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The new iPhone 5

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The new iPhone 5 was the main event of Apple’s Media Event this week as it was the product that everyone was waiting for. It was the one that skyrocketed Apple stocks before the event, and it is the one that continues to skyrocket that stock price. Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 sold out in an hour, the first for any of Apple’s hyped product releases. You can expect long lines of people with umbrellas and lawn chairs in front of the Apple Store soon. Apple stock as of Friday is 691.28, a stunning record for the company. Let’s take a detailed look at this new iPhone.

Design

The new design of the iPhone 5 has, at first glance, little to no change. However, it has changed. The iPhone 5 is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S, 20% lighter, and 12 % less volume. It is 7.6 mm thin and weighs 112 grams. It is 3.31 in squared. It is marketed as the thinnest smartphone ever. Apple engineers really had their work on for this one. They made the new nano-SIM card. They combined LTE data and voice onto ONE chip instead of two individual ones. The new Lightning connector is 80% smaller. The A6 chip is more powerful but even smaller than the A5 chip. The display has been made thinner by making a integrated touch technology screen while keeping the Retina Display that has come to partly define the iPhone. It is made of a single piece of aluminum, therefore it is unibody. It is a super-smooth piece of aluminum too!

Screen

Like all of Apple’s refreshes this week, the iPhone got a screen size bump and one’s gotta love the new display. It is a beautiful 4 inch Retina Display. They make it so it isn’t awkward to use, like some of the other smartphone makers who go with awkward, big screens. It has the same width, just a new height, so you are not stressing your thumb, trying to reach the the other side, and you can still reach the top with ease. The apps for the iPhone are already being made to fit the gorgeous display, and if they haven’t been, don’t worry, they won’t pixelate like iPhone apps do on the iPad. The display gives you 18% more pixels than the iPhone 4S. It has impressive 1136by640 resolution. Incredible! Colors also get a boost with 44% more color saturation.

4G and LTE

We all saw this one coming. The iPad 3 came with 4G and LTE so we knew the iPhone 5 would. The speeds are incredible. It has 100 Mbps for LTE. Also, Wifi gets a boost as well-up to 150 Mbps. Incredibly fast.

A6

The fastest iOS processor has come and this processor brings high quality graphics. In fact, I believe the graphics can be compared to this generation consoles (PS3, 360) fairly and some would say favorably. The graphics performance is twice that of the amazing A5 chip of the iPhone 4S. The processing performance is also twice as fast so you’ll notice applications opening and loading even faster. It will just be a more smooth experience. Also, the A6 chip will not deplete battery and you will get 8 hours on wireless and 10 on video. I believe that at a point in the near future, Apple iOS products will be able to rival that of the laptops because of the performance they build into it, the first being the iPad.

EarPods

I know I brought these up in the iPod nano and touch articles but since it will come with all of them, I have mentioned them in all three articles. Again, these headphones are supposed to rival my expensive pairs. According to Apple, they tested hundreds of prototypes on hundreds of people. I hope that those hundreds of people were right about the prototype they chose to become the Apple EarPods. I just hope Apple can make them a lot better than the last earphones they made.

Camera

Panorama, like the new iPod touch, is a new feature in the iPhone 5 that allows you to take stunning 240 degree photos. The panorama can be up to 26 MP, a stunning MP count for a phone. It reminds me of something I’ve seen, an app called 360 degrees, I just hope this new panorama feature is a lot better than that app. The camera of course takes 1080p video. It also has more stabilization to prevent shaky footage. It can now detect up to 10 faces in the camera’s face detection software. You can now take photos while you are recording. The FaceTime front camera is 720p and looks stunning. You can make FaceTime calls over cellular now, allowing you to not have to be at a wifi connection, giving it a boost against it’s Microsoft rival Skype.

Lightning

Like all of Apple’s releases this week, the new iPhone 5 also features the new Lightning adapter. It marks the first time Apple has changed the adapter since the inception of the iPhone 5 years ago. It is supposed to be more durable and faster than the 30 pin connector. As accessory manufacturers catch up to Lightning, you can buy an adapter so that all your stuff is still compatible.

Wow Factor?

