Today, Apple announced not one, but two new iPhones. This is a first for the company as it usually only announces one new iPhone per year. Today they announced the new iPhone 5S, which is this year’s replacement for the iPhone 5, and the new iPhone 5C which is their new budget iPhone which also replaces the iPhone 5 (if that makes any sense). Basically, the iPhone 5 is no more and the iPhone 5C will take its place as this year’s budget iPhone whereas the iPhone 5S will be their top tier product.
No surprise here with the iPhone 5C, especially with all the recent leaks. Apple even joked about this. The iPhone 5C is now Apple’s new “budget” iPhone and will replace the iPhone 5 model which would have been the cheaper model for this year. Instead, Apple came out with a completely new model and will discontinue the iPhone 5 which is something they have not done before. Usually they’ll reserve the previous year’s model as the cheaper alternative to the updated model.
Anyways, the iPhone 5C introduces something that most people have probably been waiting for in an iPhone – Color. That’s right, this is the first iPhone that will come in 5 different colors with no black as an option. You can choose green, blue, pink, yellow, and white. The new back is made of hard-coated polycarbonate and is reinforced internally with a steel frame.
Specs are on par with the current iPhone 5 with an A6 processor, 4-inch retina display, 8MP rear camera, 1.2MP front Facetime camera, etc. If you have an iPhone 5 already, the only reason you would buy this is because you want the new colors. Other than that, upgrading your iPhone 5 with iOS7 will let you do everything the iPhone 5C can do.
The iPhone 5C will be available for preorder on September 13th for $99 for he 16gb model and $199 for the 32gb model. It will be available for purchase in-stores on September 20th. For more info on the iPhone 5C, check out Apple’s official product page which is up now here.
Now this is the phone you really want to get if you’re looking to upgrade to Apple’s latest and greatest. The iPhone 5C is fun with its colors, but the iPhone 5S is all about power and security. On the outside, it may look like the same old iPhone 5 but on the inside, almost everything about it is completely different. We’ll start with the fact that there is a new color now, gold, which I’ve already heard from a bunch of people on Twitter that they want to get, so that looks like the popular color this time around.
Hardware wise, there are a ton of upgrades here that aren’t noticeable at first. I’ll start with the main thing here and that’s the new built-in fingerprint scanner. It’s built into the home button and will read your fingerprint when you touch it. This allows you to securely unlock your device without need for a passcode. You can even use your fingerprint data to make purchases on iTunes. This is huge as security seems to be a huge issue these days and lots of people are too lazy to set passcodes. This will make security on your device much easier.
Other hardware upgrades include a new A7, 64-bit processor that is twice as fast as the old A6. It is accompanied by a new M7 chip, their new motion Co-processor. It measures motion data continuously; accelerometer, gyroscope, compass support. The first app that will seemingly take advantage of this is a new Nike+ Move app. The camera on the new iPhone 5S has also been upgraded with a 15% larger sensor, f/2.2 aperture which allows for 33% increase in light sensitivity, and a new True Tone flash which figures out exactly how much light you really need.
Of course the iPhone 5S also seems to have some exclusive features on it that won’t be available on other iPhones. For instance, the camera app here will allow for slow-mo video at 120 fps as well as burst mode still photos at 10 frames per second. This feature doesn’t seem to be included in the iPhone 5C or earlier iPhones. Of course there also the Touch ID feature for he fingerprint reader that is only available for it as well.
The iPhone 5S will be available for purchase on September 20th in stores with no option to preorder. Be prepared to wait in line if you want one of these. Pricing is on par with previous iPhones with 16gb – $199, 32gb – $299, and 64gb – $399. You can get more official information about the iPhone 5S here on Apple’s site.
