While we all knew that it was coming, the iPhone 5s was unveiled along with the Apple’s iPhone 5 replacement, iPhone 5c. The company unveiled the iPhone 5s during the special town hall event in Cupertino.
There has been a lot of leaks about the iPhone coming out in Gold color, but what none of the leakers knew was about the internal architecture that would come packed with the iPhone 5s. Apple, as Phil Schiller said on stage, is pushing the mobile ecosystem to the next level with this device.
The iPhone 5s took a lot of people’s breathe away with its unprecedented 64-bit desktop class processor which is packed in the Apple’s home-brewed A7 SOC. This might not mean a lot to the users who just use the device to check emails and make phone calls. But this kind of a desktop class processor on a mobile device will mean a lot of the game developers and other graphic related application which requires a huge amount of CPU resource.
iOS 7 has also been optimized to support the 64-bit processor and all the stock apps, will run on the 64-bit architecture. The new processor, along with iOS 7’s ability to handle the processes, have given a huge 56x bump in the graphic performance on iPhone 5s. That doesn’t stop there, the device also gets a 40x bump in the CPU processing speed.
Apple invited the creators of Infinity Blade to showcase their next installment of their game, the Infinity Blade III, running on Apple’s iPhone 5s. The game will be available in the iOS App Store for a premium on the day of iPhone 5s release, which is set to happen on 20th September.
While the processor gained a lot of attention during the event, Apple also showcased yet another new chip which they’ve introduced into the iPhone 5s. And that’s Apple’s M7 motion co-processor. The new chip helps the device measure the users’ body motion along with the help of accelerometer, gyroscope and compass. To showcase its functionality, Apple showcased the upcoming Nike+ on iPhone 5s. For the developers, there’s a new CoreMotion API which they can make use of to access the M7 chip.
The next big thing that Apple has added to the device is the new fingerprint reader, called the Touch ID. The device is now capable of unlocking the phone with your fingerprints. Apple clearly explains the Touch ID concept and promises that none of your fingerprint data is sent or stored in the cloud:
If you think this is all that the device has got, you might be wrong. iPhone 5s, according to me, is a huge improvement when compared to that of the iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S upgrade from Apple. The devices’ camera has been improved drastically. The iPhone 5s comes with an improved camera sensor, which produces bigger pixels, meaning bigger pictures with better quality than ever before. The new camera comes with a f/2.2 aperture, which is about 15% larger than the current generation iPhone. This brilliant camera is accompanied by an innovative flash, which automagically adjusts according to the light which is available in the scene.
The camera also has a burst mode, which would allow you to capture upto 10 pictures continuously. And Apple has also figured out a way to reduce the autofocus blur which occurs when a user shakes the phone after clicking the shutter button. The camera, along with the processor, stickches about three pictures together to produce a less blurry picture. The users will also be able to click a 28-megapixel panoramic picture with the new device.
Coming to the video capability, iPhone 5s comes with a 120fps 720p slow-motion video mode, allowing the user to edit a recorded video right there on the device.
All these goodness comes with the same batter life as that of the iPhone 5. This is a huge step towards preserving batter life on a device, since a processor like A7 would generally scream and consume a lot of battery when compared to a 32-bit smartphone processor.
The iPhone 5s will be available starting September 20th in a number of different countries. The device will be available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB for a price of $199, $299 and $399 on contract with select US carriers.
iPhone 5S Photo Gallery