One question that was on everyone’s minds was, what is that “one more thing”? After looking into the iPhone 5 and throughly investigating it for this article, I realized that Apple didn’t really innovate here. It didn’t wow me like all other releases of iPhones have, although I am impressed by the engineering that went into making it so thin and light. I believe that this could actually be a good thing. The iPhone is mature. Apple didn’t bring something revolutionary to the table because they didn’t need to revolutionize what they had. All the releases of the iPhone have always improved from the last, and they change from their predecessors in a usually significant way. The iPhone 5 didn’t change that much from the iPhone 4S because there wasn’t really a change needed. The iPhone 4S has been their most successful phone up until now. Just the velocity at which the iPhone 5 preorders sold at is an indication that the iPhone 5 will take that role. Apple doesn’t need to change what works. If you look at the features of each iPhone, you can tell that the change from the last one to the next decreases and that is because the iPhone has matured and doesn’t need any more radical change to it. Of course, none of what I’m saying should hold Apple back from innovating. If Apple has a good idea they will use it, just as they changed the screen size, which in my opinion was a good idea. Also, if Apple goes too long without innovation, this could be a problem. I think that Apple brought more to the table from the last generation to the next in their new iPods, one can easily see the radical and effective changes to the iPod nano and touch as compared to not being able to see it as well with the iPhone 4S to the 5. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone 5 is a great release but it isn’t revolutionary, and perhaps thats the way it should have been. Don’t change what works is the wow factor here (and yes the 30 pin dock connector works, if Apple saw something better in Lightning, then they should, by all means, change it, because that is taking a risk and it is innovative, I will discuss the new Lightning connector in another article). Apple did do right here, no changes needed.

Thanks for reading,

Joe

iPhone 5 Coming Soon To A Media Event Near You

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Apple has finally announced the media event in which they will announce the new iPhone 5. With a very obvious picture that they sent out to media this morning, Apple put the number 12 and the shadow reflecting from that 12 is a 5, so one can assume that the iPhone 5 will be announced on September 12th. Don’t worry, you actually don’t even need to assume, the iPhone 5 WILL be announced on September 12th. But what are we going to see from the iPhone 5? Let’s take a look a at popular rumors and come to a consensus on what the new iPhone will look like, it’s name and when it will be released.

Release Date

After being confirmed that the iPhone 5 will be announced on September 12th, it has also become a general consensus that it will be released nine days later on the 21st. As usual, the release will cause stores to crowd and shipping dates to be put backward. Apple stocks have gone sky high due to talks about the iPhone 5 so expect a huge following from the phone, perhaps bigger than that of any of the other iPhone releases.

Name

While it is most likely that the new phone will be called the iPhone 5, it is still possible, especially with the iPad 3 being called the new iPad, that the new iPhone will be called just that. Apple has never really been super great at naming things but they do a whole lot better at doing so than Windows PC machine manufacturers who name their products random letters and numbers no one can remember. We believe it is most likely that it will be called the iPhone 5, since Apple is giving complaints to the people who currently own iPhone5.com and their developer numbers are iPhone 5,1 and iPhone 5,2.

Form Factor

Unlike the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5 will be a completely new design. It has been wildly rumored to have a bigger four-inch screen and while it may sound unlikely Apple would change the screen size, rumors are pointed towards the otherwise. Bigger speaker grills and a two tone back with brushed aluminum is expected. One of the biggest changes will be the relocation and redoing of the connectors which I will talk a bit more about in a minute. As Apple always heads for the “thinner is better” mentality, you can expect that the iPhone 5 will be thinner than it’s predecessor, the iPhone 4S. It is expected to be 7.4 mm, a 1.7 mm difference from the 9.1 mm of the iPhone 4S. As a result of it being thinner, expect it to weigh somewhat less.

Connections

The biggest change to the bottom of the iPhone is about to occur. Apple, in the first time since the original iPhone, will change it’s dock connector. It is planning to adopt a 8,9 or 19 pin dock connector with most sources pointing at 9. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is expected to be at the bottom of the device along with a aforementioned bigger speaker grills.

