
Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S - velodrome
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/10/apple-unveils-the-iphone-5s/
======
pilif
Now that we have to consider the iPhones to be backdoored by the NSA, I wonder
whether I really want to give them my fingerprint together with the rest of my
data. I'm also not so sure whether a fingerprint can't still be easily faked
(like it was possible on that Mythbusters episode for example).

Personally, I think I'd rather stay with my passcode.

Did you btw know that you can turn off "simple passcode" and then use a purely
numeric longer passcode? In that case the iPhone will still show the big easy-
to-hit numeric keyboard allowing you to type in the arbitrary length numeric
code.

Yes. It's not as safe as a long alphanumeric password, but this gets annoying
SO quickly, I'd rather type in my 8 digits.

~~~
dev_jim
Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA
comment being voted to the top?

~~~
cheald
Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying on the citizens it is supposed to
serve.

~~~
stanleydrew
More snark. This isn't helpful.

For those who want to believe it, I doubt there is any amount of information
that could ever be released to convince them that the NSA _isn 't_ spying on
people anymore.

~~~
cheald
I'm not snarking at all. I'm observing that comments about the NSA are
entirely _apropos_ given the current climate we live in. Yes, you're right, at
this point, it would take something extremely radical to convince us that the
NSA isn't spying on us anymore. Therefore, we should expect comments about the
NSA and spying to become a part of the common dialog regarding technology and
personal information. Asking them to go away is just asking people to stick
their head in the sand and ignore it.

The comments will go away when the issue goes away. The issue isn't going to
go away. Therefore, don't expect the comments to, either. Welcome to the world
we now live in.

~~~
melling
But you are accomplishing absolutely nothing here. Being annoying and
ineffective doesn't help your cause. Do you know that Jesus loves you and he
wants to save your soul?

You might as we'll be discussing religion or politics here. This is not the
place. I heard your warning the first ten times.

~~~
cheald
We're talking about it, aren't we? We haven't forgotten this issue, distracted
like children by the latest shiny toy. Even in the face of the things that
traditionally kill news stories, we're talking about it.

Change starts by making enough people aware of and angry about the issue that
the politicians can't afford to support these programs any more. If we're just
distracted the next time $TECH_TOY or $NATURAL_DISASTER comes along, then
nothing at all will change.

I don't particularly care if people find my anger at the NSA's systemic
intrusion of our privacy annoying. I care more about that particular issue
than I do what a random person on the internet whom I've never met might think
of me. I care more about keeping you talking about the issue than I do about
you liking me.

~~~
threeseed
Look HN is not a US-only site.

For those of us in the other 200 odd countries it really is boring as hell to
have to wade through your pointless, unsubstantiated paranoia.

~~~
jsmeaton
We non-US citizens have even MORE to worry about, because there are no laws to
protect us and our privacy. We are open season.

~~~
gbog
If you are in Europe then you may have better enforced laws protecting you. If
you are in Africa your government might not have the expertise and resources
to spy on you. If you are in China, well...

~~~
AngrySkillzz
I think he means that it is even easier for the US government to spy on you if
you're outside of America, not that your domestic government might.

~~~
jsmeaton
Yes, that is indeed what I meant.

------
Bud
Hey, not to break up the bash-the-NSA discussion, which is legit and badly
needed, but did anyone notice just how bad the fact-checking is in this
article? It's terrible.

Error 1: article says the A7 is a "40x CPU performance bump". Wrong; it's 40x
over the original iPhone, not over the A6.

Error 2: article says graphics are "56x faster". Same error.

Error 3: article claims the M7 is a motion sensor; it's not. It's a chip which
handles data from the various sensors.

Error 4: next paragraph after the first M7 paragraph finally gets it right.
Bad editing.

Error 5: Apple didn't skirt the megapixel count for the new sensor as claimed.
The new sensor has the same MP count, as was stated.

Error 6: article mentions a "10-shot burst mode". Wrong again. The burst mode
is 10 frames per second, but is not limited to any specific number of frames.

Just an incredibly bad job, here.

~~~
bobbles
I haven't been able to find a single forum/thread for the Apple announcements
today (anywhere) that wasn't completely filled with either:

1) NSA flaming

2) 'lol no 5 inch / 1080p screen' style comments.

3) filled with disappointment that the iphone isnt a whole world more than
what has been leaked.

