A potential release date for the iPhone 5S surfaced over the weekend and while we are going to need the official word from Apple for confirmation, it looks like it may be time to talk a bit about what may be arriving with the next-generation iPhone. There has been talk of both an iPhone 5S and also a lower-priced iPhone 5C.
For the purpose of the iPhone 5S though, much of the talk has centered around an upgraded processor and an improved camera experience. There has also been some talk of the handset arriving with a fingerprint sensor. The fingerprint sensor rumors began when Apple purchased AutheTec, a biometric security firm and coming more recently there was also evidence of the scanner found in a beta release of iOS 7.
That brings the next point, while there seems to be some back and forth from iPhone users in terms of the look of iOS 7 — that may be the most dramatic change many users notice. The iPhone 5S is expected to retain the same display size and also the same form factor as the current model iPhone 5. Of course, that goes to previous history in which Apple releases a new iPhone one year and follows it the next year with an incremental update the following year.
Touching back on those improvements, there has been talk of an improved display. The catch here, the resolution isn’t expected to be any higher, but instead more general improvements such as to contrast and viewing angles. The processor is expected to see some improvements as well as the GPU. The RAM is expected to remain the same at 1GB, which many Android fans will likely laugh at considering many Android handsets have shifted to 2GB at this point.
The camera could arrive as a higher resolution, possible as high as 13-megapixel however the camera related improvements seem to be surfacing around the flash. Leaks have pointed towards a dual-flash setup. All that being said, it is looking like this will be another incremental update for the iPhone. Or in other words, it doesn’t look like a year that Android fans will feel any pressure to make the switch to iOS.
IMAGE: Tinh te
The 5C might be cheap enough to entice some people who would otherwise be getting an Android phone.
The 5C is still going to cost 350+ off contract. Why not just get a nexus 4 or a Moto X for that price?
The long term dominance of one OS comes down to the the ability to sway the developers from one to the other. Android’s rapid gain in market share has swayed many developers into the Android camp. Apple’s got one last chance to grab share in emerging markets. If it fails then that’s it for iOS. Developers will start to abandon it and it will slowly fade into irrelevance. If the 5C sells well in emerging markets, and it will if it’s cheap enough, then there might be a perceivable shift in market share in favor if iOS. Then this circus act will drag on for a lot longer.
“Switch to iOS”? I just got the last holdout in my family to switch to Android. No more Apple for us!
haha, I thought I was the only one who felt this way.
Soon Apple will survive only their most loyal users!
No android competitor? Yet it will crush all android sales for months to come after its released.
It’s a world class design, will possibly have a fingerprint reader, come equipped with one of the best cameras on any phone, and bring a new iOS experience.
The writer is also forgetting 1 GB of ram is fine for the iPhone. iOS is an entirely different operating system that handles background actively and things related to ram in a different way, resulting in it not needing as much ram as android.
Haha “world class design” maybe in 2006 when Jobs designed it but iphone has the most overused outdated design ever by now.. You might as well walk around with a StarTac lol
The reason it “crushes android sales” is because of its popularity…….. history has proven time and time again that people prefer a more popular device over another device, even if the other device is better. Both iPhone and Nexus phones are considered “world class design”, and both come equipped with “best” cameras, considering the word “best” is an opinion, and the Nexus phone to be released this year will have a camera somewhere between 10MP-13MP. also, just because 1GB of RAM is sufficient for the iPhone it doesnt mean that is a benefit, especially if you consider that a Nexus phone can have much more things running in the background than an iPhone ever could (due to its increased RAM). you have a valid point when you say iOS is a completely different operating system which handles background activity in a different way, but also remember that android handles background activity VERY efficiently also, even killing processes automatically for you whenever another app requires more resources and there are not enough left. I suspect the iPhone may compete with android phones some day (and when I say android, I mean Nexus) whenever they catch up to all the features android offers…… the iPhone seems to be inspired by android features (and other O.S.’s also) and even implements their own versions (e.g. notification bar, and easy access settings), but there are still many more features in android which are missing in iPhone because the iPhone doesnt compete on features it appears… as long as the phone is popular, it will continue to succeed.
You might want to print this page Alec…so you’ll have some words to eat in the coming weeks/months…
It will crush android sales just like the iphone 5’s sales crushed the galaxy s3’s sales?
