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Apple Announces iPhone 5
Today Phil Schiller took to the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where he announced the long-expected iPhone 5. The casing is made entirely of glass and aluminum, and it's 7.6mm thick, which is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. It weighs in at 112 grams, which is 20% lighter than the 4S. Schiller confirmed that the iPhone 5 has a 4" display, with a resolution of 1136x640. It's a 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen is the same width as a 4S, but it's taller. To accommodate older apps, they either center the app or add black bars to make it look right. The new device also has LTE support. Tim Cook spoke earlier about the iPad, making some interesting claims: "Yes, we are in a post-PC world." He also claimed 68% tablet market share for the iPad, and says iPads account for 91% of tablet-based web traffic. The event is continuing, and we'll update this post as further announcements appear. A real-time liveblog is being quickly updated at Ars Technica. Update: 09/12 18:16 GMT by S : Further details below.
Further details: for the iPhone 5, Apple also added support for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. The dynamic antenna is an improvement over the 4S, and can switch connections. In the U.S. LTE partners are AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. On to processing: the iPhone 5 runs an A6 chip that's twice as fast as the A5, in addition to being 22% smaller. Rob Murray from EA got up on stage to show a racing game, claiming that the graphics "have been built to full console quality." Battery life for the phone will be roughly 8 hours for either 3G talk-time or browsing. Engadget has a feature-by-feature comparison to the 4S.
The new phone's camera has an 8-Megapixel sensor, with a resolution of 3264x2448. It includes a hybrid IR filter, an f/2.4 aperture, and a five element lens. And a sapphire crystal lens cover, for whatever that's worth. There's a new feature for taking panorama shots (claimed 'breakthrough software,' though similar software already appears on actual cameras), and new software for automatically sharing pictures.
Apple also detailed the new connector, dubbed 'Lightning.' It's entirely digital, and 80% smaller than the old connector. It can be plugged in in either direction. Apple has created a bunch of adapters to let old cables and hardware work with Lightning. They then spoke at length about iOS 6, which will run on the iPhone 5, and demonstrated their new Maps app, which includes turn-by-turn directions (also in 3D using a 'cinematic camera'). "Apple is betting heavily on Passbook and other features to give it a leg up in the competition over Google Android and the upcoming Windows Phone 8." Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 start on Friday, and the device will start shipping on September 21. iOS 6 will roll out on September 19.
Apple's Eddie Cue went on stage to discuss changes to iTunes and the iPod. iTunes has been redesigned to work better on the iPad, and, more importantly, iCloud integration has been built in. They've also made a 'mini-player,' which takes up much less screen real estate. The new iTunes will be available in late October. Changes are coming for iPods as well. The new iPod nano looks like a mini iPod Touch. It's 38% thinner than the previous model, but has a bigger, 2.5" multitouch display. It contains an FM tuner with DVR functionality, it has a Home button, and it uses the Lightning connector. The iPod Touch is now 6.1 mm thick and weighs 88 grams. It has a Lightning connector port too, in addition to the headphone jack. The screen is bigger; it's a 4" display, the same as the iPhone 5. It runs on a dual-core A5 processor that's twice as fast as the previous model. Graphics are claimed to be seven times faster. The battery allows for 40 hours of audio playback or 8 hours of video playback. The camera has been upgraded to a 5MP sensor. The iPod Touch comes in colors now. But not grape. Apple also took the wraps off what they call "EarPods." They're like earbuds, but they don't form a seal within the ear. They let air flow continue, and a tiny speaker directs the sound into the ear. The EarPods will come standard with the iPhone 5 and with the new revisions of the iPod Nano, and iPod Touch.
The new phone's camera has an 8-Megapixel sensor, with a resolution of 3264x2448. It includes a hybrid IR filter, an f/2.4 aperture, and a five element lens. And a sapphire crystal lens cover, for whatever that's worth. There's a new feature for taking panorama shots (claimed 'breakthrough software,' though similar software already appears on actual cameras), and new software for automatically sharing pictures.
Apple also detailed the new connector, dubbed 'Lightning.' It's entirely digital, and 80% smaller than the old connector. It can be plugged in in either direction. Apple has created a bunch of adapters to let old cables and hardware work with Lightning. They then spoke at length about iOS 6, which will run on the iPhone 5, and demonstrated their new Maps app, which includes turn-by-turn directions (also in 3D using a 'cinematic camera'). "Apple is betting heavily on Passbook and other features to give it a leg up in the competition over Google Android and the upcoming Windows Phone 8." Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 start on Friday, and the device will start shipping on September 21. iOS 6 will roll out on September 19.
