Source Claims Hands-On Experience with iPhone 5 Prototype

[AlterEg0]

iPhones are becoming a joke.
- Same dated user-interface as when it first came out, overpriced
- Windows Phone Mango gives the user a much more fluid experience with 1 less core than the iPhone. Go figure.
- And the Windows Phone UI, orders of magnitude more intuitive and optimized than the iPhone.
- Been using WP7 for over a year now and whatever you can do on an iPhone, I can do faster on a Win Phone.
- It took Apple 4 generations to add a half-ass facebook integration with other apps. What a joke!
- Saturated markets - Apple has run out of idiots markets that are rich enough to "buy" an iPhone for $99 or higher and then pay $720 or higher over the life of the contract for data charges! What a rip-off. Now they are having to deal with markets like India and China they dont have he luxury.. so their margins are going to go down.

Waiting to see AAPL slow-cook over the next year.

 

[acslater017]

It's not like the average hand size has changed that much in the last 4 years. If Apple thought 3.5" was the optimal size in 2007, I'm not sure what has changed since then.

Only 6% of Android Market users have a large or xtra large screen, so people aren't necessarily choosing them en masse. I can't tell if tablets are included in these stats.
http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/screens.html

I doubt that Apple would fragment the iPhone market with two different sizes to appease that kind of minority.

With respect, that all hinges on the assumption that the original 3.5" display in 2007 was some kind of infallible decision based on unchanging factors. Beyond anatomy, I'm sure there were also considerations of depth (deepness required by the screen), battery life, backlight, cost, etc. I think that current 5-inchers are overkill, but a 3.8" or 4" would be just right IMO. It's not like it suddenly becomes unmanageable. Even the HTC Rhyme, which is supposedly marketed towards women, has a 3.7" display.

There are a few ways they could update the display size:
1) Apple simply introduces a new resolution (Retina sharpness + extra few mm). You're right that Apple dislikes fragmentation, but iOS already has 3 going: iPad, Retina, and original iPhone/Touch. A Retina iPad would make #4. They're not completely averse to new resolutions.

2) They simply make larger pixels and maintain the current 960x640, just bigger. No app updates necessary. They could maintain 300dpi and up the screen to 3.84" with app changes.

3) Just as Apple introduced Retina-compatible updates in 2010, so too could they introduce a new resolution alongside legacy ones. 2012 will presumably bring the drop of the iPhone 3GS, the last non-Retina device. And they'd be back to two resolutions for new handhelds. 2 tablet resolutions (regular, Retina) and 2 phone resolutions (Retina, 4") is quite manageable.

Or who knows, some other way that I'm not thinking of. There's no reason to accept Apple's design decisions as the end-all-be-all. SD slots were missing for a long time, then they added them. They took the backlit keyboard out of the MBA, then they put them back in.

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iPhones are becoming a joke.
- Same dated user-interface as when it first came out, overpriced
- Windows Phone Mango gives the user a much more fluid experience with 1 less core than the iPhone. Go figure.
- And the Windows Phone UI, orders of magnitude more intuitive and optimized than the iPhone.
- Been using WP7 for over a year now and whatever you can do on an iPhone, I can do faster on a Win Phone.
- It took Apple 4 generations to add a half-ass facebook integration with other apps. What a joke!
- Saturated markets - Apple has run out of idiots markets that are rich enough to "buy" an iPhone for $99 or higher and then pay $720 or higher over the life of the contract for data charges! What a rip-off. Now they are having to deal with markets like India and China they dont have he luxury.. so their margins are going to go down.

Waiting to see AAPL slow-cook over the next year.

Wow, joined MacRumors just to troll. Cool.

There's nothing wrong with disagreeing, but come on. You can do better. (for what it's worth I don't even disagree with you on some points. But you're being pretty childish...)

 

[vitzr]

That's one good looking phone, I'm ready to get out of this slippery fragile glass slab.

