The iPhone 5S and 5C

http://daringfireball.net/2013/09/the_iphone_5s_and_5c

by xenophanes • 13 years ago

118 96 13 years ago

bobbles• 13 years ago

I'm happy about the comments related to the home button being an upgrade regardless of the scanner. I was worried about the feel of the button with the changes.

hbbio• 13 years ago

"With the iPhone 5C Apple [...] created [...] year-old technology, [...] sold at premium prices[...]. Not bad."

For Apple.

siglesias• 13 years ago

I think Gruber's point about "Apple not innovating anymore" is especially apt. One needn't look beyond the diff quality between iPhones (or iPad!) under Jobs. The diffs have held constant, if not increased, under Cook [1]. I think this tech crowd fancies itself rational and immune to mythologizing, but claiming things were once better in the face of the hard facts is doing just that.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258275

netcan2• 13 years ago

I don't really. I agree that it's too early to tell, but his argument reads a little strawman-ish. IE, the haters that call the post Jobs releases incremental, would have called the ipad "just a big iPhone.”

I think thats a little silly. There clearly is a difference between an incremental update of a product from a 5th to 6th generation (which is also hard, important and can be impressive or unimpressive) and a release or update that is a Big Deal in the way the iphone 1 was a big deal.

The reality is that under Jobs, Apple did some big things. Macs (which you you might call several big things). ipods, iphones, ipads. These all had very big impacts on technology, economy & culture. You can't expect these kinds of things to keep coming every three years. Maybe they would have stopped even with Jobs. But, at some point, a post Jobs Big Thing needs to happen.

I saw needs to happen and that's a little harsh. Realistically, Apple are an enormous company. Several very successful product lines that can carry them a long way, perhaps through several successful CEOs. Incremental improvement on those product lines is not the end of the world. There's no reason the iphones and ipads can't last as long as macs.

Samuel_Michon6• 13 years ago

I believe the new Mac Pro is post-Jobs Apple’s first big thing. It’s not a consumer device and it won’t sell tens of millions, but it is a completely new computer with a radically different philosophy than how Apple built workstations before.

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

"Jackass-finity" -- Gruber sure does have a way with words, I think that at least is undeniable. What a great neologism in the midst of a great argument.

valleyer• 13 years ago

Actually, that portion seemed pretty puerile and unimaginative to me.

gms• 13 years ago

Regarding 'no more innovation at Apple', this comment from 12 years ago is apt: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22940&cid=2467238

stevewillows2• 13 years ago

Apple is being distroyed [sic] by the rumors that are being created. When they announce that they are going to have a new product, everyone thinks it's going to blow their worlds. Rumors start flooding in about even the most outragous products ( I even heard a few "sources" mention teleportion) This is getting plain stupid.
Apple is a normal company. Why does the public constantly expect them do the impossible?

Great line!

The hype around Apple products fuels both sides of the fence.

enscr• 13 years ago

They (Apple) ask for it with words like "this changes everything" & "most forward looking". The truth is, Apple folks love the aura & being put on a pedestal. They do not want to be treated like a normal company.

mrmaddog• 13 years ago

I really enjoy Gruber's holistic reviews of Apple's new devices. He doesn't attempt to be Anandtech (whose reviews I found thoroughly engrossing and well written), but rather he paints a picture of how the device feels and how it fits into Apple's larger strategy, which I find equally important.