Specs

It is expected we will see a quad-core processor debut in the iPhone 5 especially since other phone manufacturers have already adopted it. It will probably be called the Apple A6, and of course, be faster than it’s predecessor. The processor certainly needs to faster in order to impress people into buying it. Reports are saying we will see 1 GB of RAM in the phone and it makes sense that we will.

4G

Due to the fact that “the new iPad” has 4G, you can expect the iPhone 5 to have it as well and since other smartphones released this year have it, I can almost guarantee you that you will see 4G. 4G can be up to 10 times faster than 3G depending on the circumstances.

Screen

Many sources have been claiming that the new iPhone 5 will have a bigger screen size. It has been rumored that the iPhone 5 could have curved glass screens but that is unlikely. it is most likely that it will be the standard flat screen. It will have a 4.x screen size, and while many reports claim 4.1 inches, there are a few who say more than that, up to 4.6 inches. The display of course will be a retina display as the iPhone and iPod touch have been Retina since 2010. It has been said it will be made by Sharp or Sony.

NFC

Some rumors detailing NFC (Near Field Communications allows devices to communicate with credit/debit machines for fast payments) have been rampant in the rumor community. NFC has been featured on other phones in the past and with the iOS 6 app Passbook, it gives Apple reason to add such a thing.

Cameras

Sony currently creates the cameras for iPhone 4 and 4S. Sources have claimed it will again feature a 8 MP camera but with newer, more stable features. Many reports say the iPhone 5 will feature a HD front-facing camera

Liquid Metal?

Liquid metal is an alloy that is very strong and built to last. Many people are interested in the fact that Apple has extended it’s contract of exclusivity with a company that makes liquid metal technology considering that Apple only used it for it’s iPhone 3G’s SIM card ejector. While it may be unlikely that the iPhone 5 will have liquid metal, don’t discount it entirely as it could happen. If Apple kept it’s exclusivity, they kept it for a reason. The more probable device is the iPhone 6 but we’ll just have to see what Apple does on the 12th.

The iPhone 5 is shaking up to be revolutionary, the biggest step up since the original iPhone. While people were originally upset that the iPhone 5 came last year, perhaps it was actually a great idea since it gave them more time to deliver a product that will be truly amazing and on September 12th, something truly amazing may be an understatement as to what’s to come that day.

Thanks for reading,

Joe

Rotten Apples

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Apple has had its fair share of products that failed to catch on with the public. Probably more than people know about. However, these products definitely had an influence on Apple’s more successful ones. Let’s discuss a few of these products and why they’re important to Apple’s more successful products.

The Cube

In 2000, Apple introduced a computer that in 2001, it would discontinue because of its lackluster specs and inability to upgrade, not to mention its ridiculous price of $1799-$2299. It was a loss for Apple at the time, but now it is a success for Apple. The much better and improved successor of the Cube is the Mac mini. Compact in size and powerful in ability, the Mac mini is the most powerful mini computer out there and without the influence of the Cube, Apple may not have made it as small and yet powerful as now, it may not have had the same form factor. The Cube may have failed at first but with it being updated to the mini it became one of Apple’s best selling computers.

The Macintosh Portable

At a very light 16 pounds, the Macintosh Portable is a very light computer that offers very fast speed. This is probably the headline that Apple used to advertise it’s Macintosh Portable computer. Unfortunately for Apple, nobody believed them. Sixteen pounds is not light. The Macintosh Portable had many battery problems, including a short lasting battery, inability to keep a charge, it can not run on AC power so if the battery is dying and not doing anything, you’re out of luck, a good $6,500 out the door. Wait, did you just read that? $6500?! Yup it costed $6500. That may also be a reason it was unpopular. It was an expensive, useless, heavy, computer that had a 9.6 inch display. However, it was an influence for a computer that would later come to be the MacBook series, one of the most successful laptop series in the world. Apple has (with better newer technology of course) taken ideas from the Macintosh Portable, mainly the Portable part to put into their MacBooks. The MacBook is certainly less heavy, less expensive, and more powerful now but the idea for the MacBook came via influence from the Macintosh Portable.

