Apple announce the iPhone 5

As expected, Apple have announced the latest iPhone at an event in San Francisco. The phone incorporates several hardware and design changes – let’s have a look!

4″ widescreen display

The most noticeable difference between iPhone 5 and previous iPhones is the size of the screen. The iPhone 5 includes an elongated 4″ display, the result of Apple making the screen tall enough to fit a fifth row of icons. The new resolution is 1136 x 640, a 16:9 aspect ratio that’s commonly found in HD video content like films and YouTube, games and of course most major smartphones. On specifications alone the screen seems similar to that in the Galaxy S3, with a very similar pixel density – the S3’s screen is both larger and higher resolution, and both displays are above that 300 pixels per inch ‘Retina’ label. The screen is thinner than most of its competitors, too, which contributes greatly to the phone’s overall dimensions.

18% thinner, 20% lighter

And this is definitely a thin phone. Despite the boost in screen size, the iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever produced. It measures just 7.6 mm in thickness, compared to the 9.3 mm of the previous generation iPhone. It’s also much lighter, at 112 g instead of 140 g. This adds up to a very diminutive presence in the hand, which is weird at first but just allows you to notice the screen more. The chassis has seen some other additions too – there’s now a glass band at the top and bottom of the back, granting a two-tone design that looks excellent in photos and in person. It does seem a little less ‘Apple’, though.

A smaller dock connector called Lightning

The bottom of the phone contains the dock connector as before, but after nine years Apple have switched to a new smaller connector. It’s a reversible 8 pin design that is something like 20% of the size of the old connector, allowing for the headphone jack to be moved to the very bottom of the phone. The speaker grilles have also been enlarged, and now are different sizes on the left and right. While the trend seems to be more towards wireless and Bluetooth connections to speaker systems, you can buy an adapter for $29 to change to the older style of connector. Of course, the new chassis and connector means that you’ll need a new iPhone 5 case.

ARM A6 processor doubles performance

Inside the phone we’re also seeing some changes. Apple have boosted the speed of the iPhone 5’s processor, resulting in roughly double the performance across the board, from system tasks to gaming. That’s thought to be the result of the inclusion of two new ARM A15 cores on Samsung’s 32 nm process. We also expect that the iPhone 5 has doubled the core count of its PowerVR graphics component, meaning we could be seeing an iPhone with quad-core graphics. Exact information on these components hasn’t yet been made available, so expect to hear more on this front if you’re a boffin like me who enjoys that kind of thing.

Launches with LTE support in the UK

Besides the boosted system performance, one of the biggest changes is the introduction of a single Qualcomm chip that supports both high speed LTE 4G data connections and ‘wideband’ HD Voice for better cellular call quality.

The LTE iPhone 5 will be launching in the UK exclusively on Everything Everywhere, which is now known as EE. According to a press event held yesterday, EE will be launching their service in four UK cities – Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and London – in the upcoming weeks, with more major cities expected to be added before the end of the year. EE are also working  on expanding coverage too, with an estimated 98% 4G coverage area by 2014. This means it might be worthwhile to get an LTE iPhone now, even if your area hasn’t received 4G coverage – but I digress.

Back to the iPhone 5! As well as support for LTE, Apple have also boosted its wireless networking capabilities, allowing the new phone to operate over the 5 GHz spectrum with a new dual antenna layout that should boost Wi-Fi speeds considerably.

Upgrades to photos, audio and video

Another big area of improvement for the iPhone 5 comes to its camera system. While the megapixel count remains fixed at 8, there is a new Sapphire lens with a dynamic IR filter and low light mode. That should result in better low light performance. Photography has also been improved through the new processor, with a ‘next-generation’ image signal processor and 40% faster photo capture. There are also additions on the software side, including a Panorama mode that creates 28 megapixel images and the new ability to take pictures while recording video. Finally, video performance of the front-facing camera has improved to 720p HD and rear-facing video has better image stabilisation.

Audio performance also seems to have been a focus with the iPhone 5. There are now three microphones instead of the customary two, on the bottom, front and back. This should allow for better noise cancellation. The in-ear headphones that have shipped with every iPod and iPhone for many years have also finally been meaningfully upgraded, to the new ‘Earpods’. These have a single ported driver instead of a traditional speaker grille, and should therefore provide better sonic performance.

Battery life improved

With all of this new tech and a thinner, lighter phone you might be wondering about battery life. In customary Apple fashion, they have improved the battery life despite their other changes. The phone is now good for 8 hours of talk time or 3G internet use, 10 hours of video playback and 40 hours of audio playback. LTE will presumably result in slightly worse results.

iOS 6 on board

Of course, as well as these hardware changes we’re also seeing a move to iOS 6, which was announced earlier this year as the WorldWide Developer Conference (WWDC). Not much new was announced here, but expect Passbook for managing boarding passes, tickets and merchant cards, tighter Facebook integration and a few other new tweaks.

A UK price and release date

The one thing that hasn’t been announced is a price for the UK. Pre-orders start on Friday, but only US prices have been announced thus far. Here the iPhone 5 follows the same price path as its predecessor – you’ll be able to get the new iPhone 5 under contract in the US for $199, adding $100 for each extra bump in storage from 16 GB to 32 or 64. We’ll update this article with the UK prices once they become available.

What do you think?

So there you have it – the iPhone 5! Will you be picking one up when pre-orders begin on Friday? Let us know in the comments below and thanks for sticking with me through this 1000 word article. Have a good one!