The one pictured here has some style, durability and far better display size.

 

[something3153]

That one phrase, poor battery life, tells me this is bogus. Apple doesn't compromise on that sort of thing. Or maybe this is why it didn't come this year.

Or, as a prototype, it uses a chips that consume more power but Apple wanted to use them to evaluate and plan.

 

[yodaxl7]

I think Steve Jobs wanted both the iPod and iPhone to have similar resolution and same screen size, too. Plus, Steve Jobs is a big proponent on battery, too.

 

[anberlinairlift]

A detailed list of things I want with a burning fiery desire:

1) The iPhone 5
2)
3)
4)

 

[AlterEg0]

Wow, joined MacRumors just to troll. Cool.

Is it so obvious.

I'll tell you what is childish. A site call macrumos where all the Mac faithful congrerate to see the coming of the next Mac savior and all that ended up coming down from the mountain was Sirii !!! lol.

 

[acslater017]

A 4" display with the same number of pixels as the 4s would look terrible in comparison.

With the same number of pixels, you can't really display any more stuff, and at below 300 dpi, the image wouldn't fuse for people with decent eyesight, and thus look pixelly. If you like pixelly, just buy a 3Gs.

I think "horrible" is a bit of an overstatement. I just did some high school math (full of missteps, BTW) and here's the results:

1) If they maintained the 960x640 resolution and increased the display size to 4", the result would be 289 dpi. (display: 3.32" x 2.22" = 4" diagonal). Not shabby, but below that magical 300 dpi mark thrown around.

2) If they wanted to stay at the 300 dpi mark (which is the vague figure that Jobs put out and a print standard), they could up the screen to 3.84" and still keep it at 300 dpi exactly. The resulting display would be 3.2"x2.13" = 3.84".

I think very few people would mind if they took some of the Retina's abundant sharpness and put some energy into size instead.

 

[anberlinairlift]

iPhones are becoming a joke.
- Same dated user-interface as when it first came out, overpriced
- Windows Phone Mango gives the user a much more fluid experience with 1 less core than the iPhone. Go figure.
- And the Windows Phone UI, orders of magnitude more intuitive and optimized than the iPhone.
- Been using WP7 for over a year now and whatever you can do on an iPhone, I can do faster on a Win Phone.
- It took Apple 4 generations to add a half-ass facebook integration with other apps. What a joke!
- Saturated markets - Apple has run out of idiots markets that are rich enough to "buy" an iPhone for $99 or higher and then pay $720 or higher over the life of the contract for data charges! What a rip-off. Now they are having to deal with markets like India and China they dont have he luxury.. so their margins are going to go down.

Waiting to see AAPL slow-cook over the next year.

Trololololololololol

 

[firewood]

More and more people are liking the bigger screens.

That may be a good indication that the fashion trend is about to swing. People carrying these big slates will start looking as stupid as old guys with pocket protectors.

Tiny phones used to be sexier, things may swing back that way.

 

[prestomusic]

Interesting comment from Jobs about screen size, and backs up what I've banging on about for a while now - the iPhone 5 won't, or at least shouldn't, have a bigger screen. It was designed to be the perfect size for an iPhone in the first instance, so why bow down to the big screen trend now?

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- Saturated markets - Apple has run out of idiots markets that are rich enough to "buy" an iPhone for $99 or higher and then pay $720 or higher over the life of the contract for data charges! What a rip-off. Now they are having to deal with markets like India and China they dont have he luxury.. so their margins are going to go down.

Waiting to see AAPL slow-cook over the next year.

Apple don't have now, and never will have, the supply chain capacity to supply the entire worldwide market with smart phones, and why would they want to? It would be bad for business. You don't seem to understand the iPhone business model which is supply driven not demand driven. I can't see any reason why Apple's margins will decrease in the way that Samsung and others have as smart phones commoditise.

 

[jeyf]

i guess they will start turning up in bars about CA soon.