ROKR

The Motorola/Apple ROKR was a failed phone that didn’t take off in the market place. It was the only mobile phone at the time designed to work with iTunes. Despite the popularity of the iTunes store, it just didn’t catch on with consumers. Of course, go up to 2007 and Apple introduced its own industry-revolutionizing phone, the iPhone. Designed with iTunes and apps in mind, the iPhone is Apple’s best selling product, making it one of the world’s best selling products and one of the best product launches of anything by any company in history. The iPhone definitely got it’s influence from the ROKR phone considering they are both phones and they both are supported by iTunes. It was one of the only product that people haven’t liked by Apple in recent years, but it provided an influence for their top-selling product.

MobileMe

I noticed I wasn’t adding any software blunders so I thought I would discuss this one. I covered the end of MobileMe a little while ago and it wasn’t something people were too upset about. Being an under-updated, not well kept up service that didn’t do much and costing you $99 a year, it was unpopular. It was a service not many were using, it didn’t have any good iOS integration. But it’s successor did. iCloud was introduced in 2011 and has sine become very well integrated between iOS and Mac devices keeping both of them well integrated with each other. Both OSs are built with each other in mind and iCloud helps with that. iCloud, unlike MobileMe, is very well integrated in both Mac and iOS and this was ultimately the downfall of MobileMe.

You see, Apple has had many blunders in the past so Apple is certainly not a perfect company. However, if the failed product was a good idea but it was just executed poorly, Apple was able to take whatever it could from the failed product (the good idea) and execute it again and make it better, which in almost all cases (Cube to the mini, Portable to the MacBook, ROKR to iPhone, MobileMe to iCloud and Newton to iPad (which I did not mention)) were improved on and made Apple a lot of Apple. What is so insanely great about Apple is that it almost always makes insanely great products but if it makes one that isn’t so great it can learn from its mistakes and if the idea is good, execute it better, if the idea is just bad, they just drop it. Apple has done that very well. As for the Newton and iOS, stay tuned for another exciting article from Anonymous (no, not the group) that will talk about the evolution of the Newton and it’s influence on future products.

Thanks for reading,

Joe

Happy Birthday iPhone

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Happy Birthday iPhone. While you were announced in January of 2007, you were not released until June 29th. With just 5 versions of the iPhone since its release, it has created one of the biggest world-wide phenomenons. Nothing from Apple matched iPods success until the iPhone. As a matter of fact, Steve Jobs created the iPhone to protect his music investment. It worked. The iPhone is one of the most successful media players on the planet. The iPhone has been severely cutting into the iPods success. Apple may be the ultimate leader in the music player market but the market is shrinking. The iPod, while it is a success, is no longer as important as it used to be for Apple’s success. They still need to keep the iPod line around for a while, but there might be a day where iPhone outshines it completely.

Apple has sold an estimate of 250 million iPhones. That is 1/28th of the population of the world. The iPhone has provided an astonishing $150 billion worth of revenue for Apple, an incredible amount. The amount of iPhones sold and the amount of revenue will only continue to rise in the coming years. The iPhone is a huge part of Apple’s business and would not be as successful today if it wasn’t for it. I bet you all of the Flashaholics and naysayers are wishing they thought about what they were saying before they said it when they called out the iPhone.

Of course, the iPhone would not be as successful today if Apple didn’t create the biggest App Store in the world. There are currently over 650,000 apps on the App Store, a very incredible feat for only being around for a little over 4 years (the App Store was released along side iPhone 3G, Apples 2nd Gen iPhone). There have been over 30,000,000,000 (30 billion) downloads on the App Store alone. Since its release, Apple has made billions off of the Apps on the store. Apps on the iPhone make the iPhone, the iPhone.

Due to all of these apps being sold, the iPhone has assisted people in everything from internet browsing, finding new places, taking excellent photos and editing them like a professional, keeping occupied with games in the office (just don’t tell the boss:), keeping in touch with people, helping kids learn, helping autistic people (children and adults), helping people see their sick grandma or aunt or whoever, while still being thousands of miles away, assisting blind people, assisting deaf people and just making the lives of millions easier. The iPhone has truly changed the world. Apple didn’t just reinvent the phone, they reinvented the world.