How useful it would be to find a forum where actual on-topic discussion was
visible and it was the crap that got filtered out, instead of the other way
around.

~~~
reginaldjcooper
Isn't it fair to be disappointed? They dropped the visual upgrade and
introduced dozens of new bugs, forcing developers to put in some serious
hours. And the result is what?

The best feature released is downloading new content in the background. That's
wonderful, but not enough. iOS background processes are still crippled, so I
can only have an open socket in the background if it's part of a VoIP app. And
for some reason the VoIP flag also signals that I want the app to run on
startup?

I don't see why we should care about iPhones or iOS anymore. The latest
upgrade is a fingerprint scanner and it's faster. Ok. The operating system
finally drops the idiotic skeuomorphism and lets people share photos with
Apple's version of NFC. Includes a 2D game engine. Great. Oh beacons?
Wonderful, now we can opt-in to targeted localized advertisements.

I'm more interested in getting a device that doesn't force its requirements
inbetween me and my workflow. That means widgets, sideloading, intents, and
applications that can edit the same files. Removing the animations or reducing
their duration (jailbreak an iPhone, install the Accelerate package, and tell
me that isn't a much better experience).

On iOS you still can't even delete their default apps if you don't want them.
I thought Apple was supposed to be about style? My old iPod Touch still has a
folder full of apps I don't want. And an empty Newsstand.

Apple is for children and the computer illiterate. The only benefit of iOS
over Android is that you don't need to be totally vigilant over what you
install. But the cost is living in a walled garden under the watchful eye of
your nanny. I'm disappointed in iOS and the iPhone. They are becoming
increasingly irrelevant. They're going to find that the preferred style
changes over time, whereas Android is going to have a technical fan base for
quite a while even after the "massive screens" fad dies down.

------
alxbrun
When I see Apple putting forward as a key feature the number of bits in their
processor in a general public announcement... I'm really feeling the "new"
product is not really new. In the past Apple was always laughing at the PC ads
boasting processor speed and memory capacity.

~~~
bedhead
Smartphone hardware is in the 9th inning. These devices have mostly hit the
natural limits of what's achievable for now. Bad for Apple since this
effectively levels the playing field.

~~~
swamp40
I disagree completely. Perhaps the 9th inning of a preseason game?

Flexible displays are coming soon.

The paths for easy integration with multiple low power wearable peripherals
have just been forged, and the area is still in its infancy.

Mobile payments have not fully arrived yet.

The phones are all still in rectangular boxes - something that will look
ridiculous in 20 years.

I think there is a lot yet to come hardware-wise.

~~~
bedhead
Flexible displays would certainly be neat, but their utility for a cellphone
largely escapes me.

Wearable peripherals are a different category, they're not smartphones.
Regardless, I dont have terribly high hopes for these future devices.

Mobile payment is _mostly_ not a hardware issue. It's a software issue and a
matter of coordination or market forces selecting a standard or two. It's
things like THIS that are the next battleground in mobile: services and
integration.

They are in rectangular boxes because that shape, for various reasons, happens
to be extraordinarily efficient. TV's haven't changed shapes.

I think smartphone hardware is pretty much dead. The major leaps - touch
screens (which is so ridiculously underappreciated as an innovation), HD
screens, HD cameras, CPU horsepower, nice OS's, voice recognition, blah blah -
are behind us. There is a reason that almost all of the best selling
smartphones look alike, feel alike, and generally have the exact same feature
sets. The differences between each other, in the grand scheme of things, are
lamentably minute.

------
mmanfrin
In most previous Apple iterations, when they release a cheaper/multi-colored
version of a flagship product, they also release a new (more premium) product
line. This time they didn't. This is disappointing to Americans (hence the
drop in share price) but also shows Tim's direction: China. His expertise in
the company under Jobs was in supply chains and Asia, and now he is orienting
(pun not intended) the company towards Eastern markets.

Disappointing shortsighted shareholders, but in my opinion an absolutely
perfect time to buy AAPL: they have huge cash reserves and pushing in to the
massive Eastern market with the Gold iPhone will only pad further those cash
reserves that that low P/E.

~~~
twistedpair
"Gold" has much more of an appeal to many Asian populations than the US given
that Asia has been the cause of exploding actual gold demand. In the US I know
few people with garish gold widgets. However, in Asia where the Apple product
is a status symbol, the gold iPhone 5S (not the lump of coal 5C) will
certainly bolster the image of the premium version.

~~~
therandomguy
As much as Asia loves gold they HATE fake gold.

~~~
Dylan16807
Which one is the iphone? It would certainly be easy to have some real gold on
it.

~~~
Alterlife
Speaking as an Indian, "real gold" is the kind you can take to a jewelry shop
and sell if things get rough... or exchange for other "real gold".

ie: 22 Karat.

~~~
Dylan16807
Oh, so it has to be solid, not plated? Well what a shame that it's too soft
for a phone.

------
United857
Two biggest new things for developers:

* OpenGL ES 3.0 support (things like true HDR rendering, etc. will finally be possible)

* 64-bit support. For most app developers, this will just be a recompile. The tricky part is that any closed-source 3rd party SDKs/libraries/frameworks used will also have to be rebuilt first by their authors.

