
The iPhone 5S and 5C - xenophanes
http://daringfireball.net/2013/09/the_iphone_5s_and_5c
======
mrmaddog
I really enjoy Gruber's holistic reviews of Apple's new devices. He doesn't
attempt to be Anandtech (whose reviews I found thoroughly engrossing and well
written), but rather he paints a picture of how the device _feels_ and how it
fits into Apple's larger strategy, which I find equally important.

One interesting thing I've discovered about Gruber's columns is that you often
have to read between the lines and get accustomed to how he presents his
narrative. Praise for Apple is freely handed out, weaknesses are noted, and
praise for other companies is guarded (when said company is in competition
with Apple). For example, he notes the weaknesses of Siri in a generally
positive sentence, and states that "Google Now is faster." I think he would
agree that Google Now is not only faster, but also provides better results
with better comprehension, and really the only downside is that you can't
access it with a long-hold on the home button. That's not something I'd expect
Gruber to say. However, once I recognized how he couches his concerns, I've
found that he has some of the most insightful, nuanced and thoroughly
processed views about Apple overall.

~~~
hop
Yeah, he notably left out the elephant in the room that is the 4in screen.

~~~
jvzr
To each his own. I'd pay an extra $100 to get a 3.5-inch screen. 4-inch is too
much and forces me to move up my palm.

~~~
nicholassmith
I know plenty of people who agree with you, but Apple's damned if they do,
damned if they don't.

~~~
brohee
Or they could get done with "one size to suit them all" and offer more screen
sizes. People hands vary wildly in size, no one would make gloves in only one,
but somehow Apple seems to think for a phone it's OK.

~~~
nicholassmith
Gloves frequently _do_ come in one size only. Adding wider ranges of screen
sizes increases developer testing requirements so I'm glad they haven't, and
whilst Autolayout does abstract a lot of those headaches it doesn't resolve
everything.

Plus gloves do often come as one size only. Depends on the glove type,
material and manufacturer.

~~~
brohee
Given the way iOS UI are developed, the right choice would obviously be
different screen size, same resolution...

------
r0h1n
Gruber gets my goat like very few other writers do.

Not because he's wrong, because he's usually right.

Not because he's shallow, because he's usually very deep and insightful.

Not because he's rude, because he's polite even when dismissing other's stupid
observations.

It's in spite of all this.

I think it's because I know _before_ reading a Gruber piece what _its
conclusion will be_ , namely "Apple did something great, amazing and
innovative. Here's how and why."

There's no surprise in his conclusions. If it's about an Apple product or
decision, I know what the ending will be.

P.S. Sure there may be a few times when Gruber has criticized Apple, but to me
they feel statistically insignificant.

~~~
cremnob
That says more about Apple than it does Gruber.

~~~
bronson
What does it say about Apple? That they can do no wrong?

~~~
rednukleus
They promote the idea that they can do no wrong, and that everything they do
is carefully thought out perfection (eg. screen sizes)

~~~
simonh
Carefully thought out yes, but often when there is imperfection that's
carefully thought out too.

For example the cameras in the early iPhones were very deliberately below par
specifically so that they could ramp up the camera quality with each new model
as an incentive for owners to upgrade. Imperfect by specification, but perfect
business execution. I say this as someone who bought into iPhones with the 3G
and never regretted it, but it's the truth.

With screen sizes, I would prefer a slightly larger screen size on my current
iPhone 5. I do think Apple will eventually go to a greater screen size, but if
so they will do it because they need it as a differentiating factor for a new
model. I was half expecting them to do it this time because I couldn't think
of a compelling new feature that the next model would need, but I didn't know
about the move to 64bit, TouchID and M7. This time they had enough new
features that they didn't need to move to a bigger screen.

Yet.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
> [T]he cameras in the early iPhones were very deliberately below par
> specifically so that they could ramp up the camera quality with each new
> model as an incentive for owners to upgrade.

That’s quite an accusation you’re making. Do you have any sources to back that
up? I read a lot of tech news and I’ve never come across anything like it.

~~~
simonh
IIRC it was widely discussed at the time. I don't remember ever seeing any
other reason tendered as to why the early cameras were so far below the specs
of other contemporary phones. Do you have an alternative theory?

