Apple’s newest iPhone reveal has come and gone, leaving the world with two new handsets due from Cupertino. There is also a launch date available, both for Apple’s new phones and iOS 7. The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C will be up for pre-order this Friday, on 13 September, with a shipping date of 20 September in the States, while iOS 7 will become available from 18 September, just in time for the iPhone 5S rush.
Colour seems to be a theme of the new range from Apple, the iPhone 5S will be shipping in gold, silver or a shade called “space grey”. But the shade of the phone is largely unimportant compared to the changes that have been made. For starters, the iPhone 5S will feature a 64-bit architecture, thanks to the new A7 chip at its heart.The company has also added an M7 coprocessor, which takes care of “motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass” and which will apparently result in a longer battery life in addition to sparing the CPU some effort.
The 5S’ camera has also been tweaked, featuring a new 8MP sensor that Apple says is 15% larger than previous outings because of the 1.5 micro pixels it contains. They’ve increased the aperture to ƒ/2.2 and there a a new dual-LED True Tone flash which is supposed to be capable of some fancy trick when it comes to preserving colour balances in images.
iOS 7 is standard, of course, and Apple has also introduced Touch ID, a fingerprint scanner which lives in the home button. Users will be able to unlock the phone, verify their identities for purchases and the 5S will also support multiple fingers and users in Touch ID.
A rather more colourful addition to Apple’s range of devices is the iPhone 5C. With a launch price of $99 (just shy of R1,000 at today’s exchange rates) on contract in the States, the 4-inch polycarbonate phone is definitely aimed at capturing the lower end of the market. The 5C will feature a Retina display, an A6 CPU and LTE, along with an 8MP iSight camera.
Though the iPhone 5C seems impressive regarding its contract pricing, the phone will retail for $549 (R5,500) outside of contract overseas, according to The Verge. Just what pricing local fans will have remains to be seen.