~~~
cliveowen
More importantly, what are they talking about when they say 64-bit? The
architecture uses 64-bit addresses? The processor uses 64-bit registers? What
are the main advantages to current CPUs?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
They mean that they are switching to a 64-bit ARM architecture.

Note that the 32->64 bit register and address size increase is by far not the
only difference between 32-bit ARM and 64-bit ARM. Aarchv8 (64-bit arm) is
effectively a complete clean redesign of the ISA, designed to be modern, fast,
and only maintain some backwards compatibility, discarding many signature
features of ARM that no longer make sense. Such as predication of everything
and free shifts in every instruction.

64-bit ARM should be significantly faster, at least once the compilers catch
up.

------
rdl
I'm sad it seems most likely the 5S will be fingerprint _OR_ pin/passphrase to
unlock. I can imagine situations at borders or in interactions with police
where compelling a fingerprint swipe is physically easier than compelling a
passphrase entry, and I think it is also legally easier to compel later.

The ideal would be a 4-8 digit numeric PIN with strong "10 tries and it dies"
_plus_ fingerprint, and as a backup, a full length desktop-style passphrase
(iCloud passphrase). And maybe some kind of "only works on pre-authorized
devices" enrollment system requiring the passphrase to generate local keys,
too.

~~~
pyrocat
Yeah just fingerprint means someone could use your finger to unlock the phone
while you're asleep in a cell / drugged / restrained / knocked out.

~~~
webXL
/ in the morgue

~~~
ajross
OK everyone, walk back from that ledge. Someone with the resources and
motiviation to drug/kidnap/kill/amputate to get access to a biometric scan is
going to be well-equipped just to steal the device and read the flash out via
JTAG.

Screen locks _do not_ provide meaningful security vs. a determined attacker,
and never will no matter what the unlock mechanism is. Unless you encrypt all
storage with a strong password ( _not_ a 6-digit PIN) and a good PBKDF, all
you get from this stuff is protection against casual snooping.

~~~
pyrocat
Or it's just the cops, and unlike a password or pin or pattern, they can
actually physically force your authentication out of you with a single finger
press.

------
Pxtl
I'm still weirded out by the idea that Apple has finally split the iPhone line
into "premium" and "value" streams. It just seems so... un-Apple. The whole
"last-year's-model" discount was a bit of a kludge, but still Apple stood out
from the rest of the industry with such a simple product line - device,
biannual release, size, that's it.

~~~
rayiner
Apple has had premium and value lines before. Indeed, during the heyday of the
Macbook, it was split into a premium aluminum and a cheaper polycarbonate
model.

~~~
Pxtl
Yes, obviously the PC/Laptop side of the business has always had this kind of
differentiation (also the pure-Mp3 player business), but the iOS stuff has
avoided this since the inception of the iPhone. The iPad, iPod, and iPhone
were just "size only".

Now that Jobs is gone and competition has heated up, we're seeing Apple back
away from that with the iPad mini and the 5s. It feels like a big shift for
Apple.

~~~
danabramov
>Now that Jobs is gone

Seriously, what does this have to do with the point you're making?

~~~
crusso
Jobs was the entire reason that their product offering was so focused. Look
back at the mess that was Apple's product offering smorgasbord before Jobs
returned and took his hatchet to it.

Without visionary leadership, most big companies are unable to resist the
temptation to take the kitchen sink attitude toward product development.

The coherence of Apple's product strategy will most likely decrease as we move
further past the age of Jobs... unless they find a new similarly-capable
leader.

~~~
arrrg
This seems more focused and less confusing than prominently selling last
years’ model (which Apple has previously done).

From a consumer perspective it seem extremely hard to differentiate between
different years’ iPhone models. This new clear (also visual) distinction makes
it easier and provides more guidance for consumers. It’s a bit more work for
Apple (what with them having to make two iPhone models every year) but for the
consumer it should be much easier to understand.

The 5C stands out and makes it really clear that Apple has something that
costs a bit less than their flagship. Yeah, it’s just the 5 repackaged – but I
think it’s really important signalling and should make Apple’s lineup much
easier to understand for consumers.

There’s still the 4S to muddy the waters, though. Ah, I guess that’s some
Jobs-era legacy mess. Selling a two year old model is really lame and
confusing after all :-)

------
rodedwards
Better photos, TouchID, snappier performance -- a traditional incremental
Apple upgrade befitting the "S" moniker.

I've long been wondering when/if Apple would take on NFC and things like
payments more aggressively. I get the feeling that they're going to skip NFC
entirely, and that TouchID is going to be a large part of processing
transactions without the need for any physical device interaction
(swipe/tap/bump).

Right now I've got that hazy tip-of-iceberg feeling that Apple is probably in
the early phases of executing some grand vision that I can't yet see the
entirety of.

And that's why Apple continues to be _the_ leading consumer device co: who
else out there has "vision?" Google is the closest, but IMHO Android has
always felt reactionary, not visionary.