One interesting thing I've discovered about Gruber's columns is that you often have to read between the lines and get accustomed to how he presents his narrative. Praise for Apple is freely handed out, weaknesses are noted, and praise for other companies is guarded (when said company is in competition with Apple). For example, he notes the weaknesses of Siri in a generally positive sentence, and states that "Google Now is faster." I think he would agree that Google Now is not only faster, but also provides better results with better comprehension, and really the only downside is that you can't access it with a long-hold on the home button. That's not something I'd expect Gruber to say. However, once I recognized how he couches his concerns, I've found that he has some of the most insightful, nuanced and thoroughly processed views about Apple overall.

hop2• 13 years ago

Yeah, he notably left out the elephant in the room that is the 4in screen.

nwh2• 13 years ago

Elephant to you, not to him.

jvzr• 13 years ago

To each his own. I'd pay an extra $100 to get a 3.5-inch screen. 4-inch is too much and forces me to move up my palm.

leoc3• 13 years ago

Similarly I note that he emphasises how other people are going to like the new colours, but says little about what he thinks of them himself: "bright and friendly" is about the most of it. Does he actually not like them very much? Likewise, there's nothing much about the new iOS 7 aesthetic. Maybe that's because the OS is meant to be a topic for other posts, but you'd expect a holistic, design-centred review of the 5C to at least note that iOS 7 (especially the home screen icons, but not only them) and the 5C have been designed to match each other visually. (In a way that the iOS 7 and the 5S don't, significantly.) Gruber was one of the people who was holding out the hope of significant changes to the appearance of the beta iOS 7; now that (afaics) it's largely unchanged, is he biting his tongue?

yalogin• 13 years ago

The one piece of information from here that is new about the TouchID -

"And what is stored in that secure location are not fingerprint images, but cryptographically hashed values, unique both to your finger’s biometric data and the device itself on which you scanned it. Even if someone does figure out how to obtain the fingerprint data from the secure storage on your iPhone, that fingerprint data should prove useless anywhere but on the unique Touch ID sensor on the iPhone itself"

Always thought it will be done this way. But "security experts" just assumed it will be stored on disk in "consumable" form and warned not to use it ever.

yaeger3• 13 years ago

So, I have a credit card attached to my iTunes account. Say my phone with TouchID gets stolen.

If what is said holds true, the absolute worst case scenario that could happen is that the thief actually hacks the device and gains access to the storage place of the encrypted hashes that should only be accessible by the sensor itself. He then somehow reverses this hash into a form that the iOS system would expect to come from the sensor. Then, he would be able to forego to fingerprint sensor and send the spoofed fingerprint signal to the system, making it seem like the owner touched the sensor. And since he now has access to my phone, he can do everything someone can do with an unlocked iPhone plus make purchases with my iTunesID.

This spoofed signal should be useless anywhere else outside the iOS system. I very much doubt that someone could re-factor this hash into an actual image of a fingerprint.

And if I get my phone stolen, TouchID or not, I would of course go and a) remote wipe the device which I hope includes the deletion of these encrypted fingerprint hashes and b) Maybe cancel the credit card attached to the iTunes account.

BHSPitMonkey• 13 years ago

That's not new. It was painstakingly clarified during the announcement keynote and the promotional video (you know, the one with Jony Ive in an empty white void) which released during the announcement.

acabal• 13 years ago

The issue is more a one of trust, as pretty much all computer security issues boil down to. Apple (and Gruber) says one thing; but since the code is not available for inspection, and since you presumably can't alter the code on your actual iPhone, you must take what they're saying at their word.

Whether or not you want to do that is entirely up to you. The overwhelming majority of people wouldn't think twice about trusting Apple. But, as has been has revealed, government influences are powerful and are already deeply (and secretly) entwined with private enterprise. To snidely dismiss people warning you about who to really, truly trust with things as fundamentally identifiable of you as your fingerprint is doing yourself, and them, a disservice in the post-Snowden era.

r0h1n• 13 years ago

Gruber gets my goat like very few other writers do.

Not because he's wrong, because he's usually right.

Not because he's shallow, because he's usually very deep and insightful.

Not because he's rude, because he's polite even when dismissing other's stupid observations.

It's in spite of all this.

I think it's because I know before reading a Gruber piece what its conclusion will be, namely "Apple did something great, amazing and innovative. Here's how and why."

There's no surprise in his conclusions. If it's about an Apple product or decision, I know what the ending will be.

