All the rumors and speculation stopped today as Phil Schiller got up on stage and showed us what the real iPhone 5 looks like. And it turns out the leaks were true, but the iPhone 5, which rose up out of the stage as an introduction, still had a few secrets left to surprise us with.
The iPhone 5 is made with a glass and aluminum, and Apple is touting it as the world’s thinnest smartphone with good reason. They’ve managed to fit everything inside a 7.6mm thick case (18% thinner than the iPhone 4S). The weight has also been cut down to just 112 grams (20% lighter than the iPhone 4S).
Both those stats are impressive, but Apple has achieved that while at the same time making its iPhone 5 bigger. As expected, the smartphone uses a 4-inch 16:9 display with a resolution of 1136 x 640, which is 326ppi. Apple has also managed to integrate touch directly into the display, which it claims makes it the most accurate touchscreen on the market. Add to that the fact the display looks better with color saturation increased by 44%.
A 16:9 display present a longer screen, and Apple is taking full advantage of that. There will be a 5th row of icons displayed in iOS, and you will see more in your apps, e.g. more mails, more days on your calendar. Any apps that haven’t been updated will have black borders down the sides, but Apple says devs are now applying 16:9 updates very quickly so it should be a temporary issue.
Moving on to the internals and the iPhone 5 has a new processor at its heart. Details are still sparse , but Apple is claiming the A6 chip offers 2x both the CPU and GPU performance of the A5 found in the iPhone 4S. The knock on effect of that is a claim of console quality games, but also just about everything you want to do on iPhone 5 will happen twice as quickly.
The iSight camera has also been improved. It’s 25% smaller, but 40% faster at taking pictures. It is 8MP (3264 x 2448), backside illuminated, has a hybrid IR filter, five element lens, f/2.4 aperture, and a Panorama mode capable of capturing 28MP images. Add to that a dynamic low light mode, precision lens alignment, and a sapphire crystal. It can also capture 1080p video, has face detection, better video stabilization, and captures images while recording video. Impressive stuff.
Communication is getting a lot faster, too. HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, and LTE are supported with one chip, one radio, and a dynamic antenna. Apple also managed to squeeze in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands for 802.11n compatibility. You won’t be waiting very long for anything to download on the iPhone 5.
Audio hasn’t been overlooked, either. The speaker is 20% smaller, but outputs better wideband audio and takes advantage of a 5 magnet transducer. Three microphones are built in, located on the front, back, and bottom of the phone, and the earpiece is also noise canceling. Apple also slipped in that FaceTime calls can be made over cellular networks, depending on your network of course.
The 30-pin dock port on the bottom has gone, replaced with the smaller Lightning port we all heard about earlier today when the cable leaked. Apple is working on an adapter for peripherals that use the old 30-pin port, but it isn’t ready yet.
So a larger screen, better wireless, and better sound must come at the cost of the battery, right? Wrong. The iPhone 5 is actually better on battery for some things than its predecessor, achieving 8 hours of 3G talk, 3G browsing and LTE browsing. 10 hours of WiFi browsing, or video, and 40 hours of music playback. On standby it will go 225 hours between charges.
On to the software and the iPhone 5 will ship with iOS 6. Highlights detailed so far include built-in turn-by-turn navigation along with 3D satellite imagery and flyovers through an updated Maps app. Safari now has a fullscreen mode and something called iCloud tabs, which makes it easy to instantly access all the content you have open in the browser.
Siri has been updated to read out sports scores, and she will also tell you a lot more about movies, even going so far as to recommend one to watch apparently. You’ll also get to use an app called Passbook, which handles all your event tickets as well as digital boarding passes, all of which can be accessed from the lock screen on the iPhone.
So when can you get your hands on it and how much will it cost? You can pre-order the iPhone 5 from September 14, available September 21, and it will be the same price as the iPhone 4S was on contract: $199, $299, and $399 for the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models respectively. The iPhone 3GS is not officially dead, the iPhone 4S drops to $99, and the iPhone 4 is going free on contract.
One final note: existing Apple gadget owners can upgrade to iOS 6 on September 19.