~~~
Samuel_Michon
> the early cameras were so far below the specs of other contemporary phones.

I don’t think that was the case at all. The original iPhone had a better
camera than my high-end SonyEricsson smartphone did at the time.

Also, the camera on the iPhone 3G was exactly the same as the camera on the
original iPhone, so it couldn’t have been used as a way to people to upgrade
their phones.

Apple tries to get people to upgrade every two years, not every year. The
difference in photo quality between an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4S or an
iPhone 4 and an iPhone 5 is immense. However, all of those models were among
the top camera phones when they were new.

~~~
simonh
Here's what Engadget's review of the original iPhone had to say about the
camera that, as you say, wasn't upgraded for another two years:

"..it's still a lousy sensor by even ultra low-end dedicated camera standards,
so we'd recommend this not be used in the field for anything but the
occasional candid shot"

Ars Technica compared it semi-favourably to low end camera phones, but:

"..Another glaring omission is the lack of video capabilities in the iPhone's
camera: something that many very basic (and much cheaper) handsets can do"

It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anything special, lacked many features found
on much cheaper phones and again wasn't upgraded for two full years. By that
time it's camera capabilities were woefully behind even the most basic camera
phones. Here's what Macworld said about the 3G:

"For a product as on the cutting edge as the iPhone, its built-in camera is an
embarrassment"

IMHO the reason they didn't upgrade the camera on the 3G was that they didn't
have to. They were selling as many of them as they could make and being in a
class of their own had essentially no competition. As I said, they kept
improving this feature in reserve for when they needed it. This isn't really a
criticism, I loved my 3G, but this is Apple's modus opperandi.

[http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/03/iphone-review-
part-3-apps...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/03/iphone-review-part-3-apps-
and-settings-camera-itunes-wrapup/)

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/07/iphone-
review/11/](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/07/iphone-review/11/)

[http://www.macworld.com/article/1134482/iphone3g_review.html...](http://www.macworld.com/article/1134482/iphone3g_review.html?page=2)

~~~
Samuel_Michon
So you have zero proof or sources that Apple deliberately held back better
camera parts in order to sell more iPhones the next year. Such a thing could
only possibly have been the case with the iPhone 3G, as all later models have
had best-of-breed cameras. Unless you want to tell me that at the time Apple
made the original iPhone they could have bought the 3GS camera in volume.

Both the original iPhone reviews you linked to are positive about the iPhone
camera’s photo quality compared to other phones. They mention the quality was
bad compared to point-and-shoot cameras, but that was the case with all camera
phones.

At the time the iPhone was announced, I had just bought a SonyEricsson P990.
It was SE’s top-of-the-line product and it cost Euro 700. It had a 2MP camera,
just like the iPhone, but the photos it took were terrible compared to those
taken on an iPhone.

------
robmcm
I really don't understand his battery life claims. Either he doesn't use his
phone much, or he charges it when ever he can.

A true revolation would be a phone that could last days without needing a
charge. To my mind it's one of the great features of the iPads, you can leave
it on playing video for literally 10 hours, it lasts days with average use.

For all the improvements on processors, screens and cameras we get very little
inovation in battery technology and it's stifling the industry.

~~~
mrich
Here's where Apple's resistance to larger screens (and bigger smartphones)
also bites them: Larger phones can pack much larger batteries, leading to
longer battery life (even despite the larger display, which does _not_ consume
proportionally more energy). E.g. a Note II will last nearly two full days
without a recharge, and you can get 2.5 days of normal use with power savings
enabled.

~~~
tuananh
My own experience with Galaxy Mega (5.8) is awful. Its screen is huge; coming
from an iPhone 4S yet its battery is terrible; barely last a day (7am til 6pm)
with a full recharge.

------
andrewfelix
This guy treats hindsight like prior foresight. He is continuously criticising
other people for making bad predictions, but loves to say "I told you so" by
cherry picking his own previous observations.

Surprise; Apple made a great device. Gruber loves it, everybody who counters
that argument is a 'Jackass' making 'Claim Chowder' and so the world keeps
turning.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
No, it’s not the ‘jackasses’ making ’claim chowder’.