P.S. Sure there may be a few times when Gruber has criticized Apple, but to me they feel statistically insignificant.

cremnob2• 13 years ago

That says more about Apple than it does Gruber.

bronson• 13 years ago

What does it say about Apple? That they can do no wrong?

yaeger3• 13 years ago

Agreed. You can see that he criticizes Apples cloud offerings. iCloud, Siri. They still have to mature and improve.

But the rest, I agree with Gruber 100% that it is apparent that Apple does not play the specs game like other companies simply to have a nice spec sheet you can read off like a Baseball trading card. They put in their devices things that are "fast enough" to achieve what they want to achieve. And it is apparent they are very good at that seeing as what kind of performance and thus resulting user experience they can get out of the hardware they use.

I still remember the times Android fans were raving just how much faster their phones were compared to iPhones just because it said so in the spec sheets. But when you actually used them, you would have a hard time not to laugh at just how jittery and overall unpleasant it was navigating through the Android UI. It was no contest compared to the iPhones back then.

huhtenberg• 13 years ago

You don't bite the hand that feeds you.

ZeroGravitas3• 13 years ago

And yet he constantly attacks advertising-based products ... of which his blog is one, though he did try, and fail, to make it subscription only at one point.

If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer!

izietto2• 13 years ago

The thing that irritates me is that he pretends to be an indipendent point of view, but he actually isn't.

simonh4• 13 years ago

Given that it's obviously possible to independently agree with most of what Apple does and think that that what they are doing will be successful (which in reality has turned out to be the case), what exactly is it you're accusing Gruber of?

robmcm3• 13 years ago

It takes something like Google Now for Gruber to realise Siri isn't great.

He does bash Apple for their services frequently.

joeblau• 13 years ago

There are a few few features, hardware and software, that Apple is behind in, even with the release of the 5S. Most of the software can be downloaded and installed on the phone. The hardware (I'm thinking about the camera) can not.

rednukleus2• 13 years ago

I think Gruber is usually either wrong, or right for the wrong reasons.

His articles read like he is constructing a narrative to fit a particular conclusion and world view. The people that I know in advertising/marketing all know that a lot of what they say is bullshit. I imagine its the same with Gruber - I dont think even Gruber believes Gruber.

Steko3• 13 years ago

It's not John Gruber's fault that Apple hits all these home runs. When Jordan's Bulls won title after title it wasn't hard for sports fans and journalists to keep saying how they were the best.

Eventually Apple is going to strike out with a major release but, at as far as phones go, this wasn't the year.

tghw2• 13 years ago

Actually, it is his fault, at least partially.

If Apple was judged on its merits, instead of through the reality distortion field, and managed to hit it out of the park every time, that would be one thing. But that's not how it works.

Apple has its cadre of reviewers, Gruber included, that manage to find something good to say no matter what Apple does, generally ignoring or whitewashing over the negatives.

Remember Apple Maps? It was a disaster. People got fired over it. Yet, Gruber found a way to write positively about it.

mbesto• 13 years ago

There's no surprise in his conclusions. If it's about an Apple product or decision, I know what the ending will be.

And so was Titanic, Avatar, etc...

You should read the Life of Pi. Storytelling is very powerful.

Kurtz792• 13 years ago

I'm cool with the fact that he obviously likes Apple products and gives them unsurprisingly positive reviews.

It's annoying however how he dismisses as "Apple bashers" whoever does not agree with his opinion (and I speak as an iPhone/iPad/Macbook owner).

reginaldjcooper• 13 years ago

I use a MBP as my main computer and I regard Gruber articles as no more than an occasional reminder that Hell has not yet frozen over nor do pigs fly.

barrkel• 13 years ago

What annoys me about his writing is the smugness, usually encoded via presuppositions of Apple superiority implicit in what he writes.

