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Hands-On Impressions of the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, and Touch ID
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i wish the iphone 5c also had a fingerprint scanner, i mean for that price they should have added it.
The 5s is a big improvement, bigger than the 5 was imo. I held out on the 5 because I was underwhelmed--what exactly did it offer other than the different form factor? The fingerprint reader and the camera are big updates, especially for someone like me who never used a passcode because I couldn't stand typing it in all the time, or those of us coming from a 4 with a crappy, scratched up camera lens.
While I agree that the price of the 5c is disappointing, these things will still sell incredibly well with the very, very large segment of the population that does not spend their time reading the comments section of tech websites, i.e. 99.9% of the population. They will see a phone that doesn't have the stigma of an outdated last-year's model but instead see it as a cheaper, colorful new phone. Parents will buy them for their kids, people who don't care much about the tech, etc.
While I agree that the price of the 5c is disappointing, these things will still sell incredibly well with the very, very large segment of the population that does not spend their time reading the comments section of tech websites, i.e. 99.9% of the population. They will see a phone that doesn't have the stigma of an outdated last-year's model but instead see it as a cheaper, colorful new phone. Parents will buy them for their kids, people who don't care much about the tech, etc.
Another simplistic mis-fact. The 32-bit A6X has the same memory bandwidth as the A7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Ax#List_of_Apple_SoCs).
A typical Apple fan response.... The W530 is a portable workstation, and small size is not a requirement for that market - but powerful is important.
If you want a more portable Lenovo, look at a T430s or X230.
While I very much like the new phones, to still charge $100 for basically 16GB more memory in 2013 is simply outrageous. As a potential customer I feel angry.
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How many times do you have to be told this, there are speed benefits unrelated to the amount of ram. And why do you bring up Facebook? As I said there are plenty of apps that need the speed and benefit from any boost in processing power, particularly things like games and audio apps.
Off contract, $649.
You do realize that Haswell and Ivy Bridge have 256-bit registers and data paths, right?
You do realize that a superscalar 8-bit CPU could potentially be faster than a scalar 256-bit CPU, right?
Performance is much more than measuring a datapath width.
Haswell running in x86 mode, obviously.
Data path widths and register widths don't need to match the address width. Many x86 chips had 64-bit memory data paths and 128-bit registers long before they supported more than 36-bit addressing. "Coppermine" Pentium IIIs had 256-bit wide data paths.
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No they don't. They both are 64-bit processors with a 64-bit wide datapath. They might have 4 cores, but each core is still a 64-bit cpu. 256-bit registers doesn't change that at all.
Sure. Why do you ask? Even a 2-bit scalar CPU could potentially be the fastest CPU in the world, but there are physical problems to overcome.
Which no one raised a doubt about. But if you compare processors that are otherwise the same each doubling in datapath width means an direct doubling in computing power. AMD and INTEL would kill for a working 128-bit CPU.
In that case, why didn't Apple OSX apps get twice as fast when recompiled for x64?
Why wasn't Adobe CS x64 on Windows twice as fast as Adobe CS x86 on Apple OSX? (referring to the versions where x64 was only available on Windows)
I'm signing off now....
I actually disagree - for the first time since the 3GS, this seems to me like a big update.
Most people put their iPhone in a case so, at a glance, they all look the same. For the first time, there is a clear and instantly recognisable feature that says this iPhone is the best iPhone.
In Germany, the iPhone 5C costs 600 €. The Lumia 520, which looks and performs about the same, for the category of customers that you described, costs 140 €. Tough choice, eh?
No they don't need to, but they always do, because its more efficient to do so. If you want to compute a binary string of ones and zeros in one step, it can not be longer than the datapath width. Since addresses also need to be computed from time to time, its efficient for them to have the same length as the datapath.
For example an address points to the beginning of a file and an offset points to where we are right now within the file relative to its beginning. Than you need to add the address and the offset to get a new address from where to load your data. This happens all the time. And since registers are were the operands and results of these computations are stored, they are also of the same length as the datapath.
32-bit long addresses were an artificial limitation of 32-bit architectures. Because 32-bit CPUs could handle 32-bit long addresses very well, the addressable RAM space was limit to max 4 GB. This wasn't a problem as long RAM was measured in a couple of hundred MB, but became a limitation later.
64-bit CPUs with a 64-bit wide datapath also introduced 64-bit long addresses and lifted this limitation. But that was just a side effect. Even if a 64-bit CPU uses less than 4GB of RAM, it is still twice as fast. Appel until today is selling its Mac mini with only 4GB of RAM making no use of the bigger available address space. Because that never was the main feature of 64-bit computing.
