
Apple unveils 64-bit iPhone 5S - masklinn
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/apple-unveils-64-bit-iphone-5s/
======
jmduke
Wait, wait, don't tell me -- some people are gonna think that Apple's lost
it's touch and $AAPL will plummet ("Gold? Plastic? Are you serious?"), some
people are going to think its an unparalleled technical achievement ("The
64bit processor solidifies Apple's position as the engineer of the greatest
phones, let alone personal computers."), and everything sells like hotcakes
regardless.

~~~
jared314
I believe you have just summarized, at least, the next month of news stories
from various sites designed to maximize ad revenue. I consider these
announcements like miniature gold-rushes for the news sites and ad networks.
Unfortunately, I have yet to think of a way to "sell shovels" to them.

~~~
jenius
I think the way to do it is to make a program the generates "controversial
apple articles" through a little natural language processing and a bank of
commonly-used vocabulary. It could totally be done, hah

~~~
jared314
Similar to the computer generated sports articles? [1]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/computer-
generate...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/computer-generated-
articles-are-gaining-traction.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

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fearlessleader
"...but Apple is adding a gold (or "champagne") color option for those of you
who want to project an even greater air of affluence and privilege when you're
poking at your hand-sized computer."

I just cant take this section seriously.

~~~
tagabek
That, and the color black now being "Space Grey".

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jrpowers
Based on the fact that Apple says this supports OpenGL ES 3.0, this means
they're likely using the PowerVR Series 6 GPU. (
[http://forum.imgtec.com/discussion/2804/which-powervr-
graphi...](http://forum.imgtec.com/discussion/2804/which-powervr-graphics-
cores-support-opengl-es-3-0) )

But now we need mobile OpenCL too.

------
phaus
So, for $40 I can make my gorgeous, elegant new iPhone 5s as ugly as a 5C? I'm
sorry, but those cases look absolutely terrible.

I was actually pretty excited about the prospect of an affordable iPhone, but
it appears that the 5C, which is essentially an iPhone 5 that's cheaper to
produce, is still going to cost at least $400-500 without a contract. There
simply isn't $400 worth of technology in the iPhone 5C.

Edit: It's even worse than I expected. The 5C is available unlocked for $549
only through T-Mobile. At $649, the 5S is a reasonably priced luxury, but at
just $100 less, the 5C is a ripoff.

It's disingenuous to pretend that a phone is cheap because it's $100 on-
contract. If I signed that contract the phone would cost me $1300 more than
what I pay using a Galaxy Nexus on the same towers that AT&T subscribers use.
So basically, Apple is telling consumers that an ugly lump of plastic and
glass containing last year's technology is worth more than a 13" Macbook Air
2013.

------
state
Apple has refined their ability to continuously improve these products in ways
that don't at first appear impressive, but in fact dramatically improve the
user experience. Each time this happens I'm inclined to be underwhelmed, but
them am in fact impressed once I get my hands on a device.

What I can't help but wonder is, am I ever going to be truly surprised or
excited by one of these?

~~~
danieldk
I don't agree. There were Apple products that truly impressed me and got me
exited:

\- The original iPhone / iPod Touch.

\- The iPhone 4.

\- The MacBook Air (the generation that introduced the 11").

The 4S/5/5S not so much, and I don't plan to buy any of these.

~~~
brimanning
Retina screens on the 4S weren't impressive? Certainly since then we've seen
far better screens, but at the time it was quite impressive.

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danieldk
I don't see the huge benefit yet of using a 64-bit CPU in a phone. Sure, it
may be useful computations on 64-bit numbers and I assume that it'll have more
registers. But if pointers are also 64-bit, it's a bit of a waste of memory.

~~~
untog
It allows more than 4GB of RAM in the future, I suppose. I'm more surprised to
see them advertise it. I thought Apple was above specs?

~~~
danieldk
That's why I put the _yet_ in between. I don't expect that the 5S has more
than 4GB RAM.

Of course, it is possible to address more than 4GB in a 32-bit operating
system with processor extensions, if you limit the address space of processes
to 4GB (see e.g. PAE). I don't expect that we'll see many applications needing
more than that soon. Maybe games?

~~~
SigmundA
Address space isn't just about ram. Memory mapped files are used extensively
in iOS, 64 bit means basically no limits on memory mapping size from file in
flash.