Tichy• 13 years ago

I've got an idea how to pick a color for the bike shed: match the color of my iPhone 5c. Thank you, Apple, for resolving that problem once and for all.

matthewmacleod• 13 years ago

The uninformed complaints about the use of a 64-bit ISA in ARMv8 have been rather irritating, given we didn't know how it would play out in practice. It seems that the performance increase of the 5S is pretty spectacular; the iPhone 5 is already FAST.

rsynnott2• 13 years ago

I think a lot of people were (a) fuelled by a desire to complain about Apple as much as possible and (b) were assuming that ARMv8 was an AMD64-type transition or even a SPARC64-type transition, rather than a totally new ISA.

That said, from Anandtech's article, it looks like most of the speed boost is from microarchitectural improvements, rather than use of the new ISA; ARMv7 code shows most of the speedup.

sfjailbird2• 13 years ago

I disagree. The new iPhones are muddying up the picture and losing the distinctiveness of the iPhone - it is less and less an instantly recognizable phone, and since social signaling has always been a large part of iPhone marketing and image, that is a mistake. In the same vein, cheaper models kill the exclusiveness of the brand. In a way the gold model illustrates this shift perfectly, flying in the face of Apple's longtime 'tasteful and minimalist' philosophy and towards mass market.

Of course, this might be a calculated move to move away from exclusivity, in which case those things make sense. But that would be a little baffling in itself, given the huge profit margins a premium brand commands (while still having huge market share in Apple's case) compared to any old mass market device.

yaeger3• 13 years ago

it is less and less an instantly recognizable phone

How so? People were already using cases that camouflage the device somewhat.

cheaper models kill the exclusiveness of the brand

This is the thing, there have already been "cheaper models". With every year when a new version comes out, the old ones got cheaper. Don't they give out the 4 or 4S for free with a contract right now?

You might also have heard bickering that the 5C is not the "cheap iPhone" everybody expected. Seeing as it is priced not nearly anywhere you would call "cheap".

Instead of continuing this behavior of simply keeping last years version of the phone around and selling them cheaper, Apple now decided to not do that this year and instead try and vamp up the old phone a bit so as to not just go "yeah, this is our new phone and of course the old one you already know but now, it gets a little cheaper"

sfjailbird2• 13 years ago

People were already using cases that camouflage the device somewhat.

It's more about the actual offering - the iPhone - that Apple makes. The more crisp this idea is in the head of consumers, the better the positioning. It is more difficult for a product to be iconic the more variations of it there are.

the old ones get cheaper

Again, it is about what Apple's offering is. I don't think selling out old inventory interferes with the idea of what their current offering is. In fact the better defined each model is, the easier to distinguish last year's model from the current one.

the 5C is not the "cheap iPhone" everybody expected. Seeing as it is priced not nearly anywhere you would call "cheap".

It is still cheaper, so now the iPhone I show off only signals that I spent whatever the cheapest model costs. Might not be a huge difference but I still believe it hurts important signaling value that used to be attached to the iPhone.

dagw• 13 years ago

every year when a new version comes out, the old ones got cheaper

Cheaper sure, but not cheap. At least in Sweden even the old 8GB iPhone 4 costs more than the Samsung SIII.

leoc3• 13 years ago

It's certainly interesting. It basically seems to be translating the old Macintosh consumer/"pro" division to the iPhone: remember the choice between a white plastic MacBook and a brushed-metal MacBook Pro? Now, everyone I knew who could afford it bought an MBP even if they weren't "pros" in any relevant sense, or any sense at all, but the Pro label probably helped to soften the impression of business-class/economy-class stratification. If anything the new 5S seems to be pursuing luxury-brand status more wholeheartedly than the MBP - the famous gold-finish 5S seems to gesture broadly in the direction of blingphones like the http://www.vertu.com/ Vertu. It is certainly a change from the old, (notionally) classless and one-for-all image of the iPod.

Of course, this might be a calculated move to move away from exclusivity, in which case those things make sense. But that would be a little baffling in itself, given the huge profit margins a premium brand commands (while still having huge market share in Apple's case) compared to any old mass market device.