In what world did the iPhone 5 “crush” the S3 sales? Q3 last year, S3 alone CRUSHED the iPhone, Q4, iPhone regained the lead but not by much. And we are talking about 1 phone vs another. BTW, the S4 crushed the iPhone 5 by almost every single sales metric including 5 million sold the release weekend. Sorry your Apple stock isn’t doing to well.
That’s the joke.
he is being cynical … man.
If you read the last statement he said no Android user would switch to iOS because of this lackluster update. No doubt the isheep who buy the same boring device year after year will flock to this phone but no one else will.
I’m on a gs2 right now and can’t stand it’s unreliability so I’m going to be switching. I’m sure other gs2 owners who’s two year contract is about to be up could be thinking the same thing.
Good luck, isheep.
Real mature name calling, I should have guessed you were only 4
I just call em like I see em.
If your GS2 is running Android 2.3, a lot has changed since then. For starters, Android is an entire new beast (since 4.0) with plenty of speed stability and performance improvements. Android has come along way since the gs2, and with every release they seem to make it snappier. I have a galaxy nexus which i got on dec 15, 2011. Stability has been pretty good for me and for being almost 2 years old performance buttery smooth. Personally I wouldn’t dismiss Android at this point, but do as you please.
did you even upgrade to 4.2.2? Samsung is one of the few vendor that in fact provide updates for your phone you know? I am still using my S2 precisely because of that and also because I gave my yearly upgrade option to my wife and am now waiting for am Note 3 :P.
But the thing is .. it in fact work and recently, I noticed that the battery life is in fact even better and I am able to last one and a half day to two on low usage (a few calls here and there, and messages and whatapps and checking email)
If you have not upgraded the OS then you should.
😛 crush? really? Time for a reality check. iPhone sales (barring the weird case of USA) has been sliding rapidly and in fact Samsung’s sales of S4 along came close to the sales of iPhone 5, even though it is just ONE of the vendor selling android phones.
As for world class design, you mean the use of cheap, soft and essentially weak aluminium (which is nothing but one of the cheaper metal around) that resulted in so many scuffing and dents? 😛
And you must kid yourself with the so called “best” camera right?
As for new iOS7, great for you guys, perhap you guys can actually enjoy SOME of the freedom and customisation and features that we (as in the collective we) have been enjoying.
PS .. handle background actively? haha. in fact iOS DON’T handle much background task at all, not to mention actively. And yes, because of iFruity’s focus on optimisation, they choose to limit user’s choice and functionality so much that so that they can restrict their phone to work with lowly spec.
You like it? great. But everything comes with a price and the price you pay for iFruity product is an overpriced product with last year’s spec that works only because they limits the functionality so much. If they had priced it accordingly then it still won’t be so bad. 😛 but fat hope of that happening.
The author of this article is supposed to be tech writer and have some knowledge with regards to technology yet he repeats the bs of more megapixels equals higher resolution. Sure it makes larger pictures but in order to get better quality pictures you need big high quality lenses. No amount of megapixels can make up for a shitty lense. I can’t believe how camera and phone manufacturers have convinced people that the megapixels are the most important part of a camera. V
You forgot the ** saying HTC is excluded from this statement because the HTC One has a 4mp camera.
Well to be fair, he was talking about a phone camera relative to other phone camera, none of which possess a high quality lens anyway. If he was comparing it to an dedicated camera with even just a full size len, then the omission would indeed be glaring. but here? Not so much.
What was equally important is the overall sensor size and sensitivity 😛 but then here again, not many of the phone’s camera can boast of a vastly improved sensor sensitivity or overall sensor size. (Yes NOT even the HTC One’s so called “ultra pixel”, which is basically just another compromise between sensitivity and details when given a fixed sensor size, nothing extraordinarily great about that.)
Wow look at all the mad fan boys.
Who really cares which has the best specs?
You should be assessing your device based on your needs and requirements.
I’m heavily invested/entrenched in the Google eco system so of course the natural choice to replace my HTC hd2 was an lg nexus 4 and it’s fantastic.
I tried an iPhone once. Didn’t like it. Too restricted for me. Apple wanted too much for not enough return in terms of features especially free apps etc.
So I went android and never looked back.
That’s not to say iPhone are shit, but really… Having such a focused restricted design hasn’t done them any favours. Diversity is key to consumers…. Well the ones that aren’t blind sheep just buying the next apple product because it’s the next apple product anyway.