~~~
danieldk
I know. I still don't believe that iPhone Apps have such requirements in the
near future. Except for possibly games. But currently it would not be very
attractive for studios to target the 5S only. So, I assume that your sibling
is right, it is more of a preparation for the future (apart from the benefits
of a new ARM version).

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frank_boyd
> Battery life estimates are "equal to or greater" than the iPhone 5

I just "upgraded" my 3GS to the latest OS. Before that, I had 3-4 days of
standby time. After that: about 18hours.

Apple: You can get the finger.

~~~
CamperBob2
Probably time to move past the 3GS. I certainly don't want Apple to waste
resources supporting phones that old.

~~~
frank_boyd
Are you kidding me?

1\. That phone is NOT old. Who says we should buy a new phone every time some
company wants to make some cash? The thing worked great and there was
absolutely _nothing_ that needed to be changed.

2\. I do NOT want to be part of a throw-away society that benefits nobody but
some company. Our planet does NOT have unlimited resources, yet we keep
throwing away electronics like there's no tomorrow.

This STINKS!

~~~
anu_gupta
Then don't upgrade the software on your phone either. You consume energy every
time you upgrade, further depleting our planet of its finite supply of
resources.

~~~
frank_boyd
Guess what:

The consumer expects "upgrades" to actually upgrade the device, as in "making
it better" not worse.

And: Apple prevents us from downgrading once we understand the surprise we
got, after pushing for "upgrades" all the time.

Also, the consumer needs updates to keep the devices bugs/security holes
patched.

~~~
CamperBob2
The consumer is damned lucky that Apple even bothers to support phones beyond
the last two generations.

If they did what they probably should have done, your phone would have
reported, "Sorry, this update is not supported by your device," when you tried
to install the latest iOS version. Then we'd be treated to even more wailing
and gnashing of teeth from people who feel entitled to perpetual updates.
Apple literally can't win here.

Edit: I will agree that they could 'win' by the simple expedient of permitting
OS downgrades. There's no reason they couldn't let you revert to the last
version you were happy with.

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songgao
I really don't think fingerprint as personal key is a good idea. It's not as
private as your personal passphrase. A lot others might have it. (e.g. US Visa
Office took my fingerprints when I was applying a Visa). If it's not private,
how could it be used as private key or master password?

~~~
Zikes
I saw a Mythbusters episode where they defeated a fingerprint scanner with a
home printer copy of a fingerprint they lifted off a CD case with superglue.

~~~
madisp
Good thing that one doesn't have to go looking for a CD case - there are
probably prints on the touchscreen :)

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aw3c2
The NSA's gonna love the fingerprint collection from Apple.

~~~
ecopoesis
Except they specifically said the fingerprint is never sent across the
Internet, but is instead stored locally on the A7 chip.

~~~
jenius
Ah, the NSA doesn't need the internet for these things. They will have a
custom backdoor that slurps up the fingerprint as soon as you plug in your
phone to sync.

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cookingrobot
The thing I'm most excited about is the multi-color flash. Having a mismatch
between flash and ambient color temperature is one of the big things that
makes flash photography look bad. Pro-photographers will put color gels on
their flash to correct for this, and it's not something that can be easily
fixed in software after the fact.

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kamjam
Anyone know what the likely price points of the 2 models will be? (Offline,
without a contract)

~~~
newman314
$99 for 16GB 5C $199 for 32GB 5C

EDIT: ??? why the downvote? I thought I was just answering the question.

~~~
primelens
Aren't those contract prices?

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samstave
I am sure that phone will be a good experience, with great greaphics, the
biometrics and nice camera. I am just 100% distrustful of Apple at this point.

Even the NSA called apple "Big Brother" and they called Apple customers
"Zombies"

\---

I mean, if the NSA is calling it out for us in their slides... and this thing
is now tracking all motion data - along with health-app tie-ins.... the NSA
may as well offer medical insurance.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/nsa-steve-
jobs_n_38...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/nsa-steve-
jobs_n_3895375.html)

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w1ntermute
Funny time to announce a phone with a fingerprint sensor - soon after it comes
out, it will get cold outside and people will realize that they need to take
off their gloves in order to use the fingerprint sensor.

