Smartphones10.09.2013

iPhone 5S announced

By Jan Vermeulen

The iPhone 5S was made official at a special media event held at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California on Tuesday, 10 September 2013, confirming many of the rumours that emerged ahead of the announcement.

As expected, the device will feature full LTE support, be available in white, black, and gold, and a fingerprint reader.

Called “Touch ID”, Apple said the fingerprint sensor was its solution to the problem that about half of smartphone customers don’t set up a passcode.

Confirming the leaks, Apple’s Phil Schiller revealed that the fingerprint scanner is embedded in the home button. Schiller added that it has a sapphire crystal on top to protect it.

In addition to unlocking your phone, you can also use your fingerprint to make iTunes purchases, Schiller said.

iPhone5s fingerprint Touch ID press shot

The specifications of the fingerprint sensor as provided by Apple, is as follows:

500 pixels-per-inch resolution;
170 microns thick;
360-degree readability; and
it scans sub-epidermal layers.

Camera

Schiller also spent some time going through the new features of the iPhone 5S camera.

The 5S will have a 5-element lens, f/2.2 aperture, and a 15% larger sensor, Schiller said.

Apple has opted to go for larger pixels, rather than more, Schiller said.

He explained that when you launch the camera app, the iPhone 5S adjusts the exposure and other settings before you take a picture.

In addition, Schiller said they have added auto-image stabilisation, continuous shooting (at 10 frames per second), and 120 frames-per-second slow-motion video recording.

iPhone 5s gold i OS7 press shot

Hardware

The iPhone 5S will also boast Apple’s new A7 system-on-chip, which Schiller said offers desktop-grade 64-bit architecture.

According to Apple, the iPhone 5S is the first and only smartphone that can boast with 64-bit support.

Schiller said that the new iPhone will be able to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications, and will be up to twice as fast on CPU and graphics tasks.

It also supports OpenGL ES 3.0.

Apple have also added a new co-processor to operate alongside the A7 which it is calling the M7.

It “enables [a] new generation of health and fitness apps,” Schiller said in his presentation.

He explained that the M7 measures data coming from sensors without waking the A7 up, and passes it to their Core Motion API.

iPhone 5s cases in 5 colours press shot

Availability

While no pre-order date for the iPhone 5S was announced, Schiller said that it will be available on 20 September 2013 in the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the UK.

As expected, the iPhone 5S will be available in three models at the following prices when customers take out a two-year contract: