There's a trend I've seen manifest in virtually every thread about the 64 bit revelation on the 5S. It's acutely obvious in this thread as well.
There are people that have no idea what 64 bit is, if it's good, bad, indifferent. Many of them don't know what a 'bit' is. These are non-technical folk that are just curious what it all means.
Then, there are people that work intimately with this kind of technology. They're very familiar with all the pros, cons, implications, impacts, affects, big wins, and risky 'gotchas' that are associated with 64 bit architecture. They've done engineering specifically for 64 bit systems. They've done the same on 32 bit systems. They understand the overhead involved in running many modern types of software on a 32 bit system. They've written code in these circles. Some of them, lots and lots of code. They know how the hardware will help them where it hindered before. They know /exactly/ what this all means.
Finally, there is a large swath of people that inhabit the vast middle ground between those two extremes. They've heard a few bullet points here and there. They've read some blog posts about it, seen some webpages on it. They have some degree of technical acumen, but have no personal or professional exposure to actual hardware or software development with respect to 32 bit and 64 bit issues. If they do have some exposure it's limited, certainly not enough to be able to distinguish fact from misinformation.
The problem we're seeing here is that it doesn't matter what the people with the real knowledge of all the issues at hand say. It doesn't matter when people that know all the different things 64 bits are used for, all the benefits it offers over 32 bits, say 'this is a good thing'. There's a sizable chunk of people in that middle swath that want to sound like they know what they're talking about and poo-poo the whole thing. Once they've made a statement, they're unwilling to back down from it.
So, well intentioned, but ultimately uninformed, people make claims. Seasoned, professional experts (in this industry) point out, that no, this really is a good thing. The uninformed stand their ground. The professionals rebut. The uninformed stand their ground. I don't think it matters what we respond with, nothing we say will hold weight against the sheer weight of comments/pages floating around on the internet also written by people that don't fully understand the whole arena.
To those that don't understand 64 bit vs 32 bit and don't care about the details, those of you that just want to know "is this a real thing? or just a marketing gimmick", I say this:
Do not worry about what the detractors say. They mean well, but do not understand all the differences, what those differences mean, and how they impact the hardware, software, and the interactions between the two. This is a real thing that will confer real benefits. These benefits will be realized immediately, with compounding and increasing benefits carrying on into the future.
And let me be clear. Obviously, there's nothing wrong having little or zero knowledge of these issues. Trying to educate people on a topic that you have limited knowledge on, however, is less than ideal.
This whole thread is really just a (somewhat frustrating) exercise in philosophical discourse: the phone is going to be released with a gorgeous 64 bit architecture and properly integrated 64 bit software. Regardless what people in this, or any other thread say, people will buy this phone, people will enjoy this phone, developers will love that they can finally write performant mobile software on a 64 bit platform, and those of us in the development fields (mobile or otherwise) will remember when the first 64 bit phone came out.
TL;DR
If you don't know if 64 bit presents real benefits to the phone right now, trust those of us that have written code for years with with bit-width dependent hardware and software, every day, for a living: it does.
And: this is an un-winable debate when those that aren't intimately familiar with all the aspects of what this means ignore those that do.
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