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Apple Unveils iPhone 5C, iPhone 5S
Nerval's Lobster writes "Apple unveiled the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S today, which will replace the company's current iPhone 5. Apple CEO Tim Cook and other executives took to a stage in California to introduce both devices. The cheaper iPhone 5C features a plastic casing available in a variety of colors (green, blue, reddish-pink, yellow, white); Apple seems to have done its best to make the device look high quality, with the backing and sides molded of a single piece of plastic; on the hardware side of things, the iPhone 5C comes with a 4-inch Retina display, A6 processor, and 8-megapixel camera. The other new Apple design, the iPhone 5S, is the company's next-generation 'hero' device. While the iPhone 5 was a radical new design, the 5S is an iterative upgrade; on the outside, it looks pretty much the same as its predecessor (the new iPhone features a new color, gold, in addition to the 'traditional' black or white aluminum body). The iPhone 5S has an A7 chip built on 64-bit architecture (capable of running 32-bit and 64-bit apps), which is pretty speedy, to put it mildly. There's also the M7 'motion co-processor' which boosts the actions of the accelerometer, compass, and gyroscope—in theory, opening the door to more refined motion-related apps, such as ones devoted to exercise."
The iPhone 5S also has a sensor built into the home button that will allow you to unlock the device with your fingerprint. Both new phone will be available for purchase on Friday, Sept. 20th. Apple announced that iOS 7 will be rolling out on Wednesday, Sept. 18th.
First, Apple releases a tiny 7" tablet, against Jobs recommendation when he was alive. Now they come up with a cheap iPhone, further eroding Aple's premium image.
What's next, sell iPhones at Walmart??
Seriously, when I had an iPhone, the one thing that annoyed me more than anything was the lack of a notification led.
That's what the S stands for:
"Still no notification led"
Summation 2
The fingerprint is saved locally and encrypted on the individual phone's A7 chip. Never goes to iCloud. Never touches Apple servers.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
ah... so in other words, it's only available to the NSA.
I've been a fan of the iPhone since it came out. Love it or hate it, it did change the landscape and it does a lot of things really well. Unfortunately the whizzbang features with the faster processor and fingerprint scanner and such, while nifty, are less compelling to me than getting a larger screen for my aging eyes. That alone knocks it out of my "time to upgrade" category. It feels like too small of an incremental enhancement and not anything singularly so substantial that it's worth plunking down money for.
Warning: Teh poster of this messaeg is lysdexic
I'm sorry, but the 5C is $99 on contract, which is similar to many Android phones that are better. In addition, the off-contract price is $599 (CAD) for 5C 16GB... how is that a "cheap" phone? The nexus is, what, $350? Give me a break.
Yes.. Note that that's an off-contract price and that it ships with a user-unlockable bootloader.
(I have no interest in a flame war. It's an answer to the question the parent asked, not an attempt to start an Android vs. iOS argument.)
1) Same old shit, nothing new.
2) Apple is dead, dead, dead.
3) Android is better because of blah, blah, blah.
4) I'm already in line.
hmm...except for;
1. non-plastic case
2. Better camera
3. Fingerprint sensor
4. Motion co-processor
5. 64bit A7 processor with double the CPU and GPU performance of the old proc
Yea...nothing different there for your $100
The fingerprint is saved locally and encrypted on the individual phone's A7 chip. Never goes to iCloud. Never touches Apple servers.
Ah, so we've looked through the source code and hardware design to verify that's the case? I mean, the source code and hardware are open, so we can verify them, and the phone is open so we can verify that the binary on the phone matches the source code we have, right?
What's that, no on all counts?
Yeah, no, I think I'll pass on trusting Apple with anything, especially considering that their privacy policy (still) says that they track your every move - but it's OK, because they don't attach it to your name, just an unique ID that's attached to your phone that's attached to your name.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I do not expect I will be buying another iPhone ever again. The device is far too tiny... It seemed like a good idea at the time when I bought it, but having used it for 2 years now, I can see that it's not all that I had hoped for.
My wife's Galaxy Note phone is awesome... reasonable screen size, and even comes with a stylus.