Thanks for reading,

Joe

Are iPhones going to eventually kill iPods? As in the case of evolution, the stronger defeat the weaker

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I’m worried for iPod. He’s been left out of the picture for a long time, almost forgotten. The iPod shuffle recently just got over an identity crisis. He forgot his buttons little while ago but has since recovered it. iPod nano is struggling to stay in people’s pockets, since he’s so small. The iPod classic, well he’s just the same.

The iPods are now desperate for the once undivided attention it once had before iPhone and iPad came along and became very popular. Apple products have worked like a clocks in the past when it comes to releases, iPhone in June, iPad in April and a new line of iPods in September/October area. However, it’s been 7 months since then and the iPods have still received little attention even from people outside Apple. I think Apple is beginning to abandon the iPod. But how could it abandon the one product that basically made it a technology company competitor, one that has changed many industries, the music industry included. Because it has a better device to take over. It has iOS devices to take over. And yes this does include iPod touch.

Even the nano has a iOS-like interface. Apple is probably running out of ideas for the new iPods. I mean as I reported to you in a recent article, the only iPod that would see change would be the iPod touch. Apple has the overall monopoly in music players, but is that really important anymore? I think that if Apple were to cancel all iPods besides the Touch and maybe the shuffle, I don’t think they would care very much. Apple is supposedly going to introduce a three inch touch screen device which could be a variation of an iPod nano but I think they will kill the iPod name in the process. They might have iTouch and iTouch air (the supposed three inch device). Apple will probably not kill the line just yet, perhaps in the next few years, but he is becoming more and more forgotten about.

Thanks for reading,

Joe

Apple iPhone 5 (what to possibly expect)

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While little is truly known about the iPhone 5, most fans expect Apple’s next-generation smartphone to be revolutionary. Even game-changing/ all-powerful. But, since Apple keeps stays strictly confidential about the unveiling, the best I can do is follow the rumor mill and try to separate fact from fiction. In this article, I will round up everything I know about the iPhone 5– from the release date, to the phone’s form factor and design, to it’s software features– and try to give you a picture of what to expect from the iPhone 5 later on this year.

Release Date: Early this month, Reuters reported that Apple has plans to unveil the new iPhone “around the second quarter” of 2012. This latest report contradicted an earlier report from Japanese blog Macotakara, which believed, citing inside sources from the company’s supply chain, Apple would release the iPhone 5 in September or October, effectively abandoning mid-year iPhone launches for a 11-month upgrade cycle starting in the fall. Apple’s last iPhone, the iPhone 4s, was the first Apple smartphone released outside the summer months; the original iPhone, as well as the iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4, were all released in either June or July. While there is no clear reason why the 4s was the only iPhone released in the fall, analysts believe the Cupertino-based company attempted to implement LTE into the phone, and failed. Now, it would seem the company will wait a full year until its next iPhone.
Design and Form Factor: On March 21, Apple had reportedly ordered 4.6 inch screens, to be featured in the company’s next iPhone. The report came from a South Korean Publication. Two days later, a new report from iMore’s editor-in-chief Rene Ritchie stated the iPhone 5 retains the current 3.5 inch screen– the same size as all previous generation iPhones– but Apple added a few new features, which are unknown.
Features 4G LTE: Long-Term Evolution is a foregone conclusion for the iPhone 5, given that Apple introduced the high-speed network on it’s new iPad, released on March 16. LTE features significantly higher download and upload speeds compared to 3G technologies, but previous implementations of LTE in smartphones tended to ravage battery life, which was a major complaint from users. If Apple wanted LTE in the iPhone 4s at the time, it would have been forced to increase the phone’s thickness to accommodate a larger circuit board and a bigger battery.
New Patents: Apple’s next iPhone may also include a number of the company’s recently granted patents. Apple won a major patent on March 6 for a piece of technology called “iWallet” which is a digital system that gives users complete control over their subsidiary financial accounts on their iPhones, and also leverages Near-field Communication (NFC) technology to complete credit card transactions directly on the phone as well. The iPhone might also be the first phone to feature a new piece of software for multi-player gaming.

Thanks for reading,

Dillon