I do agree with the gouging just to have 16gigs extra in 2013. 16gigs shouldn't even be an option anymore for the top model. It would of been nice if it was only $50 to go from 16 to 32, then $100 to go to 64. Though, seeing the after contract price always makes that $100 difference just for memory stand out compared to the full retail price. With the cost of overall hardware/R&D, I wonder if they are cutting us slack by even offering it at $200 with 16gigs? It's like looking at a glass half full, as maybe thy are dropping the phone $100 to make it more affordable at only the cost of memory to the user.
Lets compare Android options with SD cards, as things can be worse depending on the model. I've only bought one android, a Galaxy Note 1, which only had one configuration for $299 with 16gigs. Sure it has a memory card slot, but that means I'm paying more to achieve 32gigs compared to a $299 32gb iPhone. Plus, if you wanted 64gb at once, the US Note 1 only supported upto 32gb cards. Though, that was 18 months ago, memory is cheaper. Recent androids and iphones offer 32gb at the $299 mark, but not all offer a $200 option for flagship models. So in a way, we might be lucky the industry even bothers with a $200 16gig option.
Also, lets imagine they had more fair memory pricing. 16gig to 32gb for only $50 more, 32gb to 64gb for $100 more. If it was that way in the beginning, the 16gb model might of been $250, and the 32gb still $300, making it more expensive for those that only needed 16gigs.
In the end, I look at it as a plus that there's a $200 option to make it more affordable to everyone. And for those that need more memory, they have the option at a cost.
Oh sweet merciful baby Jeebus, you just ruined the whole thing in an instant! I can never own one of these now.
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I have a 4S now too. I haven't decided. I hoped that the presentation would make it a no-brainer, but I'm still not sure how much benefit it would have. I probably will, but still on the fence. What excited you enough to easily make the choice?
You obviously do not live here. Cancun or puerto vallarta do not remotely represent the majority of us. How many first world countries do you know of where you cannot keep phone and internet service because the main line feeding the whole pueblo keeps getting stolen? We had service 5 days last month (the whole pueblo) because it was stolen 3 times. We usually do not have electricity at least 20% of the time and when we do we have to unplug the refrigerator or when it comes on the tv shuts off. The whole area has weak electricity. The government admits to over 300,000 in this state of mexico alone that do not have electricity at all, their "admit to" numbers are much lower than reality....always. A very small percentage have washing machines, by far most wash by hand and hang the clothes out on their roof (like we do). Of all mexican's, 48% make 2200 pesos a month (about 169.00 us right now), 90% make 6000. pesos a month (461.00 us) and the prices on most stuff is as much or more than the us (a new iphone about 825.00 us here at apple.mx).
To me and all other mexican's I know, things like this make us a 3rd world country, period. WE know what we are even if you do not. I get really bothered by people that do not even know us trying to tell us who and what we are.
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Apple has specifically said you can train it to recognize multiple fingerprints.
Thats a good point except that iPhone 4S owners would be pretty mad that iPhone 4 owners got the latest iOS releases for a longer period of time than 4S owners if iOS 8 doesn't support neither. That wouldn't be fair to 4S owners.
That's the ONLY reason for upgrading - if you have a very old iPhone model.
Otherwise, yesterday's announcements were pretty much irrelevant and did not EVEN achieve the goal of releasing a substantially cheaper iPhone 5C for emerging markets such as the US (yes, you are one of them nowadays).
all, in all, not bad
The iPhone 5S may be a good buy for the Touch ID alone
although, expect to be a hack out shortly (there always is..). And with the finger-pint sensor part of the same Home button which you can still click, people will take advantage of this "all-in-one" approach to get round it... Just wait.
Maybe Apple should have also emphasized, "With contact" for that price.. Here in Australia, its full price unlocked. Just to point out, all phones "on contract" are basically also "low priced" ..when bought, so Apples not winning here.
I wonder if Touch ID would work for the Apple Store .... Touch to login . No need to enter credentials, although you can do this too still if you wish.
And the camera looks better too, however Apple threw me off balance..
bigger pixels ? This does not compute.. And no Mavericks Everyone was waiting for this ..... oh well guess a bit longer now.
(edit. I can't believe they did one in Gold) is that for the e-lite
The iPhone 5S may be a good buy for the Touch ID alone
although, expect to be a hack out shortly (there always is..). And with the finger-pint sensor part of the same Home button which you can still click, people will take advantage of this "all-in-one" approach to get round it... Just wait.Maybe Apple should have also emphasized, "With contact" for that price..
Here in Australia, its full price unlocked. Just to point out, all phones "on contract" are basically also "low priced" ..when bought, so Apples not winning here.I wonder if Touch ID would work for the Apple Store .... Touch to login . No need to enter credentials, although you can do this too still if you wish.
And the camera looks better too, however Apple threw me off balance..
bigger pixels ? This does not compute.. And no Mavericks
Everyone was waiting for this ..... oh well guess a bit longer now.(edit. I can't believe they did one in Gold) is that for the e-lite
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