The iPhone 5S is far from exciting. || The Fix

So I spent a large part yesterday jumping up and down about the Apple event that was about to happen and spent the rest watching and writing about this event.

Well, those of you that read my take on the iPhone 5C , you’d already know my disposition towards the devices that were announced.

As I tell everybody who would listen, if you had seen my what to expect video, you’d know what to expect.

I think I was 100% right about the iPhone 5C though. But as for the iPhone 5S, I made a few wrong predictions which I shall point out as I hook you up with the new flagship.

The iPhone 5S is the same size and weight as the previous phone [the iPhone 5], has the same screen, the pretty much the same camera. I predicted wrongly for all these things. I assumed that it would be thinner, lighter, better display and a major camera upgrade to like 12MP or something.

The camera got some upgrades though; it’s still 8MP, but with f/2.2 aperture, 15-percent larger sensor, 10fps burst, Tru Tone dual-LED flash. So yeah, it’s supposed to take better pictures.

It’s coming with iOS 7 and apart from what I think about the way the OS looks, I haven’t tried it out extensively so I’m not gonna say much.

And we’re getting 3 colours: White, Gold and Silver/Gray

Also, the new phone is coming with a new processor called the A7 as expected which is 64 bit and supposed to be 2 times faster. To be frank, the processor being 64 bit doesn’t directly mean its gonna be faster. A devices kinda needs 4GB or more RAM to really benefit from 64 bit architecture.

“For all the noted new features of the iPhone 5S, this 64-bit switch is almost entirely marketing fluff. It’s not 

going to be the key to the SoC’s higher performance. That’ll come from architectural improvements Apple integrates into the phone’s handling of 32-bit code for at least the next 6-12 months.”

There’s also an M7 chip [motion co-processor]. The M7 contains the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass, thus replacing the third-party components that Apple previously relied on. Basically, this is another feature the iPhone is getting last. Seems Nike is taking advantage of this and creating a new app for the iPhone.

The iPhone 5S will have 10 hours of 3G talk time, 10 hours of LTE browsing. [Which isn't really impressive]

But there’s one feature that the new device is getting that’s worth making noise about. Albeit not too much noise because well, it doesn’t much apart from what it does.

The phone is getting a fingerprint sensor embedded right into the home button. The tech is dubbed the Touch ID.

“Touch ID can read your fingerprint in any orientation, scans at 500 dpi, and scans your sub-epidermal skin layers (no word on what underlying scanning technology they’re using to achieve this, though). Touch ID can be used to unlock your iPhone 5S, and also to access your keychain — to log into iTunes, for example.

From the demo video, the sensor is pretty quick at identifying your fingerprint. As you can see, the inclusion of the sensor also means that the Home button is now flat, rather than concave — whether this will affect the ergonomics of the button or not, we’ll have to wait and see.”

That my friends is the closest thing to a mindblowing feature on the new phone.

And people complain that Samsung put too many features in the S4. How can adding features you aren’t being forced to use be a problem? As long as they don’t get in the way, fine.

But Apple has other ideas:

Why don’t we take the old phone, mess with the sensor of the camera then slap on a largely useless fingerprint scanner and charge a lot more than anybody else is for the phone?

The phone is going to cost $199 16GB, $299 32GB, $399 64GB on contract and $650 unlocked.

See ehn, my fellow Nigerians..it would be wise to ignore this phone. People abroad might not ignore it because they can get it on contract and that seems cheaper.

I won’t lie, I’m largely disappointed. I was really hoping for something that would make me look at the S4 or the HTC One and spit. They’re not even the best at form factor and build anymore, HTC has that down for now.

But it’s not my opinion that matters the most, what do you guys think?

Let me know in the comments.

[image credit: The Verge

excerpts from ExtremeTech]