Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone 5S Said to Feature Upgraded Rear Camera, iPad Mini Update Targeted for October

BvizioN said:
Why? Because of the minor hardware changes? Yeah, got ya.
Click to expand...

For those who don't have to buy every single new phone that they release, then I agree that the S iterations are often a better bet if you want to choose between one or the other. They tend to iron out some of the problems with the new generation.

With the 5S I'm hoping for:
- improved durability of the anodised coating
- greater LTE capability (the 5 can't handle a lot of the LTE networks in place around the world)
- better battery
- redesigns of any of the components that are keeping Apple Genius bars busy (a worthwhile investment to reduce the number of returns)
- wifi ac (think I'll be disappointed here if they release before October but still hoping)

I bought the 5 sim free in October but returned it because it wasn't enough of an upgrade from my 4 and wouldn't be able to work with most of the LTE networks being rolled out in the UK later this year.

I'm nursing my 2.5 year old iPhone 4 through the next few months and will probably buy the 5S as soon as I can if the features listed above are implemented.

Any other new features are a bonus but the list above is what I'm seeking.

I'm ambivalent about:
- better camera - I have a DSLR camera for when I want to take good pictures and current pictures are good enough for spontaneous photos
- wireless charging: unless it's charging overnight, I often want to use the phone while its charging. I don't want to carry a wireless charging pad around with me
-NFC - will need a year or two before its widely used as a payment mechanism by phone.
- larger screen

My brother's fiancée has had loads of problems with her S3 and is trying to get it replaced. Same problems with an iPhone and she would have been able to get a replacement in 10 minutes at an Apple store. O2 aren't willing to change her S3 though. For me, Apple's excellent customer care is worth a hell of a lot (returning a phone after 2 weeks for no penalty was brilliant) and as much of a reason to stay with them as my investment in the iOS/OSX ecosystem.
 
Last edited:
Tech198 said:
13 MP :eek:

Lets me ask you guys a question:

If the iphone 5s gets upgraded camera ... that would mean more megapixels yes ?

If so, then why is Apple touting that ".......multiple lenses with an 8 Megapixel camera would get sharper images ..."



Standing by this...... just add more lenses.....

Isn't this the Apple way ?

May sound like a silly question, but I'm looking at the more photography world where people do things right, by increasing megapixels, rather just adding layer of lenses to make it better.
Click to expand...

Greater megapixels doesn't necessarily mean better photographs. The lenses are probably more important than the megapixel count - especially when you get past a certain level.

A good lens with lower megapixels will normally take a better photograph than a bad lens tied with greater megapixels.
 
nippyjun said:
Yawn. They better have more up their sleeves than a better camera. How about a 128meg version and different colors.
Click to expand...

They could easily make the colour options based around a case of some kind but the 128Gb option is way overdue given the cost of flash memory these days. Going from a 32Gb iPhone 3GS to a 128Gb iPhone 5S/6 would be the same leap as going from a G4 to a 2009 Mac Mini for me.
 
borgqueenx said:
...........now a lesser and ******** upgrade then ever! All come buy this amazing phone!
Click to expand...

Again, if its an evolutionary upgrade then its aimed at those owning a 4S or those who don't have an iPhone at all. I'm sure Apple are delighted that some users feel the need to upgrade with every new model but they'd be stupid to base their business model on them.

Apple have rarely got into the specs race as they are intelligent enough to know that it's not sustainable in the long term. Apple's problem is unrealistic expectations from analysts and spec-obsessed users who insist on the latest and greatest. Most users do not have the money, inclination or need to upgrade every year.

I'm sure Blackberry and Nokia would love to have Apple's sales numbers. I'm not convinced that Apple want the pressure that comes with Samsung's success. Organic growth is more sustainable in the long term than rapid change.

My sense is that Apple want to continue to plough their own furrow rather than do what others think they should. History suggests that they are right to do so.
 
Moccasin said:
Again, if its an evolutionary upgrade then its aimed at those owning a 4S or those who don't have an iPhone at all. I'm sure Apple are delighted that some users feel the need to upgrade with every new model but they'd be stupid to base their business model on them.

Apple have rarely got into the specs race as they are intelligent enough to know that it's not sustainable in the long term. Apple's problem is unrealistic expectations from analysts and spec-obsessed users who insist on the latest and greatest. Most users do not have the money, inclination or need to upgrade every year.

I'm sure Blackberry and Nokia would love to have Apple's sales numbers. I'm not convinced that Apple want the pressure that comes with Samsung's success. Organic growth is more sustainable in the long term than rapid change.

My sense is that Apple want to continue to plough their own furrow rather than do what others think they should. History suggests that they are right to do so.
Click to expand...

Fortunately for Apple the amount of these users is relatively small, and many of them still buy the latest iPhone after ranting about what a disappointment it was :)

----------
barkmonster said:
They could easily make the colour options based around a case of some kind but the 128Gb option is way overdue given the cost of flash memory these days. Going from a 32Gb iPhone 3GS to a 128Gb iPhone 5S/6 would be the same leap as going from a G4 to a 2009 Mac Mini for me.
Click to expand...

The tricky thing about more memory is the fact that Apple is trying to push it's cloud services - In Apple's perfect world everyone would use iCloud and iTunes match, only having to store their apps locally.
 
bbplayer5 said:
Boring OS = yawn. Look at Ubuntu, or even the new BB OS. They are so much more advanced...

iOS is too plain and boring.. heck my MOM uses it now.
Click to expand...

Interesting criteria for determining an operating system. I think applications, hardware, and customer support would be important but I guess not/ [/sarcasm]

You look like a bandwagon OS adopter...whatever's the next cool thing is what you'll be using...good riddance.
 
AFDoc said:
This is MR, what do you expect? Only this group can get angry about a rumor some guy heard in the bathroom while he was cleaning out the john.

Plus you can really see the difference between the "kids" and those that actually have other responsibilities in life. Whining about a cell phone and how they're going to switch if apple doesn't come up with something great is awesome! Stop threatening to switch and do it ffs. The same whining about these rumors will be the first in line ready to drop their cash into Apple's pocket.... even if the phone doesn't do what they want!
Click to expand...

Yep that's the great thing about choice. You want a big *** phone, there are plenty of options out there. :). I personally think some of this is a fad and Apple's mo is not to chase fads. A few years ago everyone and their mother was saying a Apple had to release a netbook. What did we get instead? MacBook Air and iPad, both of which have had phenomenal success. People keep complaining about lack of innovation at Apple but it seems all they want Apple to do is become Samsung. Not sure what's innovative about that.
 
Rogifan said:
Yep that's the great thing about choice. You want a big *** phone, there are plenty of options out there. :). I personally think some of this is a fad and Apple's mo is not to chase fads. A few years ago everyone and their mother was saying a Apple had to release a netbook. What did we get instead? MacBook Air and iPad, both of which have had phenomenal success. People keep complaining about lack of innovation at Apple but it seems all they want Apple to do is become Samsung. Not sure what's innovative about that.
Click to expand...

Agree'd and honestly, what the heck is so innovative about what Samsung is doing? Check out the S4 rumors... all the same... bump this and upgrade that. I don't see Samsung (or anyone else) reinventing the smart phone like Apple did back in 2007.

For me, the bottom line is... who cares about which is better "today". It's going to be a moving target for a while. Apple, Samsung and others are counting on this... it's not a market where you buy once and your done. You buy a new phone about every 2 years and right now, they are all getting a share. Apple gets a very healthy share, and Samsung does.

MacRumors seems to have turned into AppleBashing.... it's getting old. It would be nice if people would focus on commenting on the rumors... remember they are rumors... and maybe have something interesting or constructive to say. I'm sure that's asking too much. :) :D
 
WilliamLondon said:
Yesterday I saw a phablet for the second time in public, and before I realised what it was I had already gasped aloud and said to my friends, "what a moron, the device that idiot is holding to his ear is ENORMOUS and looks so stupid." Then I realised it was one of those phablets, my initial reaction was thus validated and my friends just laughed and all agreed he looked utterly ridiculous holding that enormous thing to the side of his head.
Click to expand...

William, when you finally finish middle school someday and become slightly more mature in life, you will find out that you care more of utility and what works for you as supposed to fitting in to a clique. Apparently, some bigger phones work for some other people needs and that's why they use them.
 
bbeagle said:
I'm sitting in front of a computer all day. I don't need a phone to do all those computer tasks.

I'd actually like something SMALLER. I'd love a Dick-Tracy Watch Phone. I've been hoping for Apple to release something like that for years. What's out there is not what I'm looking for yet. Once it gets there, I'll get rid of my large 4" phone and replace it with a small watch.

I'm looking for a mobile communication device - just texting and calling people and maybe using Siri for quick sports score lookups when I'm on the move. Anything else, I'm next to a real computer quick enough to get that info.
Click to expand...

Why bother with a smartphone? Get a regular flip phone and save yourself some money.
 
adildacoolset said:
Agreed. 1080p is strictly unnecessary in phones. I have never once noticed or even heard about someone complaining about pixelation on the iPhone retina displays. Just think of the GPU power and the battery power it would waste.
Click to expand...

1080p isn't needed for text but it would be cool for videos. Especially YouTube, considering all iPhone videos are 480p since they cant support HD.
 
I really hope apple does something exiting with the software this year. Better cameras och SoC performance is not really that interesting.

There are a few things in iOS that really "bother" me at this point:
1. There needs to be at least an option of having app updates install automatically. I know some people may be very cautious about which apps they actually update, but I think the option needs to be there. Since iOS overall works so smoothly, it is frustrating that every now and then I have to step in and "manage" my phone, when it should "just work".

2. Allowing apps to download content in the background when pushed to them, this also breaks the "it just works" philosophy. It is annoying to receive a notification from an app, tap on it, and then have to wait for the app to download the updated content, especially if the notification has been sitting there for a few minutes.

3. A better way to switch between apps (at least on the iPhone). Doubble-clicking the home button is not a very elegant solution, I'd be satisfied here if all they did was to just allow for a swipe-up motion to bring up the multitasking tray.

(4.) Some sort of file management, any solution. Like the way pictures are handled, they are stored in one central location and any app can open them and save pictures there (I'm not sure whether or not apps can make changes to an already stored picture and save them to the same picture?). Just introduce something like that for files of general types (the OS already keeps track of what file types each app can open) so that different apps can operate on the same files without needing some (often poorly implemented) Dropbox integration.

(5.) At least on the iPad, something along the lines of widgets or live tiles. It feels like a waste of space to have this nice high resolution display on the iPad only to have 20 icons there really far apart from each other.
 
fr33 loader said:
William, when you finally finish middle school someday and become slightly more mature in life, you will find out that you care more of utility and what works for you as supposed to fitting in to a clique. Apparently, some bigger phones work for some other people needs and that's why they use them.
Click to expand...

So defensive, and yet also offensive, but more than both of those, utterly ironic. :p
 
Makes no sense to update the iPad and iPad mini at the same time. Better to keep the iPad annual update in March and the iPad mini in October so they don't eat into each other's sales too much.

Wise to move the iPhone back to June and make it centre stage at WWDC again. Would also be nice to see them roll out some iPhone add-ons such as an iWatch.

The cheaper iPhone x can take the Sept/Oct release alongside the iPad mini and iPods.
 
What Apple needs to do is innovate like android where phones are so big they need their own pocketable dumbphone

Not joking...

HTC-Mini-1.jpg
 
i really hope ios7 goes into some new direction (funcionality, customisation and design) and that is the only thing i hope to change on the iphone. Design, specs and everything else is great but iOS is really the main problem here. If it stays the same as it is, well i might just go and check windows phone which looks really great
 
BvizioN said:
Why? Because of the minor hardware changes? Yeah, got ya.
Click to expand...

Almost every top tier smartphone released today is just an incremental improvement over previous models. The s 3 was mainly just a processor bump over the s 2, same with the Note and Note 2 and well as all the really good phones. The changes most people are looking for are improvements to the OS, which we know they are working on (just don't know what they'll be or if they will be enough). The 's' variety of every iPhone has always been the same size, but we do know they are working on a larger phone which I guarantee will be released in 2014.
 
Hilarious

Technarchy said:
What Apple needs to do is innovate like android where phones are so big they need their own pocketable dumbphone

Not joking...

Image
Click to expand...

So these enormous phablets are the wave of the future? They're so big you can't fit them in your pocket so an Android maker "innovates" with a small dumb-phone that you can actually fit in your pocket?

Yeah, Apple is doomed! <SARCASM>
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back