If Apple made something along those lines (I think the term is "phabet), I'd probably purchase it, but I don't expect that they will, so once my current contract is up (next spring), I'm migrating to an Android.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
> iPhone 5 was a radical new design
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2012/09/iphone5Comparison.jpeg
Yeah that's FREAKING RADICAL, MAN!
You mean like the Samsung 4S or the HTC One?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Look at it from the NSA/FBI's point of view: they already have backdoor access to your phone's data, so the fingerprint scanner isn't about keeping Them out, but about securing biometric data from users voluntarily. If They tried to fingerprint or retina-scan a whole nation Themselves (like our troops do to occupied Afganistan and before in Iraq) there would be resistance; we only got away with it in Afghanistan and Iraq because we were an armed, occupying force. At home, they'll start integrating biometric scanners into cheap, gaudy (GOLD!) baubles so the Sheeple fingerprint themselves instead.
Not to dispute your paranoid premise, but... I've personally helped out with a "Child Identification Program" activity where we made videos of kids, took some standardized pictures, took fingerprints (using paper and ink, not digital scanners), and collected a cheek swab DNA sample. When we were done, every single shred of data we collected was gathered up and given to the parents for safekeeping. We had neither the interest nor the capability of storing "backups". Please don't talk parents out of making identification kits of their kids.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I would've thought they'd bump to 128GB this time, especially given how large some apps are getting nowadays...
-- the cake is a lie
"See Apple, the thing is, these big media events used to be about introducing jaw-dropping, mind blowing new technology."
Has Apple ever been about 'mind blowing new technology'? As long as I can remember, they've been about well polished, high-production-value implementations of technology that already existed.
So, let me get this straight. Whenever a user gets arrested the police already take that user's fingerprint. Your phone is now locked with your fingerprint, so the police will no longer have to ask to unlock your phone? Merely by being arrested and owning an iPhone they could claim you have given them implied access to your phone.
Since the CIA's invention of Facebook saved the government millions of dollars in monitoring costs, it makes sense to collect fingerprints the same way. And coming soon, the Facebook "Share A DNA Sample" feature.
Yes, Apple would never make a plastic iPhone...except the very first one...and the one after that...and the one after that.
Just cut off your fingertip...it's about the same thing.
Can't wait for new corporate security policies mandating that you change your fingerprints every 3 months.
Our band teacher in high school had a computer in the band room back in the early -00's (00's?), for some reason. He actually DID that.
We found out his password was "teacher". Needless to say, I quickly found out that this was the default password to EVERY teacher's account in the school. I got a stern talking to and was then invited to help the lab admin out during my study halls when I didn't have homework after pointing this out to them. It probably helped that I didn't change grades or anything like that before telling them I figured it out.
I bet nowadays kids get expelled for that, at a minimum.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Also: He needed a sticky note to remember "teacher". Just reiterating that.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Why does plastic make things so much cheaper? (I'm in software. With mechanical things, my IQ drops to 50. The answer is likely so obvious that will make me look even dumber.)
Why do manufacturers opt for plastic so much over metal (or rubber or glass or whatever higher-quality material is best for each part)? Phones weigh ounces, and aren't such materials still just pennies per ounce?
Yes, I know labor adds to the cost, so making a phone (or a camera or a computer) with better materials would be more than the cost of the raw materials. But still, in what seems to be my utter naivete, I would guess that still it would be just a few dollars per unit.
Why are so many things made from plastic and so few made from anything else? Does it really save the manufacturer that much money?
If you have your iPhone locked with the fingerprint thing, and the cops want to see what's on your phone, can they compel you to press the button?
WHY are you worried about a fingerprint? NSA has lots more useful information about you, they don't need the wetware. If anyone actually DOES want your fingerprint, following you surreptitiously for a day will give them lots of chances to pull one (or all ten). It would be just as useful as your unlock code, ie, not. They've got the real data without getting near your phone.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I mean, fine with me if you distrust Apple so much, you suspect they'd stoop to uploading the locally stored fingerprint data to a central server and hang onto all of that data. (Never-mind the fact you'd think if they had an interest in doing so, they would have designed the iPhone 5s so the data synced with their servers in the first place.)
But how far does this distrust go? Your cellphone carrier can track your movements as long as your cellphone is powered on, you know.... What if they're selling that info to someone? Seems to me you better pass on a cellular phone, period!
