetooth, I assume to be cruddy, however, I would like to be plesently suprised!

Thing is, it should have NFC for paring, and wireless charging, not a new connector.

Surely it would be more innovative, and a refinement to not have to worry about plugging in the damned cable, rather than worrying about which way round the cable goes! With todays technology we already have the devices streaming video/audio and everything else one does with the cable wirelessly (okay, not major firmware updates). So including a 'new' port is batcrap dumb, even if you can do it backwards.

[Andeh13]

Quite underwelming.

2X faster processor... That means they most likely bumped the cpu speed from 800mhz to 1,5ghz.... Welcome to 2011 Apple. The European Galaxy S3 and One X are Quad core 1,5ghz...

"Up to twice as fast" it says regarding the processor. Is that the same sort of "up to" we have internet connections?


Massive let down IMO. Its enough to bring the phone to market levels but not a patch on the market leaders.

[keithwalton]

If they were to fit nfc they wouldn't of been able to make it so thin, + not sure how well the signal would go through that casing.

NFC is a bit of an odd one but my opinions on it are simple.
I'd rather have a feature and never use it, than not have a feature and want to use it!

[TheAnimus]

If they were to fit nfc they wouldn't of been able to make it so thin, + not sure how well the signal would go through that casing.

NFC is a bit of an odd one but my opinions on it are simple.
I'd rather have a feature and never use it, than not have a feature and want to use it!

But if they had put it in, they could have a smaller, say standard USB connector.

Also the width of most NFC ciruitry is sub millimeter, so thats not an issue.

As the casing is glass, it wouldn't interfere with it.

So once again I'm just amazed, a new connector, meaning new docks etc, but not wireless ones, which are much more user friendly, quicker and much cooler.