~~~
marknow
How odd, I feel the opposite, re: vision... Google is leading the way with
progressive developments in many varied fields.

Expecting more today from Tim Cook, the Apple announcement left me flat.
Understand, that while I'm a long time Apple user, my Android phone(s) have
offered features to which Apple is still playing catch-up. Apple is the
reactionary these days; they may have introduced the iPhone as a ground-
breaking product back-in-the-day, but Android is outpacing the iPhone with
each new release.

<opinion>Aside from the MBP I use for work, I won't be purchasing another
Apple product anytime soon, FWIW.</opinion>

~~~
rodedwards
To echo r00fus, Apple's visions are more tangible to the everyday consumer -
or at least better elucidated. Apple is the master of "segmentation" \- i.e.:
identifying a pain point or desired experience, and building it. TouchID, for
instance, solves a problem - passwords suck. "Here's a simple, frictionless
way around it, that incidentally will be powering all of your apple-conduit
payments inside of a year." That's a vision that relatable, easy to
understand, etc., compared to something like glass which is much more "out
there."

To put it another way, each apple feature is clearly tied to a consumer-
relatable use case. Collections of features form pieces of apples vision,
rolling up use cases into the "experiences" that they mentioned today.

~~~
jkscm
If TouchID is adopted by 95% of all user I wonder if iPhones will still be a
worthy target for average thiefs?

I think you can't reset or jailbreak a locked even today.

------
knodi
This is what I don't like about apple the 5s $199 version has 16GB and the 5c
$199 version has 32GB. They should have at-lease giving us 24GB for 5s $199.

Apple being apple trying to keep margins high.

The new colors kind of suck but great for high school girls.

~~~
allsystemsgo
It took quite some time for me to fill up the 16GB. I'm more of a power user
now, so I'll be upgrading to the 32GB but, for most 16GB is plenty.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I had to trim down the number of playlists I store on my Nexus 4, which only
has 16 gigs. I also have to be more cognizant of how many podcasts I download
at the same time.

I like my phone. But I don't think I'll ever buy anything without at least 32
gigs of storage, or a place to plug more memory in.

~~~
fumar
I recommend, uploading your music to Google Play. You do not have to worry
about using up the space on the device.

~~~
imissmyjuno
Unless you have a data plan with less than 2GB of data, that is. And are OK
with waiting a bit for things to buffer. With Google Music I end up offlining
a lot of songs because data plans in Canada are terrible and because 3G isn't
everywhere you want to listen to music. Add podcasts and you hit the storage
limit in no time.

------
ececconi
The USA already has all 10 of my fingerprints. When I was going through the
process of becoming a permanent resident, I had to scan it into a machine.

Every time I come back into the USA after coming back from a trip outside the
country, I have to scan multiple of my prints.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
Everyone who enters the US has to get their fingerprints scanned (even
tourists), it has been that way for many many years.

~~~
jarek
This is not completely accurate. At the very least, Canadians entering at land
crossings are not scanned.

~~~
ececconi
Through airports it's always happened to me. Through the Canadian border at
Niagara Falls it didn't.

------
josteink
I wonder how the people claiming plastic in those Android-phones feels "cheap"
is going to react to this.

~~~
kaolinite
The plastic they're using (hard-coated polycarbonate) is, I believe, the same
plastic used on many of the Nokia Lumia phones which a lot of people say feel
much higher quality than other, regular plastic phones. That said, the 5C is
the cheaper option and it isn't going to feel as good as the aluminium of the
5S. I don't however think it will be anywhere near as cheap-feeling as other
phones (e.g. the Samsung Galaxy S4 which has been described as feeling
"greasy").

~~~
janlukacs
and that's why Nokia posted this:
[https://twitter.com/nokia_uk/status/377483408043036672/photo...](https://twitter.com/nokia_uk/status/377483408043036672/photo/1)

~~~
siglesias
Ads of multicolored devices featuring content that matches the enclosure? Who
would've thunk it?

[http://cl.ly/image/1U3i2F2v2r43](http://cl.ly/image/1U3i2F2v2r43)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Those are all just staged for ads (unless you think you can't listen to the
Beatles Red Album on a blue nano and vice versa) except for the latest one,
which came out after the Nokia devices.