Apple's Eddie Cue went on stage to discuss changes to iTunes and the iPod. iTunes has been redesigned to work better on the iPad, and, more importantly, iCloud integration has been built in. They've also made a 'mini-player,' which takes up much less screen real estate. The new iTunes will be available in late October. Changes are coming for iPods as well. The new iPod nano looks like a mini iPod Touch. It's 38% thinner than the previous model, but has a bigger, 2.5" multitouch display. It contains an FM tuner with DVR functionality, it has a Home button, and it uses the Lightning connector. The iPod Touch is now 6.1 mm thick and weighs 88 grams. It has a Lightning connector port too, in addition to the headphone jack. The screen is bigger; it's a 4" display, the same as the iPhone 5. It runs on a dual-core A5 processor that's twice as fast as the previous model. Graphics are claimed to be seven times faster. The battery allows for 40 hours of audio playback or 8 hours of video playback. The camera has been upgraded to a 5MP sensor. The iPod Touch comes in colors now. But not grape. Apple also took the wraps off what they call "EarPods." They're like earbuds, but they don't form a seal within the ear. They let air flow continue, and a tiny speaker directs the sound into the ear. The EarPods will come standard with the iPhone 5 and with the new revisions of the iPod Nano, and iPod Touch.
If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
yes, when you only get one choice it's nice if it aligns somewhat with your preferences.
don't know what those silly Android folks are thinking with making lots of different styles and shapes. how does anyone know what they are supposed to want?
Where are the lawyers from Samsung when you need them?
It's simple really, iPhones are for skinny people who wear tight pants in order show off their junk. Droids are for IT fatboys who still wear cargo pants.
3G worldphone, LTE, and decent battery life. This is actually impressive, though we've been waiting 2 years for it.
If it let you out of the Apple sandbox if you wanted, then it would be the best smartphone by far. But that sandbox is a major detractor.
My T-Mobile G1 has 5 rows of icons. I expect Apple will sue HTC and win over this innovation that HTC obviously stole years ago.
Won't wirelessly stream video to my HDTV
less storage than the Library of Congress
Lame.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
LTE = Incoming Samsung Lawsuit.
It's not going to change your life, get you laid
You don't know my wife...
Filing papers in court I suspect.
If you are waiting for something for 2 years, and the competitors are already offering it, it's not impressive, but just about caching up with competition.
No, I don't remember that. Because it was CmdrTaco's story for the first iPod.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
1136x640? What kind of crack-smoking resolution is that? It's not any kind of standard and it isn't an integer multiple of the existing iPhone resolutions.
It's an exact 1x the 640 pixel width of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPod touch 4. As I understand the summary, retina apps will look the same, just with borders on the top and bottom.
It sounds like they wanted to keep the same width and just make it taller until it got to 16:9.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I've seen some where I'm almost sure the presenter was dead...
Log in or piss off.
LTE = Incoming Samsung Lawsuit.
Wow, I totally had that initialism wrong.
http://crummysocks.com
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs, Damen und Herren, from what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues, may I present a cultured, sophosticated, Man About Town..."
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple
I've seen some where I'm almost sure the presenter was dead...
.. and several where I wish he was.
morcego
But Android has 80% of the market, right? How is buying an iPhone "going with the herd"? Aren't you getting that backwards?
Don't you mean....
Liiiiiverrrrs!
Hype and reality distortion.
Maybe that means that iPad users actually use their tablets and Android owners just leave it in a drawer? No way to know without further statistics so its stupid to draw conclusions.
Even better, they could combine the "SS" with the new "Lightning" connector, and shape the S's like lightning bolts! Think about how cool would that be! ... what?
Steve Jesus Jobs also one year said that nobody wanted multitasking on a phone. The crowd cheered.
Next year, the iMessiah introduced multitasking on the iPhone. But it has sucky "badges" to annoy and interrupt you.
Next year, the great prophet showed a new notification system with a notification bar at the top that could be pulled down to reveal a tray of notifications from various apps that wanted your attention. Wow, what magic will Apple think of next!