~~~
rb2k_
Or a capacitive touchscreen unless they buy special gloves...

~~~
danieldk
Or a Nokia Lumia ;).

(Edit: Referring to the fact that the touchscreen on some Lumias can be used
with gloves.)

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devx
64-bit, and yet it will probably use no more than 2 GB of RAM.

Either way, this shows how committed Apple is to making its own ARM CPU's, and
dismiss any rumors that Apple would use Intel's chips in iPhones or iPads in
the future (which was a very unlikely and crazy idea to begin with). If
anything, Apple would start making $700 Air-like machines with 64-bit chips
soon (maybe next year), and still be as profitable as they are with the real
$1,000 Air (since Intel is charging them about $300 for the Haswell CPU).

------
amenod
Finally - I hope the jailbreak for 4S and 5 will be out soon now. :)

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cosjef
One word: Biometrics.

~~~
newman314
Two words: Privacy implications.

I, for one, would love to know if this information is stored just on the
device (securely?), transmitted and under what circumstances.

~~~
WalterSear
Of course it's secure. We had the top government men in the other day to make
sure it was!

~~~
potatolicious
The fingerprint is kept locally only. Presumably when it uses it to
authenticate a purchase it's actually validating locally and sending up your
password (or other auth token) rather than sending the biometrics directly.

~~~
amenod
Yes, exactly - the said men from the government assured us this was so. :)

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netcraft
Was hoping for NFC in the last one - really wish they would do it just so that
tech could really take off.

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
Mobile payments are happening around the work, with or without Apple's
blessing. They're ignorant stating that it isn't going to take off.

~~~
seiji
Why do mobile payments require silly NFC hardware? iOS does mobile payments
perfectly well with Square.

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
REAL mobile payments, not gimmicks or old mag stripe. I'm talking EMV
specification transactions on real merchant networks - you either need a smart
card contact chip or NFC.

Mag stripe is dead, I don't support payment technologies that continue to
promote it - Square, Shopify POS, etc. The USA is way behind on implementing
EMV. (I know, Shopify is Canadian)

~~~
seiji
Carrying around giant PIN pads for everybody to touch isn't very optimal (or
clean) either.

If you don't support magstripe technologies you're ignoring the entirety of
the richest country in the world?

~~~
JimmaDaRustla
I should have clarified that my original comment was from the perspective of a
consumer - making payments using NFC, not accepting them.

Mag stripe is horribly insecure and developing new technologies around it
because of easy to perform a transaction will only allow fraud to continue to
exist. In Canada, I question every merchant that does not support chip
technology.

USA merchants are reluctant to change. The rest of the world is moving on with
or without them.

------
kyriakos
at this point flagship phones are differentiating on software innovation
rather than hardware. look at what samsung is adding to android for example.
to the average consumer 64bit means nothing, but show them a few gimmick
software features and they are sold.

~~~
kamjam
does make me wonder what Google has up it's sleeve for the new Nexus release
(end of October from what I gather).

~~~
kyriakos
the nice thing about android is that being used on devices from multiple
manufacturers who try to compete with each other means that there's a larger
number of think tanks coming up with new features. all google needs to do is
pick the good ideas from OEMs, standardize them and release them in the next
iteration of android.

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RafiqM
Over ONE BILLION transistors!

...they're reaching new lows if that's a marketing point.

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6thSigma
Does the average iPhone user care that the new phone as a 64-bit chip?

~~~
JonFish85
Nope, but they care that their pictures look better, their games are snappy,
etc.

~~~
WalterSear
Since it only has 2 gigs of Ram, 64-bit won't do anything for any of that.

~~~
derefr
64-bit address space might not; 64-bit integer registers might help speed up
some non-GPUizable matrix math.

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kyriakos
can't wait to hear people bragging that their phone has a 64bit processor.

also wait for mainstream media to catch up, we'll see titles like: 'apple
invented the first 64 bit processor'.

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RivieraKid
Fingerprint unlock - killer feature, other things - meh...

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bane
meh.

But there are people lined up at the local Apple store to get a marginal
upgrade to a increasingly uninteresting non-status smartphone product so what
do I know?

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a3voices
This seems very underwhelming.

~~~
tptacek
This is the iPhone announcement thread equivalent of Slashdot's "First Post!".

