Apple’s greatest skill is the ability to make your current smartphone feel immediately out-of-date. The new iPhone 5 has finally been announced for a Sept. 14 release date, and it has rabid Apple fans blowing up social networks already.
At first glance, the new phone looks very similar to the iPhone 4, which is surprising because Apple often makes sure to make the phone look very different each time. The phone is still square with rounded edges, but it is noticeably thinner and about an inch longer.
The extra length is to accommodate for the new 4-inch retina display that looks fantastic when viewing photos or video. When turned on its side, the longer screen gives a widescreen effect for HD movies or TV shows.
“I’m looking forward to the new screen,” senior engineering major Jainesh Singh said. “The screen not being bright enough was my No. 1 problem.”
Although the phone is now longer, the width has not changed at all, which makes it look rather strange in the user’s hand. According to the video on Apple’s website, not changing the phone’s width should make sure the phone is still useable in one hand, which makes sense, but the phone still looks a bit silly.
Apple has also made the phone almost 20 percent thinner and noticeably lighter to make up for the added length. However, it is unknown how the new extended length of the phone will affect the feel of it in your pockets.
The phone looks just as sleek and shiny as expected from an Apple product. The back panel has been changed from pure glass to matte aluminum with glass accents. Hopefully this will do away with the annoying broken back panels that many iPhone 4 users have had to deal with in the past few years.
The phone is going to be noticeably faster with the addition of 4G LTE capability and a new A6 processor, which is supposedly going to give it twice the computing and graphics performance. They have also added more RAM, so multitasking between apps will be faster than ever.
The iPhone camera now has a sapphire crystal lens cover, an 8-megapixel sensor and a low-light mode. In layman’s terms, it is much faster and looks better. The camera on the front has also been updated to 720p with face detection. This will make it even easier to detect wrinkles and blemishes on your own face while attempting to Facetime with someone.
Another new feature with Facetime is its availability through a wireless connection instead of just through WiFi. This means that it is now possible to walk around video-chatting with someone wherever you are, but hopefully this doesn’t lead to more people wandering into the road or banging into telephone poles.
The computer companion Siri has also been updated. She can now deliver sports scores, make dinner reservations and launch apps herself. The speed and accuracy of Siri’s responses remains to be a mystery.
There was a lot of speculation leading up to the phone’s release, some stranger than others.
“I heard there’s going to be a fingerprint scanner, which is exciting,” junior film major Miles Vandusen said. “If I wasn’t poor, I’d buy it.”
Whether or not there is a fingerprint scanner has not been announced, but there are a lot of exciting features for Apple fans to geek out over.
For Apple fanatics, this new update will be one of the most exciting highlights of their year. For others, it may seem ridiculous that people are making such a big deal out of the announcement of a new cell phone.
Still, one thing is certain: Apple is still the king of electronics hype, and the company shows no signs of stopping.