I'm sure someone did it before (I seem to recall IE5 letting you change the
interface to match the early iMac colours) but your comment (and a quick
glance at the linked image) is misleading as it stands.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_Mac#Inter...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_Mac#Internet_Explorer_5_for_Mac_distinguishing_features)

~~~
ciniglio
The Nokia is staged for ads too. You can change the highlight color to be
whatever you want. Additionally, many WP apps have a solid colored tile that
doesn't respect the user's color choice.

------
meerita
I visualize this: husband is sleeping deeply, wife picks up the phone and taps
the home button while he's sleeping and unlocks the phone.

Release the kraken.

~~~
themstheones
If he doesn't have anything to hide from his wife then he has nothing to worry
about.

~~~
Wingman4l7
So this argument is complete crap when it comes to governments but totally
okay when it comes to spouses?

How about a series of emails joking & griping about your wife's habits to your
best friend? Completely harmless but not exactly the kind of thing that you'd
want them reading.

Our digital selves trail back in time farther and farther these days; would
you want your wife reading emails between you and an ex from before you met
her?

------
VeejayRampay
"According to Apple, the processor is more than twice as fast as the A6, with
a 40x CPU performance bump. Graphics are said to be 56x faster."

What does that even mean? I'm getting tired of claims like these. They're
obviously non-sensical and groundless and they should be publicly shamed for
it. But that'll never happen I guess.

~~~
bobbles
2x as fast as the A6 for CPU and GPU.

the 40x CPU and 56x GPU numbers are referencing the 5S against the original
iPhone (as a 'look how far we've come' retrospective)

~~~
VeejayRampay
Do they mention the baseline being the iPhone 1 in the article? Anyway, thanks
for the explanation.

~~~
samstave
They show it in that one graph.

[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/img_8908...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/img_8908.jpg?w=1920)

[http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/img_8907...](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/img_8907.jpg?w=1920)

------
uses
At some point you'll be able to pick up your friend's phone or tablet, touch
it, and without entering usernames, emails, or passwords, have access to all
your "stuff", including the same homescreen / desktop as your own phone /
laptop.

There will be open source, open standard, secure authentication and identity
systems chained together, kind of like an evolution of Persona or OpenID, and
when you view a website on your friend's phone, it will recognize you
immediately.

~~~
Wingman4l7
A setup like that relies on massive trust in cloud computing services and
sanctity of the operating system, software, and hardware which I -- and
probably many other curmudgeonly tech-savvy people like me -- are unwilling to
give.

------
Heliosmaster
About the ID fingerprints? Am I the only one so in constant fear and doubt
that thinks this would be a great way of bulk collecting the fingerprints of
ANYONE?

~~~
ihuman
They say that applications don't have access to it and it is never uploaded
online, but until the device is out there is no way to verify it.

~~~
hershel
Even after the device is out it would be very hard(if not impossible) to
verify it doesn't send fingerprint or hash of fingerprint online. There's
plenty of places they can hide this.

~~~
danabramov
Don't you think this would be a _huge_ scandal, if it was revealed?
Considering they specifically say it is _not_ uploaded? Just saying.

Why would they take such a risk?

~~~
lewispollard
The entire NSA thing to date is a huge scandal, and yet no one (outside of the
tech community) seems to really care... Not many people are closing their
accounts associated with NSA complicit companies.

~~~
danabramov
Do you really fail to see the difference between disclosing user info already
on the servers to the NSA under legal orders and announcing a _new_ product
_after_ the leaks, claiming it does _not_ send any data, and doing the exact
opposite without any additional benefit? Why would Apple do this?

I don't recall reading NSA can now force companies to include finger sensors,
and then force them to collect data they wouldn't be collecting otherwise.

~~~
eric_cc
You are sound really really naive. You sound like the kind of person who is
"shocked" by new scandals.

~~~
danabramov
What is it that I said that sounds naïve to you?

That NSA can't force a company to include fingerprint sensors in their new
phone?

------
jetru
No one mentioned that stealing an iPhone is much more difficult now. Thieves
need to be careful not to touch the sensor!

~~~
mikeash
Or they take your thumb as well as your phone.

------
downandout
I don't have a problem with the fingerprint scanner, since people can choose
to use it or not. The larger problem I see for the 5S is a marketing one:
while the A7 processor and internal redesign are significant technical
achievements, consumers won't understand that or care. They know that their
existing iPhone 5's are relatively fast, and that will be enough for most
people. They needed to add features - not necessarily speed - for this phone
to have the kind of success that its predecessors have achieved.

~~~
rm999
This is typical of the previous 's' updates: 3gs, 4s. Both offered a better
camera and faster speed, and not much else. The 4s had siri, which ended up
being mostly just a gimmick IMO.

~~~
gaoshan
I use Siri to schedule reminders all the time. Sometimes to take notes and
it's also useful for sending hands free texts via voice. Oh, and search... I
just used it tonight when in an unfamiliar area to find the nearest gas
station and get directions to it, all via voice so I can keep my eyes on the
road.

------
ihuman
Instead of using the iPhone 5 as the free option, they are discontinuing it
and using the 4S as the free one.

