It's finally here. After several weeks of listening to the wannabees at Samsung, Nokia, Motorola and Amazon, the heavyweight event of the year finally arrived. And what do we have?
We wondered before the event if Apple would play magician today or merely serve as a master of ceremonies to so much leaked info. The performance (by the Apple team) and the announcement details definitely leave Apple standing exactly where Steve Jobs would have expected it to be: still the only true magician in town. So then…
A week or so ago we wrote out our wish list for the next iPhone, which is now confirmed as the iPhone 5. How did Apple do?
Well, talk about meeting our expectations and, in fact, somewhat exceeding them in that the iPhone 5 will be notably thinner than the iPhone 4S. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
As with any good show, CEO Tim Cook opened up with an opening act and some interesting announcements - for starters, a new Barcelona store that was two years in the making. Cook notes that "Apple stores offer the best buying experience and customer service on the planet. There are 83 million customers in the stores every quarter — one million per day."
Next, Cook calmly segued into a Mac and iPad chat - iPad market share is now up to 68 percent of the tablet market. That is quite the market share number. “The App Store is the place for all of us. We recently crossed 700,000 apps in the store, and 250,000 are iPad apps." There isn't anything new here. Cook is merely warming up the crowd.
And…Cook next hands off to SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller for the big act. It is now here: the new iPhone 5 is now official. Here is the summary (with a nod and major tip of the hat to gdgt.com for the screen shots).
Let's begin with what we were looking for first and foremost: The iPhone 5 is all of 7.6mm thin, 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S. “It’s the world’s thinnest smartphone” claims Schiller, "and it is made entirely of aluminum and glass." Check out the image below to see the non-trivial difference.
It delivers, of course, a retina display. The new screen on iPhone 5 is a 4-inch diagonal display (up from 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S) with 1136×640 pixel density and a 16:9 aspect ratio. The touch sensor is built into the display, and the new screen delivers 44 percent more color saturation. Schiller claims that "it’s now the most accurate display in the industry." New iOS 6 apps will take full advantage of the additional screen size, but old apps will be letterboxed and rendered pixel-perfect as well, and will be centered on the screen, with black borders at the top and bottom (or on either side, depending on orientation). It is worth noting that developers claim that rescaling old apps for the larger screen will not be difficult to pull off. Below is am image showing off the larger screen.
The iPhone 5 delivers a greatly improved camera. The image below provides the basic camera specifications. It is well worth noting that Apple has worked to deliver very low light sensitivity - what it refers to as Dynamic Low Light Mode, which begs the question of how well it will compare to Nokia's new Lumia 920 camera, which stakes a claim to having the lowest light capable camera. The camera now also sports a sapphire crystal cover - which means it will never get scratched (a typical Apple touch of the sort that provides Apple with that special ultra-high end, non-mass produced feel).
Along with the new camera there is also a new image processing chip. Spatial noise reduction is part of the package - a smart filter that figures out which areas are best for noise reduction and which should be left alone. Photo capture itself is now 40 percent faster. Schiller notes that "It all adds up to simply using it and seeing what kind of photos you can take and up with." Schiller did not fail to hit on Nokia a bit with the following line: "We took some photos. These are… untouched." A great nudge to Nokia really, referencing the fact that last week Nokia claimed to have taken some video and photos with its Lumia 920 camera, but which later turned out to be untrue.
Although it was anticipated by some, it hasn't been clear to date if Apple would deliver a new processor with the iPhone 5. However, Apple obviously believes that it needs to stay ahead of the curve here so in fact the iPhone 5 does sport its new A6 processor, which delivers twice the processing speed of the previous A5, as well as a doubling of graphics processor speed. The A6 Processor is 22 percent smaller than its predecessor, and is more energy-efficient.
These capabilities will be critical to the user experience in terms of providing the crisp UI interface iPhone users expect, especially with ramped up photo capabilities. The new graphics and processor capabilities will also help to deliver on improved video performance. Video capability has been significantly improved. 1080p, face detection, improved video stabilization, and the ability to take photos while recording are part of the package. There is also a new panoramic shot capability (which will result in the creation of 27 MB file). Processing and creating a panoramic shot will put the new processor capabilities in the iPhone 5 to good use.
Finally on the imaging side of things there is Facetime. The camera has been improved and now handles 720p HD resolution, while offering face detection and backside illumination. There is more - and for some of us this is of some significance - Facetime will now work over cellular, opening up a far greater range of opportunities for the technology - while also putting some additional stress on wireless networks.
Speaking of wireless networks, the iPhone 5 delivers on ultrafast wireless technology. In addition to the collection of earlier wireless capabilities, the iPhone 5 adds support for HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, dual-band HDPA+ and LTE. On the Wi-fi end of things the iPhone 5 supports 802.11 a/b/g/n, 802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz up to 150 MBPS.