The one thing that struck me as odd is how much Apple is trumpeting 64-bit.
On a desktop or laptop computer I can see why you would care about 32-bit vs 64-bit; being able to address more than 4 gigs of ram is a huge selling point for 64-bit. But for a smartphone with only 1 gigabyte of ram, why should anyone (outside of developers) even care?
You are using it wrong.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Does the C stand for cheap?
Besides, I was talking about a worldwide fingerprint db. I, for example, am not a US citizen.
Anyway, my concern is not NSA. My main concern is organized crime. In the future we're likely to have lots of gadgets unlocked by a fingerprint. Cars, house door locks, whatever. When phones have built-in capabilities for transmitting fingerprints to centralized databases, it's only a matter of time until someone is able to tap into that data. Someone breaks into your house and your insurance company won't pay for damages because the fingerprint sensor says you let them in...
You're silly if you think the government doesn't already have your fingerprint. Apple says that the fingerprint data is encrypted and never leaves the phone, as well, so objections about Facebook and other third-parties having the data also seem to be out.
Personally, it's a feature I've been wanting for a long time.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
Actually, it is stored there. The A7 includes a cryptographic module with non-volatile RAM that stores the data needed to authenticate the fingerprint. It works the same way a smart card works. It has a "store" function and an "authenticate" function built into the hardware. There is no "read" function so there is no way to get the data out without some serious and destructive forensics.
So the iPhone 5S is the incremental upgrade any objective observer would have predicted. The problem is that too many in the press kept trumpeting it like it would be some kind of revolution, and the ignorant masses, led by Apple fanatics, bought into the hype.
The mistake people have been making for well over a decade is to brand Apple as an innovator. They're not, far from it, in fact. What they are is amazing integrators, who are able to produce a great product because they're involved in every step of the process. They're also skilled at exploiting a technology when it's reached maturity. But other companies are the true innovators. They're the ones who've taken the risk on a technology in it's infancy and suffer the knocks that inevitably come. Unfortunately, they're rarely the ones who profit from those efforts and they certainly don't get the recognition from consumers.
The challenge for Apple is to remain relevant. The mobile market has matured with competitors catching up and even surpassing the iPhone in a variety of ways. The problem is that it seems Apple is afraid to tamper with their formula and so is playing it far too safe. This is the inevitably consequence of being at the top for too long. Fortunately for them, they've been able to retain their position as the prestige brand. This is partially due to the fact that the entire industry, all the way down to the retail level, keeps reinforcing that belief. Sticking to aluminum certainly helps maintain that perception amongst ignorant consumers.
I'd say Apple's days are numbered, although they're going to remain a dominant presence in the market for a very long time. I don't really see what they could do to reverse the slide. I'm not seeing anything of significance from Apple; nothing like the compelling experiments Google or Microsoft keep putting forward. They're mired in the success of the iPad and iPhone. They struck at the right time with great products but they don't have much of substance to fall back on.
By contrast, Microsoft just needs some proper management to shift things a bit so that they can get on track. They've still got a viable core of potential. From what I've seen Apple, on the other hand, has deeper problems. Maybe they'll prove me wrong in the next couple of years, but so far I'm not seeing it.
Fingerprints are not a valid replacement for passwords. They are not private. You leave them everywhere. Anything you touch can potentially be used against you.
It's only a matter of time until we see YouTube videos of people lifting a thumbprint off a soda can with Scotch tape and pressing it up to an iPhone to unlock it.
Head, meat tinfoil. Tinfoil, head...
They already keep a fingerprint database. Passport? Fingerprinted. There are also 4 states that require fingerprinting for a drivers license (California, Colorado, Georgia, and Texas). Those 4 states make up about 1/4 of the entire U.S. population. People getting general assistance (GA) have also been required to give fingerprints since 1996. The same is true for many criminal history checks. Work in a government job? Fingerprinted. Teachers, Food Service workers? Fingerprinted. Foster parents? Ditto. Law enforcement, Judicial positions, handgun permits, etc. The list goes on and on.
Chances are good that you are already in a database somewhere. The same hysteria surrounded video surveillance, which is widespread. The fact that you leave your fingerprints everywhere would tend to make them less of a illegal search issue, and more of a gray area as they are often used as a simple means of identification these days.