~~~
sdoowpilihp
I would surmise that is likely due to the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5 having very
similar specs. A free iPhone 5 would cannibalize the 5C sales. Why pay 100
dollars for a color case? Then again, a number of people paid the "black tax"
for their macbook a number of years back.

~~~
rdl
I wonder what this will do to the resale value of iPhone 5 64G Verizon. I'd
upgrade from 5 -> 5S if it net cost were <$300, but it appears Priceonomics
says it is $320-$450, and a new iPhone 5S 64G is $849.

~~~
Jtsummers
Verizon iPhone 5 64GB black is listed as $370 on NextWorth so that's a maybe.
I've had luck in past years of reducing my upgrade costs to under $100, but
AT&T is being less generous on the contract period this time around (or it
didn't line up as well as in the past).

~~~
rdl
Yeah, I'll probably just list my 5 "high" on Amazon, and buy a 5S IFF it
sells, or just pay the Apple tax for the year. I'm not sure how Verizon works
with upgrades when you have multiple devices on an account (phone, 3 iPads, 2
Mifi); could I just upgrade one of the iPads I brought to an iPhone 5S and
shuffle things around?

~~~
Jtsummers
I am not the person to ask about Verizon. I'm with AT&T because of my
unlimited data plan and their excellent coverage in this area. That said, I'm
considering something similar for upgrading to the 5S, NextWorth was just a
place to look at prices to gauge what I should try and sell it for. I also
only have the one data plan on AT&T, never got one for my iPad (wifi only).

------
techaddict009
Is 5C inspired by Nokia Lumia ?
[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=560515223996127&set=...](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=560515223996127&set=a.109142489133405.4548.100686616645659&type=1&ref=nf)
(Nokia Fanpage)

~~~
rjd
Or you could reverse the question and ask if the Lumia is inspired by a decade
of Apple doing colourful iPod ranges...

~~~
JohnTHaller
Yeah, but Nokia did it with _phones_ first, so Apple should respect that. The
same way Apple claims all sorts of things were unique and patentable because
they did them on a phone touchscreen and not a PDA touchscreen (which is so
TOTALLY different).

~~~
rjd
Apple has been doing colorful consumer devices for over a decade... iMacs come
to mind... they do the modus operandi and they are suddenly copy someone? you
have some serious tunnel vision.

~~~
JohnTHaller
You missed the obvious sarcasm in the post. Apple did colorful things before
Nokia's phones, but Nokia did multi-colored phones before Apple did. And,
using Apple's logic that just because it's a phone makes it different (see
multiple iPhone patents that folks like Palm and Microsoft did first on PDAs
and similar), that means Nokia was new and innovative and Apple copied.

------
Tichy
Can't believe they didn't make bigger screens. iPhones seem so tiny these
days.

Also, just 33 votes on HN atm - made me realize that probasbly people are
already using HN votes as input for their stock trading aslgorithms :-)

~~~
sytelus
I disagree. The iPhone 4 had (and still has) the perfect dimension of any
phones for holding in to adult average human hand and carrying it around in
average sized pant pockets or strapping it on arms while jogging/hiking. The
iPhone 5 ruined it a bit in trying to copy competition and not knowing that it
actually had it better. I see people using large android brick sized phones
all the time uncomfortably carrying it around in their relatively tiny hands
and unable to hold anything else even when they are not using it because it's
too big to put in pocket. I know Jobs had obsessed over iPhone dimensions a
lot and arrived at the best compromise for a device you can actually live with
without being felt lugging it around.

~~~
Tichy
By that logic, Apple should have never published the iPad because it is too
big to hold in a human hand. Carrying bigger phones in a pocket isn't really
an issue either.

------
lars512
The M7 chip's an interesting nod to quantified self'ers. I'm certainly sick of
the battery drain caused by running Moves, or one of the many Google Latitude
clients, over time.

------
climatewarrior2
The NSA now will have a database of everybody's fingerprints!! Great :D

~~~
sdoowpilihp
First of all, this is not a constructive comment. Second, they explicitly said
that the fingerprint never leaves the phone (and believe me, people will be
looking to verify. It would be a huge boon to a persons career to be the
person that caught apple in that lie).

~~~
aw3c2
How are you going to check? iOS is closed-source. You cannot monitor the
traffic 24/7 over the whole lifetime of the device. Maybe the fingerprint
delivery can be ordered remotely.

~~~
awestley
It's a phone... If you are concerned that your fingerprints MIGHT be uploaded
you need to consider just not using a smartphone. AKA "a voluntary spy
device".