Dual-band HDPA+ is important for the European market, where Apple anticipates a significant opportunity to add to overall market penetration. Long term evolution (LTE) however, is the wireless technology most of us have been waiting for and anticipating would be part of the iPhone 5 announcements. LTE is a key wireless technology that delivers significant bandwidth and speed improvements on wireless data uploads and downloads. This will be critical for effective Facetime use over cellular networks. LTE availability makes Facetime over cellular possible. The only LTE mystery that remains is whether or not Samsung will try to sue Apple over LTE on patent infringement.
The problem with LTE to date has been the issue that it eats up battery power at an accelerated rate. Apple has held off delivering on LTE for this specific reason, believing that it would compromise iPhone battery life and provide users with a negative experience. Apple appears to have done its power homework however, delivering a single radio LTE capability (a significant achievement). The company believes it has managed to meet or exceed anticipated (claimed) battery life on the iPhone 4S. See the image below for details.
Also from a connectivity perspective Apple has indeed introduced a new 8 pin cable, a dramatic switch from the ubiquitous 30 pin cable it has used for nearly a decade. The company has dubbed the new cable "Lightening" and will offer a separate connector that converts old cables to new cables (no doubt in typical Apple super high margin style) for use with the iPhone 5.
Finally, the audio system also received some upgrades. There are now three microphones, located on the front, back (by the camera), and on the bottom. Speakers now have five magnet transducers, up from three. Newly designed Apple EarPod headphones also provide noise canceling.
As has been rumored, Apple did not deliver on an NFC capability. Our guess is that they needed something for a next upgrade, but that is one feature that the mobile payments community is likely not too happy to see missing from the iPhone 5 feature set.
At this point Scott Forstall, SVP of iOS, got up on stage to deliver a demo of a number of new iOS 6 and Siri capabilities. There wasn't anything new here from what Apple previously showed off at its World Wide Developer Conference, and we are going to take a pass here on what Apple showed off today.
Of more immediate use, we can say that iOS 6 will become generally available on September 19, 2012, and all devices going back to the Apple iPhone 3GS will be able to upgrade to it. The significance here is to note that Apple claims that well over 85 percent of all Apple mobile devices have already been upgraded to iOS 5.1. This bodes well for iOS 6. It is rather amazing to contemplate that Apple is able to maintain an ecosystem of more than 425 million mobile devices that for the most part all run its latest operating system - something that stands in direct and stark contrast to Android's fragmented market.
The iPhone 5 will become available for sale on September 21, 2012, and its markets will be greatly expanded globally on September 28, 2012. The iPhone 5 will be available in - surprise - two colors: black and white. The white version has a raw aluminum back while the black version will have a black anodized back. We admit to very much liking the aluminum back, but we are just not prepared to go with a white phone. So we'll be in line looking for a new black iPhone 5 in nine days.
In keeping with what is now Apple tradition, contract pricing will be the same as it was for its iPhone 4S predecessor: $199 for 16 GB, $299 for 32 GB and $399 for 64 GB. The iPhone 4 is now free on contract and the 4S, which has already seen significant price drops over the last several months will now be $99.
That's it on the iPhone 5 announcement. Tim Cook returned to the stage and with other members of the Apple management team also announced and demonstrated a new version of iTunes - which offered some excellent improvements. And last - but as yet not least, Apple also introduced a new range of iPods. There is in fact a great deal of "new" here - both for iTunes and the entire iPod lineup. But we'll need to leave all of that for another article.
Did Apple Succeed?
We'll be honest - we're thrilled with what Apple has delivered with the iPhone 5. We absolutely believe the company has done more than enough to maintain its reputation for offering the best of the best. We don't of course yet have it in hand, so we cannot say if the reality will live up to the promise. But our expectations have been met relative to what we are specifically looking for, as we noted at the beginning of the article.
It has been a rather interesting journey for Apple. Its reputation for carefully guarding its products has been severely tested this time around. There is nothing that was announced today that hadn't been entirely scoped out already, and the numerous leaks and photos of what the iPhone 5 would look like were dead on accurate. From that perspective there were no surprises what so ever today.
What’s important however is that Apple has delivered what will by all accounts end up being the single greatest smartphone launch in history once September 21st rolls around. It will be a huge buying season for Apple. The only open question at this point in time is whether or not Apple's share price will break $1,000.
In the meantime, we began this article by mentioning the competition. We'll end it by asking: what competition?
For additional iPhone 5 details, check out more of our iPhone 5 coverage.
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Edited by
Brooke Neuman 
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