When a tech writer posts a prediction that’s bearish on Apple or bullish on
one of its competitors, Gruber might quote him and ‘file it for future claim
chowder’. That means that Gruber will revisit the claim later and make chowder
out of it.

------
siglesias
I think Gruber's point about "Apple not innovating anymore" is especially apt.
One needn't look beyond the diff quality between iPhones (or iPad!) under
Jobs. The diffs have held constant, if not increased, under Cook [1]. I think
this tech crowd fancies itself rational and immune to mythologizing, but
claiming things were once better in the face of the hard facts is doing just
that.

1)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6258275)

~~~
netcan
I don't really. I agree that it's too early to tell, but his argument reads a
little strawman-ish. IE, the haters that call the post Jobs releases
incremental, would have called the ipad "just a big iPhone.”

I think thats a little silly. There clearly is a difference between an
incremental update of a product from a 5th to 6th generation (which is also
hard, important and can be impressive or unimpressive) and a release or update
that is a Big Deal in the way the iphone 1 was a big deal.

The reality is that under Jobs, Apple did some big things. Macs (which you you
might call several big things). ipods, iphones, ipads. These all had very big
impacts on technology, economy & culture. You can't expect these kinds of
things to keep coming every three years. Maybe they would have stopped even
with Jobs. But, at _some point_ , a post Jobs Big Thing needs to happen.

I saw _needs to happen_ and that's a little harsh. Realistically, Apple are an
enormous company. Several very successful product lines that can carry them a
long way, perhaps through several successful CEOs. Incremental improvement on
those product lines is not the end of the world. There's no reason the iphones
and ipads can't last as long as macs.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I believe the new Mac Pro is post-Jobs Apple’s first big thing. It’s not a
consumer device and it won’t sell tens of millions, but it is a completely new
computer with a radically different philosophy than how Apple built
workstations before.

~~~
netcan
If it doesn't sell tens of millions it doesn't make a big impact on Apple's
bottom line. It might have some other effects like incubating tech that will
make it into other products, but then those products become the new important
products.

I guess that in the maybe category then :) (I haven't used one myself).

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I now see that by ‘Big Thing’ you meant a new cash cow. I thought you meant ‘a
great new product no-one expected’.

------
hbbio
"With the iPhone 5C Apple [...] created [...] year-old technology, [...] sold
at premium prices[...]. Not bad."

For Apple.

------
yalogin
The one piece of information from here that is new about the TouchID -

"And what is stored in that secure location are not fingerprint images, but
cryptographically hashed values, unique both to your finger’s biometric data
and the device itself on which you scanned it. Even if someone does figure out
how to obtain the fingerprint data from the secure storage on your iPhone,
that fingerprint data should prove useless anywhere but on the unique Touch ID
sensor on the iPhone itself"

Always thought it will be done this way. But "security experts" just assumed
it will be stored on disk in "consumable" form and warned not to use it ever.

~~~
acabal
The issue is more a one of trust, as pretty much all computer security issues
boil down to. Apple (and Gruber) says one thing; but since the code is not
available for inspection, and since you presumably can't alter the code on
your actual iPhone, you must take what they're saying at their word.

Whether or not you want to do that is entirely up to you. The overwhelming
majority of people wouldn't think twice about trusting Apple. But, as has been
has revealed, government influences are powerful and are already deeply (and
secretly) entwined with private enterprise. To snidely dismiss people warning
you about who to really, truly trust with things as fundamentally identifiable
of you as your fingerprint is doing yourself, and them, a disservice in the
post-Snowden era.

------
legulere
How are the new camera features innovation when other smartphones already had
them? I think at many points this article is just cringe-worthy apple-
fanboyism. how can you ignore that the 5C costs as much as the 5 when it's
essentially the same but with plastic instead of metal casing?

~~~
albedoa
_how can you ignore that the 5C costs as much as the 5 when it 's essentially
the same but with plastic instead of metal casing?_

In what way — or by whom — has this been ignored?