On the one hand, it seems the smartphone market has now matured to the point where Apple can't just charge the same margins and hope to maintain the same sales and ("Developers! Developers! Developers!") market share. Probably because the remaining big growth in smartphones is now in developing economies, especially in China. Tim Cook talked quite a lot about China at the iPhone 5S/C launch. (Meanwhile many US and other saturated-economy consumers are probably a bit more price-sensitive now too, aware of decent Android 4.x alternatives at lowish prices.) The consumer/"pro" split allows the cheaper, more-mass-market iPhone to have a design and a branding which makes it desirable in its own right, allows it to look up-to-date rather than stuck on whatever was fashionable 18 or 24 months ago, and makes it less obviously a hand-me-down product. Meanwhile, the high-end iPhone can maintain its price premium and its halo of desirability - in fact it its image can now be more clearly exclusive than before. (So matching the increasing "one-percentisation" of society: two birds with one stone.) Yes, this means there are now two iPhone sub-brands rather than just one, but two is not excessively many: it worked rather well for the Mac, after all.

There's also the claims you hear that many Asian markets rather like big, splashy colours, and that they didn't really love the iPhone's relative sombreness. I can't say how true that actually is, but it would stand to reason that in markets where the iPhone was never all that huge the customers would not be all that sold on the mystique of the One True Phone and its unmatchable design, and would quite like Apple to meet them halfway on appearance as well as price.

robmcm3• 13 years ago

I really don't understand his battery life claims. Either he doesn't use his phone much, or he charges it when ever he can.

A true revolation would be a phone that could last days without needing a charge. To my mind it's one of the great features of the iPads, you can leave it on playing video for literally 10 hours, it lasts days with average use.

For all the improvements on processors, screens and cameras we get very little inovation in battery technology and it's stifling the industry.

jamornh• 13 years ago

I would agree to a certain extent. We still have phones that last days before needing a recharge, but they are not smart phones (remember those Nokia candy bar phones?)

However, with the growth of smart phones, it seems that companies are focusing on one-upping each other on specs other than battery life. Most launches have always worked hard to keep the battery life at roughly 8 hours, no more no less, and spend any excess juice on more features. I'm pretty sure that the reason for this is the assumption that people will charge their phones at least once a day anyways, which would be a perfectly fine assumption IF the phones actually DO last 8-10 hours on normal use... but sadly for me, most of these phones usually last 5 hours with the level of intensive use that I put my phone through everyday.

mrich• 13 years ago

Here's where Apple's resistance to larger screens (and bigger smartphones) also bites them: Larger phones can pack much larger batteries, leading to longer battery life (even despite the larger display, which does _not_ consume proportionally more energy). E.g. a Note II will last nearly two full days without a recharge, and you can get 2.5 days of normal use with power savings enabled.

tuananh• 13 years ago

My own experience with Galaxy Mega (5.8) is awful. Its screen is huge; coming from an iPhone 4S yet its battery is terrible; barely last a day (7am til 6pm) with a full recharge.

devx2• 13 years ago

Apple and others could take advantage of the -30 percent or so battery life improvements the next-gen chips are offering them, but none of them do that, because they will cancel it out with all the performance they can squeeze out of it, while not breaking the consumption limit of the previous generation.

robmcm3• 13 years ago

For example I have just hit 20% at 4:15pm, it will be dead by the time I get home.

Therefore I have to charge at work and then it will last until I go to sleep.

andrewfelix• 13 years ago

This guy treats hindsight like prior foresight. He is continuously criticising other people for making bad predictions, but loves to say "I told you so" by cherry picking his own previous observations.

Surprise; Apple made a great device. Gruber loves it, everybody who counters that argument is a 'Jackass' making 'Claim Chowder' and so the world keeps turning.

Samuel_Michon6• 13 years ago

No, it’s not the ‘jackasses’ making ’claim chowder’.