 

[kdrexler]

App icons would either be a different size or would be spaced differently (like the iPad).

I personally hope they're a bit larger and the proportions are kept the same. I've never liked the wide-open spacing of apps on the iPad.

Me neither. The icon size to space ratio is perfect on the iPhone, IMO.

 

[bit density]

What I think is going to be in there.

I think the larger screen is possible, but I think a smaller device may be more likely. But it is also very likely that the form factor won't change, with the following changes. The home button. Another button on the bottom of the case that will be usable as a game control in landscape. Possibly a button on the right side of the case for the same purpose.

Faster processor inside, with a possible addition of a THIRD rather than QUAD processor. This will be mostly for gaming (a physics engine). It will be turned on and off quite rapidly). It may also be used for Java Script and HTML5 optimization.

The camera will not go to 10 megapixels, but rather have more love put into it. Larger sensor, larger lens, for more low light uses. 2 or brighter, or even color selectable LED's. Possible even dramatically newer technology in the sensor. Faster, better pictures. Better Video Camera. More image stabilization...

Much faster graphics co-processor (this will make it into the iPad 3 for pushing the BIG retina display).

IR port on top. I don't understand why this isn't in there already. For making universal remote control applications, and part of TV/media center solutions.

Dramatically improved Core Apps. Calendar will finally be synchronized on all your apps so you don't get notifications every time you sign on somewhere. Mail will be much better. Voice dictation will work much better. Integration between reminders, mail, and calendars will be much better, and not have ridiculously different UI, just because. Core applications will be replaceable, and integration API's will be published.

Maps will be DRAMATICALLY better rather than the UI mess they are now. Maps will also be replaceable and have integration built in. Much faster GPS solutions, (this may involve multiple GPS chips), that will make skipping intersections less likely, and better compass solutions. And 3d views. There also needs to be useful shortcuts to zoom in and out of the entire route, so there isn't just a bunch of pinch and unpinch UI over and over. This is important if you are trying to avoid traffic, and this also means automatic route recalculation. There is a chance that maps will no longer rely on Google. And actually Maps functionality may be core bought by microsoft and Bing.

Remote access to your home machine, possibly through iCloud integration. Phone App replaceable. This is a wish, but I think we are not seeing innovation in the phone app, because of this, and there is too much screen shifting around and mode changes through a single phone call. Press one, the operator asks, and you don't have a keypad visible, but I do have a fairly useless screen sized image from my contacts. I don't need that at the expense of the keypad. The whole UI needs to be changed. I want textualized versions of my voice mail, emailed to me. The whole texting interface and contacts interfaces need to be improved. I don't need there to be 4 entries for my wife, because she has 4 different email accounts and uses slightly different friendly names for that.

All of this, and 50-100% more battery life. This to be accomplished through better software power management, better and more chip integration, and better battery technology. Radio and screen technology are not going to be huge sources of battery improvement.

 

[bretm]

The cube had a capacitive button, but was roundly criticized. I agree though, there will not be a capacitive touch button on an iOS device

It's still a physical button. It just ALSO happens to support capacitive swipes. Perhaps a fingerprint unlock?

 

[marcusj0015]

But haven't they kind of gotten used to this, with three separate iOS resolutions floating around now (iPhone / 3G / 3GS, 4/4S, and iPad/iPad 2)? There are lots of universal apps as well as lots of apps that run on both the retina and non-retina iPhones. They seem to have gotten pretty good at handling multiple devices with the tools Apple offers.

What they need to do, is use vector instead of bitmap graphics. that way they can change the resolution til their hearts content.

 

[something3153]

That may be a good indication that the fashion trend is about to swing. People carrying these big slates will start looking as stupid as old guys with pocket protectors.

Tiny phones used to be sexier, things may swing back that way.

My Samsung Focus is a couple mm bigger than the iPhone each way. Is the iPhone a couple mm from being a big slate?