------
sfjailbird
I disagree. The new iPhones are muddying up the picture and losing the
distinctiveness of _the_ iPhone - it is less and less an instantly
recognizable phone, and since social signaling has always been a large part of
iPhone marketing and image, that is a mistake. In the same vein, cheaper
models kill the exclusiveness of the brand. In a way the gold model
illustrates this shift perfectly, flying in the face of Apple's longtime
'tasteful and minimalist' philosophy and towards mass market.

Of course, this might be a calculated move to move away from exclusivity, in
which case those things make sense. But that would be a little baffling in
itself, given the huge profit margins a premium brand commands (while _still_
having huge market share in Apple's case) compared to any old mass market
device.

~~~
yaeger
> it is less and less an instantly recognizable phone

How so? People were already using cases that camouflage the device somewhat.

>cheaper models kill the exclusiveness of the brand

This is the thing, there have already been "cheaper models". With every year
when a new version comes out, the old ones got cheaper. Don't they give out
the 4 or 4S for free with a contract right now?

You might also have heard bickering that the 5C is not the "cheap iPhone"
everybody expected. Seeing as it is priced not nearly anywhere you would call
"cheap".

Instead of continuing this behavior of simply keeping last years version of
the phone around and selling them cheaper, Apple now decided to not do that
this year and instead try and vamp up the old phone a bit so as to not just go
"yeah, this is our new phone and of course the old one you already know but
now, it gets a little cheaper"

~~~
sfjailbird
> People were already using cases that camouflage the device somewhat.

It's more about the actual offering - _the iPhone_ \- that Apple makes. The
more crisp this idea is in the head of consumers, the better the positioning.
It is more difficult for a product to be iconic the more variations of it
there are.

> the old ones get cheaper

Again, it is about what Apple's offering is. I don't think selling out old
inventory interferes with the idea of what their current offering is. In fact
the better defined each model is, the easier to distinguish last year's model
from the current one.

> the 5C is not the "cheap iPhone" everybody expected. Seeing as it is priced
> not nearly anywhere you would call "cheap".

It is still cheap _er_ , so now the iPhone I show off only signals that I
spent whatever the cheapest model costs. Might not be a huge difference but I
still believe it hurts important signaling value that used to be attached to
the iPhone.

~~~
kalleboo
> It is still cheaper, so now the iPhone I show off only signals that I spent
> whatever the cheapest model costs.

Isn't it the other way around? Under the old system, you bought a "high end"
4S. Then Apple introduce the iPhone 5, drop the 4S to a low price, and now
your 4S is suddenly the "cheap" iPhone. Under this new system, you bought an
iPhone 5, they introduce the 5C, drop the iPhone 5, and your iPhone 5 is still
recognizable as the high end model.

~~~
leoc
Like driving an old Mercedes as opposed to a new Corolla.

------
bobbles
I'm happy about the comments related to the home button being an upgrade
regardless of the scanner. I was worried about the feel of the button with the
changes.

------
matthewmacleod
The uninformed complaints about the use of a 64-bit ISA in ARMv8 have been
rather irritating, given we didn't know how it would play out in practice. It
seems that the performance increase of the 5S is pretty spectacular; the
iPhone 5 is already FAST.

~~~
rsynnott
I think a lot of people were (a) fuelled by a desire to complain about Apple
as much as possible and (b) were assuming that ARMv8 was an AMD64-type
transition or even a SPARC64-type transition, rather than a totally new ISA.

That said, from Anandtech's article, it looks like most of the speed boost is
from microarchitectural improvements, rather than use of the new ISA; ARMv7
code shows most of the speedup.

------
gms
Regarding 'no more innovation at Apple', this comment from 12 years ago is
apt:
[http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22940&cid=2467238](http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22940&cid=2467238)

~~~
stevewillows
>Apple is being distroyed [sic] by the rumors that are being created. When
they announce that they are going to have a new product, everyone thinks it's
going to blow their worlds. Rumors start flooding in about even the most
outragous products ( I even heard a few "sources" mention teleportion) This is
getting plain stupid.

> Apple is a normal company. Why does the public constantly expect them do the
> impossible?

Great line!