When a tech writer posts a prediction that’s bearish on Apple or bullish on one of its competitors, Gruber might quote him and ‘file it for future claim chowder’. That means that Gruber will revisit the claim later and make chowder out of it.

seclorum• 13 years ago

Take the new iPhone 5C. Turn it over. Look at the position of the Apple logo, and the "iPhone" brand.

Put the case on it. Turn it over, look at the position of the Apple logo, and the "iPhone" brand.

Hint: It looks like crap.

That sort of detail wouldn't have escaped Steve Jobs.

YOSPOS• 13 years ago

Not related, but anyone find it funny that The Verge has no review? Apple probably snubbed them and didn't give them a review unit.

Steko3• 13 years ago

The Verge also held their review last year for Josh's appearance on Fallon.

fl0m• 13 years ago

It's so easy. s means same c means cheap

ateevchopra• 13 years ago

People don't buy products. They buy solutions. And a phone is one of them. One reason apple products are successfull is that they give a solution to wide range of matters. I own an apple and I love it. not because its apple, but because it solves most of their problems. It provides them a great interface, easy solution to most of their problems, great hardware design, great battery life etc etc. Its a complete package and not just one thing.

I guess same is the case with iPhone 5C. it might have same features as the iPhone 5 in the inside, but on the outside it has a new colors. And that give completely different feel to the consumer. I am not in favor/against this kind of thing. But we have to learn that new is always better.

Thats what yahoo is trying to do. they haven't made any new product now. They have just change the feel of their product and i guess its working pretty well for them.

So my fellow entrepreneurs, even though you don't make a new improved product in some time, do change its "feel". Everyone loves change. because it make people curious. And change is the only thing that will never change.

legulere• 13 years ago

How are the new camera features innovation when other smartphones already had them? I think at many points this article is just cringe-worthy apple-fanboyism. how can you ignore that the 5C costs as much as the 5 when it's essentially the same but with plastic instead of metal casing?

albedoa• 13 years ago

how can you ignore that the 5C costs as much as the 5 when it's essentially the same but with plastic instead of metal casing?

In what way — or by whom — has this been ignored?

6ren• 13 years ago

It sounds better, but is ARM actually handling the 64 bit ISA transition better than Intel's Itanium fiasco? (AMD's ISA won).

Also, odd that Gruber doesn't mention graphics, and likelihood that this has an Imagination series 6 "Rogue" GPU.

rsynnott2• 13 years ago

It sounds better, but is ARM actually handling the 64 bit ISA transition better than Intel's Itanium fiasco? (AMD's ISA won).

Yes. There's only one ISA from ARM (ARMv8), and it looks like it'll be adopted; Apple has already made ARMv8 devices, and a number of other companies have said they will in late 2014/early 2015.

omonra• 13 years ago

He's got an interesting niche - essentially being part of Apple PR machine but on the outside. He's writing for people who already decided they will stay with Apple to make them feel good about the decision.

mamcx• 13 years ago

In contrast with the other niche. The anti-Apple PR machine that self-believe are more "independent" minds because are agains it (I don't know you so no take it as for you ;) )

However, I prefer when somebody already acknowledge his position and preferences than when pretend (or worst, truly believe) is more "open minded and fact based". I think is better contrast two opposite positions than two almost-equal ones, but fighting for a narrative, after all.

Is better to start with a clear understanding of our own position then push to improve things.

brohee3• 13 years ago

"And they’ve started a transition to platform-wide 64-bit computing years ahead of their competition."

This guy is really awesome predicting years in advance what Apple's competitors will do.

ZeroGravitas3• 13 years ago

"It feels slick but not slippery".

Well I'm glad it not slippery like all those cheap plastic phones everyone else makes.

But hold on a minute, doesn't slick mean "slippery"?

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slick

The other meanings are strangely apposite too.

dzhiurgis• 13 years ago

The iPhone 5S is, in some measures, computationally superior to the top-of-the-line MacBook Pro from just five years ago. In your fucking pocket.

I wouldn't be so sure, especially after reading this http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow...

The iPhone 5S and 5C

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