I sorta feel bad for Apple. CEO Tim Cook (who is also a fellow homo yaaaay!) said earlier this year that Apple was 'doubling down on secrecy' following multiple devices leaking ahead of Apple's unveiling. Ironically, virtually every single thing about this new iPhone was known before the event went ahead yesterday. I was getting updates via twitter while I was at work last night, (Yeah, that whole 'gay housewife' thing is a bit of a ruse) and couldn't believe that everything I was reading was what had already leaked.
But let's have a look at the features, shall we?
4-inch screen: Apple has stretched the 3.5-inch iPhone screen we're all used to up to a 4-inch one, most probably to compete with the wildly popular Android handsets that seem to have 4 inchers as a minimum. However, they've only extended the screen upwards, keeping the screen at the same width that we're all familiar with. The Apple PR machine is selling this as a good thing, but I'm not so convinced just yet. All I can think about is that god awful LG "phone" that looked like a remote control. And that had a 4-inch screen too. Gulp. Oh, and the screen apparently produces better colours than before. Hm.
A6 processor: Apple, somewhat conveniently, never gives too many details away on the computing power of the guts of its iDevices. What is promised, however, is improved battery life over the iPhone 4S. Even with a performance increase and a larger screen, all squeezed into a smaller volume. That's actually pretty impressive.
Lightning connector: Apple is trying to sell this as a great feature, giving it a snappy name to make, what is actually a huge inconvenience, sound like a good thing. Lightning! Fast! Flashy! No. Apple has been using the old 30-pin connector for over a decade. There is a multi-billion pound worldwide industry based upon this. There will be people who have spent thousands on home/car entertainment systems based on the 30-pin connector. I understand that Apple needs to move forward in order to produce more compact devices, but I think it's appalling that the richest company in the world is going to capitalise on this.
4G LTE: This is pretty cool because the iPhone 5 is going to support 4G in the UK. I've had a look at the LTE page on the Apple site and it looks like there will be support for all 4G networks (once they're up and running...) for all carriers, not just EE. Which I'm glad about. A little bit of competition between carriers always results in the best prices for us. :)
I'm a big iPhone fan, don't get me wrong. But I honestly thought that Apple was going to bring more to the table than it did. There weren't any surprises in the iOS 6 section of the keynote, namely an iWallet of some sort. I'd love to be able to replace my bank or Oyster card with my iPhone using NFC, but it looks like that's at least another year away yet. There is another phone that has 4G, an even larger screen, a fresh new look and NFC. (And yellow...!!) A quote from the article I just linked, which I feel sums up my feelings: "iOS 6 features many improved features including better Siri, improved Maps, an extra row of icons and little else."
I'm not sold on the iPhone 5 just yet. I guess I'll have to get my hands on it first before making any decisions.
Thanks for reading :)
AB x