~~~
mikeash
It's quite odd. Here's a device that can listen to everything you say all day
long, that can read all of your e-mail, take pictures of you and your
surroundings, sniff all of your passwords, etc. etc. etc., but people are
freaking out because it might be stealing your _fingerprints_ , which you
leave thousands of on various public surfaces every day anyway? I just don't
get it.

~~~
Dirlewanger
Typical initial outrage at something new. The phone already logs your every
move yet people have already forgotten about it and clearly don't care.

------
dhughes
>According to Apple, half of users don’t set up a passcode on their device.

How could they know that?

~~~
casesandberg
Cook said: "In our test cases, half of users don’t set up a passcode on their
device."

~~~
dhughes
Ah, didn't see the "test cases" part.

------
m_mueller
I'd like to know whether they're going to use the fingerprint sensor for
unlocking the keychain as well. If yes, we could also take advantage of it in
app development, no?

~~~
oleganza
It's just like with passcode: you app never has "passcode API", but your
keychain items are unlocked when user enters passcode according to the policy
you have chosen. Why it should be different when fingerprint is used instead
of a passcode?

------
ginko
Aren't swipe sensors considered more secure than press-on ones? There's all
kinds of very simple recipes out there to trick those.

A swipe sensor would have needed less space to boot.

~~~
gfodor
Press-on sensor is obvious because it mimics the current home button
perfectly.

------
swamp40
I was really hoping for NFC support - sigh.

I _do_ love the fingerprint sensor and the intelligent auto-focusing features,
though.

Blurry smartphone pictures are _so_ ubiquitous these days.

~~~
bratsche
Why does everyone keep going on about NFC? It's been on Android for years and
it's never been used in any meaningful way. I don't see Apple introducing some
new hardware component just for the sake of adding it. They'll introduce
something when they have a really solid use for it, which is something that
Google seems to have never really had with NFC.

~~~
swamp40
_Something_ is going to replace the credit card.

If Apple had thrown their weight behind NFC, that would have closed the deal.

I give them one more year (one iWatch release, and the iPhone 6 release) and
then I agree, NFC will be a dead end.

~~~
bratsche
What I meant is, if NFC is the best way to replace credit cards then Apple
would want to be in on making that happen, they wouldn't just put the hardware
on their devices and leave someone else to implement it. Something like NFC
has just been basically a bullet point on Android phones' feature lists, but
that's not really Apple's style. They're going to build something to use it on
day 1 or they're not going to include it in their device.

Maybe they're working on payment stuff, maybe they're not.. but since it's
obviously not ready I'm not the least bit surprised that we don't see NFC on
Apple devices.

~~~
seanalltogether
The cynical side of me says that Apple won't introduce NFC until they can sort
out the licensing deals that give them a cut of every transaction.

~~~
bratsche
Yeah, that's part of what I mean.

------
mncolinlee
Still no NFC.

It's an underrated technology for pairing devices. Real investments and more
hardware would follow if Apple jumped in the pool with everyone else.

~~~
shurcooL
Chicken and egg.

~~~
mncolinlee
Does that make Apple the chicken in this metaphor?

~~~
evan_
Yes- the chicken produces the egg

~~~
huwr
But the trouble is we'll need a egg to get a chicken.

------
siliconviking
Very disappointing that they couldn't get the 5C closer to the rumored $399 or
$450 off-contract prices... $549 is very steep for 1-year old technology
wrapped in a $2 plastic case. I'd sell my AAPL stock today (if I had any left)
before Wall Street crunches their numbers.

~~~
r00fus
If you knew anything about trading in the first place, you'd know that you can
always sell short.

~~~
siliconviking
My statement implies a non-positive outlook for AAPL. Short selling implies a
negative outlook. See the difference?

PS: No need to lecture me on basic finance, unless you've also been on the
management team of a $16bn equity fund.

------
gavinlynch
I knew this would immediately devolve into a shit show.

------
chrisgd
I am still waiting for the same processor and camera in a smaller size with a
longer battery life.

~~~
wmf
The iPhone is already "miniature" by Android standards.

~~~
chrisgd
Comment really applies to any phone's next generation.

------
edwyn
It seems that the 5S and the 5C support China Mobile's LTE bands. Is that what
will be announced tomorrow at the Apple event in China?

[http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/](http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/)

~~~
garretruh
The China event was only "tomorrow" so far as Beijing is 15 hours ahead of
California. It was just a live stream of the announcement IIRC.

------
marcamillion
How much weight does the claim that the Touch ID not being stored on Apple's
servers really matter?

They claim it is stored on the A7 chip itself. Is that secure enough for us to
believe that the NSA can't get access to it?

I am genuinely asking about the security implications.

If all the fingerprints were on iCloud, then all the Feds have to do is force
Apple to give them access to their servers.

Having the fingerprint pushed down to each individual device, that seems to be
more secure.

But am I just being naive or is that truly more secure?