 

[marcusj0015]

How the **** could it be "Much faster" considering they would BOTH use an A5??????

 

[Identity Fraud]

I'm surprise that no one has mentioned the 'capacitive home button'. I think we can discredit the source from that claim alone - name a single other Apple product that utilises a capacitive touch button? Answer: none! Why? Because they provide no tactile feedback, and therefore equal the type of sub standard usability that Apple strives so hard to avoid! I call BS !

Why not? It can be like the magic mouse, you can swipe across the elongated home button and still click it like a button for tactical feedback.

 

[tylerk36]

10 Megapixel camera. Na. I see a 12 Megapixel camera. Larger screen. Not in the way you see it. Think of the current screen size maybe but not in the manner we have been told here. I really don't see why the phone needs to be larger in size. The iPhone is perfect in its footprint as of now.

 

[carmenodie]

When was the last time Business Insider said anything at all worth listening to?

You ain't lying! On any given day, BI will write up 20 stories about Herman Cain. 50% says he's headed to the White House and the other 50% says his bid for the WH is dead in the water. BI can kiss my .......
Hell, if we are going to quote BI then we should quote my dead grandmother on my father's side who has been in the grave for 30 years.
It would be about the same thing...Nothing!

 

[ProwlingTiger]

I would call ******** on it and say that these rumors are a waste of time, but then I'd have a horde of people saying "WELL THIS IS MACRUMORS DUDE!"

Not ONE rumor of this year's iPhone came true.

They can use the same design and still sell more units than the previous year. Why waste time and money with a new design every year.

Siri rumor. Dual code processor rumor. 8mp camera rumor. But, yeah, none of those came true In fact, the only rumor that didn't come true was the redesign.

All Apps I know have too small buttos to begin with as well as generally too small font sizes to comfortably read. This is because the screen space is limited.

If anything at all the Apps get better when they are scaled larger by ~15% and the buttons and fonts are easier to press and better to see.

There is clearly a general need for a larger screen with the same resolution. Just look at the Android phones with 4inch + screens. It would make sense for Apple to offer a larger screen version of the iPhone. The can keep the 4S around for a few more years for people who need tiny fonts and buttons.

You're not understanding this: a larger screen with the same resolution would 1. Make buttons bigger and 2. Make the interface quality deteriorated. Do you think Steve wanted a button to be one size on iPhone A and another size on iPhone B? No! It's a horrible inconsistency.

Apple's sales figures indicate people still want 3.5" screens. Android phones are different in a lot of ways than iPhone. That is intentional. I suggest you read up on how Apple tightly controls how many products it releases. Do you think Apple is so naive to have not analysed a potential 4" iPhone screen? There's probably even a prototype of one somewhere.

There are also people hollering for a 7" iPad. Apple does extensive testing to determine the proper device size for its products. The outlook is simple and clear (unlike Android): 3.5" iPhone, 9.7" iPad.

 

[Navdakilla]

wish I would have had that phone 2 weeks ago

 

[ProwlingTiger]

A good look at the practical decision of choosing a screen size: link

 

[gnagy]

iPhones are becoming a joke.
- Same dated user-interface as when it first came out, overpriced
- Windows Phone Mango gives the user a much more fluid experience with 1 less core than the iPhone. Go figure.
- And the Windows Phone UI, orders of magnitude more intuitive and optimized than the iPhone.
- Been using WP7 for over a year now and whatever you can do on an iPhone, I can do faster on a Win Phone.
- It took Apple 4 generations to add a half-ass facebook integration with other apps. What a joke!
- Saturated markets - Apple has run out of idiots markets that are rich enough to "buy" an iPhone for $99 or higher and then pay $720 or higher over the life of the contract for data charges! What a rip-off. Now they are having to deal with markets like India and China they dont have he luxury.. so their margins are going to go down.

Waiting to see AAPL slow-cook over the next year.

Can you take a screen shot on your Windows Phone 7?