The hype around Apple products fuels both sides of the fence.

~~~
enscr
They (Apple) ask for it with words like "this changes everything" & "most
forward looking". The truth is, Apple folks love the aura & being put on a
pedestal. They do not want to be treated like a normal company.

~~~
stevewillows
I believe it was the great prophet Flava Flav that said, 'Don't believe the
hype'.

------
ateevchopra
People don't buy products. They buy solutions. And a phone is one of them. One
reason apple products are successfull is that they give a solution to wide
range of matters. I own an apple and I love it. not because its apple, but
because it solves most of their problems. It provides them a great interface,
easy solution to most of their problems, great hardware design, great battery
life etc etc. Its a complete package and not just one thing.

I guess same is the case with iPhone 5C. it might have same features as the
iPhone 5 in the inside, but on the outside it has a new colors. And that give
completely different feel to the consumer. I am not in favor/against this kind
of thing. But we have to learn that new is always better.

Thats what yahoo is trying to do. they haven't made any new product now. They
have just change the feel of their product and i guess its working pretty well
for them.

So my fellow entrepreneurs, even though you don't make a new improved product
in some time, do change its "feel". Everyone loves change. because it make
people curious. And change is the only thing that will never change.

------
seclorum
Take the new iPhone 5C. Turn it over. Look at the position of the Apple logo,
and the "iPhone" brand.

Put the case on it. Turn it over, look at the position of the Apple logo, and
the "iPhone" brand.

Hint: It looks like crap.

That sort of detail wouldn't have escaped Steve Jobs.

------
omonra
He's got an interesting niche - essentially being part of Apple PR machine but
on the outside. He's writing for people who already decided they will stay
with Apple to make them feel good about the decision.

~~~
mamcx
In contrast with the other niche. The anti-Apple PR machine that self-believe
are more "independent" minds because are agains it (I don't know you so no
take it as for you ;) )

However, I prefer when somebody already acknowledge his position and
preferences than when pretend (or worst, truly believe) is more "open minded
and fact based". I think is better contrast two opposite positions than two
almost-equal ones, but fighting for a narrative, after all.

Is better to start with a clear understanding of our own position then push to
improve things.

------
brohee
"And they’ve started a transition to platform-wide 64-bit computing years
ahead of their competition."

This guy is really awesome predicting years in advance what Apple's
competitors will do.

------
jamesaguilar
"Jackass-finity" \-- Gruber sure does have a way with words, I think that at
least is undeniable. What a great neologism in the midst of a great argument.

~~~
valleyer
Actually, that portion seemed pretty puerile and unimaginative to me.

------
Tichy
I've got an idea how to pick a color for the bike shed: match the color of my
iPhone 5c. Thank you, Apple, for resolving that problem once and for all.

------
dzhiurgis
> The iPhone 5S is, in some measures, computationally superior to the top-of-
> the-line MacBook Pro from just five years ago. In your fucking pocket.

I wouldn't be so sure, especially after reading this
[http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-
slow...](http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/)

------
ZeroGravitas
_" It feels slick but not slippery"_.

Well I'm glad it not slippery like all those cheap plastic phones everyone
else makes.

But hold on a minute, doesn't slick mean "slippery"?

[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slick](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slick)

The other meanings are strangely apposite too.

------
6ren
It _sounds_ better, but is ARM actually handling the 64 bit ISA transition
better than Intel's Itanium fiasco? (AMD's ISA won).

Also, odd that Gruber doesn't mention graphics, and likelihood that this has
an Imagination series 6 "Rogue" GPU.

~~~
rsynnott
> It sounds better, but is ARM actually handling the 64 bit ISA transition
> better than Intel's Itanium fiasco? (AMD's ISA won).

Yes. There's only one ISA from ARM (ARMv8), and it looks like it'll be
adopted; Apple has already made ARMv8 devices, and a number of other companies
have said they will in late 2014/early 2015.

------
fl0m
It's so easy. s means same c means cheap

------
YOSPOS
Not related, but anyone find it funny that The Verge has no review? Apple
probably snubbed them and didn't give them a review unit.

~~~
Steko
The Verge also held their review last year for Josh's appearance on Fallon.