~~~
Zoepfli
IMHO, Apple's claim doesn't matter at all. If the NSA wants to get inside your
iPhone and add some code, it will find some way to do so - either with the
help of Apple, through a backdoor or a recent vulnerability.

And once it's inside, the NSA is free to install a code snippet that uploads
your fingerprint directly to their server.

------
10dpd
The Touch ID is really exciting for accessibility as it enables visually
impaired users to access their phone without having to fiddle around with a
lock screen, which may reveal their password to those around them.

[http://www.accessibleresources.com/2013/09/10/apple-
announce...](http://www.accessibleresources.com/2013/09/10/apple-announces-
new-iphone5c-and-iphone5s-touch-id-fingerprint-sensor/)

~~~
Wingman4l7
I assumed that visually impaired users eschewed touchscreen phones altogether
for accessibility issues.

------
bugsbunny4341
Is it just me or is it something we don't expect from Apple?
[http://imgur.com/KYgtVDb](http://imgur.com/KYgtVDb)

~~~
ulyssesgrant
Exactly right. Something like this seems so easy for them to catch too, I
wonder why/how it made it through. Maybe the case was a last-minute addition

------
Vitaly
So, WhereTF is my Thunderbolt Display update? 726 days since the last update
according to
[http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/](http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/).

We just moved to an new office in august, and been waiting with buying
displays hoping they'll be updated to the new formfactor of iMacs. too bad ...
;( really disappointed.

~~~
emp_
No shit. New iMac with thinner display for many months now, yet no new
monitor. Considering the 27HM from Dell.

------
marcuspovey
Yeah, 'cos I really want a convenient way to send my fingerprints to the
government.

------
vankap
If I'm using my fingerprint to protect something, it must be way more valuable
than the fingerprint itself. It's like using a key made of gold to protect a
box full of rocks.

------
goshx
Best iPhone commercial I have seen so far.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sIWez9HAbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sIWez9HAbA)

------
shire
This is fantastic, breakthrough, I've long waited fingerprint scanning
technology. This could definitely decrease cybercriminals.

------
nutate
I've been thinking about getting a withings pulse or a misfit shine... now
I'll wait to see what the 5S itself can do.

------
wavesounds
Edit: Read "on-contract" as "no-contract" and almost threw a party, thanks for
pointing out my mistake guys

~~~
awestley
You must have missed the word "starting" ;)

~~~
iaskwhy
Or "on-contract"?

~~~
wavesounds
Ah damn dyslexia kicking in, totally read that as "no-contract" thanks

------
ffrryuu
Have they added color profile support yet?

~~~
ihuman
What do you mean by color profile? Something like f.lux, where it changes the
color of the screen?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I think he meant ColorSync[1] or ICC support for color management. An image
that uses a color space other than sRGB (like Adobe RGB or CMYK) will look
different on iOS than it does on OS X.

Apparently, iOS 4 did add ICC support in CoreGraphics for apps to use [2] but
it seems to me that Apple’s apps don’t take advantage of it.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorsync](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorsync)

[2]
[https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/General...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iPhoneOS4.html)

~~~
ffrryuu
Yeah, I want to calibrate ios screens. Using something like the i1 display
pro.

It made a huge difference on my computer monitors.

I want a system wide color profile support, like what we have in Windows or
OSX... Not a per app support.

~~~
me2i81
Calibrating the screen and supporting embedded profiles in images are two
different things.

It would be nice if images with embedded profiles rendered correctly to the
screen, e.g. with Safari on iPhone, using a canned profile that assumes that
Apple has correctly profiled the mean iPhone display and that the variance
between particular screens isn't too high. From what I can tell the iPhone
doesn't do color management at all and the display resembles sRGB enough to
call it good enough for a consumer device.

On the other hand I'd assume that the number of people who would want to use
an external colorimeter and make a profile for their particular iPhone was not
a market big enough for anyone (let alone Apple) to bother with, and since the
iPhone has no mechanism to actually use that profile, it's pointless except
for the purpose of converting images to iPhone in a desktop app, but in that
case why would you care about your particular iPhone?

------
ffrryuu
Fingerprint sensor + NSA chip? Wow, that'd get banned in multiple countries
fast. Mark my words.

~~~
thomaslutz
Paranoid much?

------
realrocker
Why would anyone willingly submit to daily bio-metric validation of one's data
is beyond me.

------
hardwaresofton
Anyone see the "desktop class" bullet point?

------
jpinkerton88
pretty stoked on fingerprint for apple id

------
pkrumins
disappointing!

------
janlukacs
Wait till you see the iPhone 6 :)

------
amenod
Finally! Can't wait for jailbreaks for 4S and 5 to come out now... :)

