iPhone 5S: Why new is ALWAYS better!

Apple always had an eye on the future. iPhone 5S seems to have provided some glimpse of what may be in store.

The wait is finally over. One of the most anticipated iPhone was unveiled at a conference cum launch meet at Cupertino, California. As expected, in general and thanks to the leaked photos being in circulation for months, the phone comes out along expected lines.

The phone comes in 3 colours to choose from: silver, space gray, and gold

The iPhone 5S comes packed with the much improved components under the hood like the new A7 chip (with a significant jump to the 64 bit architecture), much improved camera, ably supported by LED flash and of course the finger print scanner.

Here's what the latest iPhone iteration offers to you.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

1. Processor

The new iPhone 5S made a jump towards the 64 bit architecture instead of trying to get into a one-upmanship race regarding the MHz power alone. Apple claims it to be a first in a smartphone.

The new and improved features on the new iPhone will be requiring better architecture and Apple has definitely kept the future in mind.

With the introduction of the 64 bit iOS7, Apple has given a glimpse as to what is going on inside the brains of the think tanks at the Cupertino firm. The A7 chip is capable of supporting the OPEN GL ES ver 3.0, which doesn't only means snappier graphics but users can look forward to their device rendering graphics to the tune of dedicated gaming consoles.

Apart from these, the new finger print scanner as well as the camera app will derive lot of heft from the newer architecture. All these will need a decent bit of raw power to pull off their acts without being sluggish.

Thanks to the new paradigm, the CPU speed is now claimed to be 40x faster than the debut iPhone handset in 2007 and similarly the GPU is 56x faster.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

2. Co-processor

The iPhone 5S shows another feature to bring about better optimisation for processing and saving battery life.

The M7 co-processor continuously detects and measures motion data from various quarters such as the gyroscope, compass, and the accelerometer to send the data to fitness apps without waking up the main processor.

This nifty trick leads to better battery performance as the workload does not bother the battery-hogging main processor.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

3. The finger print scanner aka Touch ID

The much expected biometric identification module makes its appearance on the apple product. The module has been integrated on iPhone 5's power button. The button itself is made from scratch resistant sapphire, and has a capacitive ring around it which is the main gizmo responsible for scanning fingerprints.

It supports multiple fingerprints so one can share the device with family/close friends without revealing the passcode.

The unlocking mechanism is quick and impressive with its performance. No doubt the new architecture is one of the reason for the snappy performance.

Apple will be banking heavily on this feature to emerge a game changer. The mechanism won't only unlock the phone, but will also assist in purchasing articles from the iTune Store, App Store and even the Book Store.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

4. iOS7 optimised for 64 bit architecture

The iOS7 version on the iPhone 5S is designed to harness the advantages put forth by the new A7 chip. Not only the OS, but also quite a few apps have been optimised similarly as well. Others are expected to follow and the newer ones will definitely be natively bumped up.

The hugely improved camera functionalities and of course the finger print scanner definitely will benefit via the crisp software here. The OS also brings new features like Airdrop, Control Center, the multitasking view, and the new version of Siri.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

5. Improved camera

Seems like this season the camera feature from Apple has been launched with a mission: To raise the bar some serious notches up.

The new 8 MP module has a larger sensor and bigger pixels this time. Which means better capturing of the images and lower post processing times. The f/2.2 aperture means further room for capturing good images in low light conditions as well.

There is image stabilisation as well to reduce the blurry pic effect, and to reduce noise from photographs. Users will be able to shoot pics in a burst mode as well which allows shooting 10 pics per second. To make the deal sweeter, realtime analysis has been roped in which means suggestions will be provided for the best shot(s) from a sequence.

The video department is not bare either. Users can shoot slow motion videos at 720p and going at 120 frame per second. Live video zoom up to 3x as well as live filters are there to assist while in the midst of a videography task.

Such a feature-rich camera app needs to be ably supported with ample peripheral hardware as well, and apple has provided true tone flash which basically will consist of a dual LED mechanism: One White LED and the other being amber LED.

The LEDs will work according to an algorithm's 1,000 different combinations to adjust the flash intensity and provide accurate colour temperature. In a nutshell, you have the warm as well cool light effect for your camera usage.

The front-facing camera for the iPhone 5S consists of a new 1.2 MP camera. This camera comes with a backside illumination sensor to assist the users in low light image capturing. This camera too is capable of HD video recording at 720p resolution.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.

6. Improved battery performance

The iPhone 5S's battery claims to be offering a talktime of 10 hours while being on 3G and a standby time of 250 hours.

7. Software freebies

For the new buyers, iWork and iLife apps like Pages, Keynote, Number, iLife and iMovie are being offered free.

All in all the iPhone 5S didn't introduce too many revolutionary features as has been the tradition, but seems like they have tweaked, improved and enhanced the existing ones. The finger print scanner was first introduced by popular Motorola Atrix but when bundled especially with Apple ecosystem, it should be something to look forward to.

The jump to 64 bit architecture not only means future-proofing, but also gives hint about how the iOS and the Mac OS are now converging to meet each other sometime in the future, thereby providing a seamless migration of features. Throw in Apple TV and iWatch and one can smell that the bigger picture might be that of Apple creating a larger domain encompassing various aspects of day to day life.

Apple always had an eye on the future, the iPhone 5S seems to have provied some glimpse of what may be in store.

Reader Invite

Are you a gadget/gaming wizard/afficianado? Would you like to write on gadgets, gaming, the Internet, software technologies, OSs and the works for us? Send us a sample of your writing to gadgetsandgaming@rediffmail.com with the subject as 'I'm a tech wizard/afficianado' and we will get in touch with you.