In another year, I don't remember which one, Steve the great profit, er, um. . . I mean prophet, said that "7 inch tablets are dead on arrival". The crowd cheered.
One great thing about the iPhone is perpetual continuous warranty coverage forever and ever. Amen. Warranty lasts until next year when next product is announced. Therefore the iFaithful have continuous coverage. (Unless you're a heretic!)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I think a iZombie Jobs presentation would be awesome to watch. see him start chewing on tim cooks head as the crowd screams. if only there were an app for that.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
They have Thunderbolt and Lightning, so I'm going with "Very, Very Frightening"
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.
And that they did...
" Nevermind that the iPhone was banned for two years in Korea."
Holy shit, really?
Citation?
Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
>>>You can see what you are doing on a Pad. and get a full keyboard for typing.
In other words walk past the iPad in the store and buy a small laptop instead. Got it. Tablets are really just small internet-connected TVs..... passive entertainment devices. Laptops are the better choice for people who need to do actual work.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You go against the herd mentality
Don't most Android fanboys like to talk up the fact that Android has far more marketshare than the iPhone now? So can you really say that you're going against a "herd mentality" by buying a product that has the marketshare lead?
What good is apathy if nobody knows just how strongly you don't care?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
One of the keys to Apple's success is the unshakeable conviction that "Nobody wants X--until Apple figures out how to do it right."
Riiiiight...so the antenna snafu was a feature for easily hanging on unwanted calls, right?
Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck?
Yes, in fact they did it from the release of the SDK.
An app has ALWAYS had to take into account the screen might shrink somewhat for an incoming call; it increases the header size.
The same auto-layout logic (again present since the release of the SDK) would also handle simply expanding an app to fill the screen. Some apps might look a little funny until they get updated, but not too bad.
If Apple had increased the WIDTH, then there would have been major issues as many fewer app developers plan for that varying.
The question is if Apple is going to let apps auto-resize, or if they will present bars until you re-compile and re-submit the app. But the point is that apps already are handling variable heights to some degree so this is not a tricky thing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I work for a company that deploys iPhones and iPads. We've given out hundreds of devices. So far we've had 3 broken (screen shattered). You can get a screen replaced for a couple hundred dollars. I've seen COUNTLESS iPhones/iPads dropped without suffering any damage, or just very minor scratching. The only time we see REAL damage is when it lands on a corner and all the force is concentrated in that one small area, and only happens on a very hard surface like concrete. As far as blackberrys, we replace about 3 a week. Usually trackballs and now the touchpads failing, keypads stop working randomly and of course the finish wears off all of them within 3-6 months, so they start flaking. Everyone knows when they inevitable freeze up you have to reboot them by removing the battery. The new problem now is speakers failing, we have people bring in Tours/Curves because their "ringer and speaker phone stopped working" -- tell tale sign every time. Basically we replace blackberrys at LEAST at a 5:1 rate as we do iPhones. No dropping required!
Uh, yes. It is. An iPhone is a general purpose computer in a handheld form factor.
Keep in mind that a general-purpose computer is distinct from an ASIC (application-specific integrated controller), where the former is programmable and the latter is not (except when it is).
But even beyond that, an iPhone bears all the hallmarks of a PC: a CPU, RAM, persistent storage, run dynamic modern OSes, and allow various input/output devices to be connected. In fact, general purpose computers are becoming so cheap and effective that they're showing up in more and more cases where ASICs may have been used in the past, because it costs a lot less to write software than to design and build an ASIC.
The distinction between a "smart phone" and a PC is almost exclusively one of marketing.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Well they can't. The API doesn't give developers that capability. Other programming environments (ie, Android, Java, Windows... pretty much all of them) work with a layout system that doesn't guarantee exact positioning very well, but does work on different aspect ratios and densities automatically. iOS uses absolute positioning, so developers have to code specifically to each new screen (save for some special cases where they can get away with it, ie doubling of linear density).
iOS has supported dynamic positioning since iOS 2. Bad developers use absolute positioning, not iOS.
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIView_Class/UIView/UIView.html%23//apple_ref/occ/instp/UIView/autoresizingMask
There have always been at least two screen sizes in iOS. Portrait and landscape. iPad adds two more.
The "iOS doesn't support dynamic layout" thing is something I see thrown out by Android developers/supporters all the time, and it's just not true at all.