iPhone 5: No, Seriously, It’s Not That Cool
Zachary Risinger | Sep 25, 2012 | Comments 6
Apple is notorious for designing and selling products that the world never knew it needed. Perhaps the biggest examples of this concept were the releases of the original iPhone and especially the release of the iPad.
So, is the iPhone 5 worth all the hype? Is this newest model really much better than the 4S, which already has a Retina display and a great camera for a smartphone?
In my opinion, it’s completely worth the hype. Before everyone flips tables and throws their clipboard like Tom Coughlin after a sack on Eli, hear me out.
With every iPhone update comes Apple’s opportunity to fine-tune their devices, and also implement their latest technology into the device in order to make the consumer experience even better than the previous iPhone. What’s not to like there?
Apple has introduced their new A6 chip, which replaces the A5 that comes in the 4S. This improves the overall performance of the phone in ways that allow for the device to process information that’s being received from the data networks that we have either come to love or hate (that’s you, Verizon/Sprint/AT&T). With the new iPhone being enabled for ultrafast wireless connections like LTE, this chip is necessary to being able to harness the full capabilities of such speeds.
In addition to this, this iPhone is thinner, and now includes a sapphire crystal in the camera that allows for clearer photos to be taken with the 5. Last time I checked, clearer photos with an already outstanding camera for a mobile device.
Plus, with the introduction of a new device into a pre-existing lineup of current phones, this means price drops. Granted, not a price drop on the new iPhone 5 (which overtakes the old 4S price point of $199 for the base model), but the 4S has been marked down to $99 to start and the 4 has been docked down to everyone’s favorite price — free with a two-year contract with one of the aforementioned service providers. And really, what’s not to like about that?
But perhaps the biggest reason I think the iPhone 5 is worth the expenditure is for the new, natural 16:9 aspect ratio that the enlarged Retina display provides. Thankfully, Apple has kept the width of the device the same in order to keep the phone comfortable in a standard grip, assuming you’re not someone who has some sort of Darth Vader-like Force-choke grip on the thing.
However, I will not go so far as to say that someone without an upgrade waiting in their contract should fork over $600 for a new 5. The phone itself is a great product both aesthetically and in terms of performance, but I would gauge that all those improvements would be worth the price of an upgrade.
The 4 and 4S are already reliable phones that are both more than capable of accomplishing all the tasks one could ask for out of their phone, so upgrading before the two-year mark in a contract wouldn’t be worth it unless you just have that much extra cash you’d be willing to spend. With the primary readership of the New U being students at UC Irvine, I can’t imagine that this would be the case.
That being said, the iPhone 5 is simply a device that takes what the 4S already does extremely well and makes it better. They made the phone faster, more reliable, made the camera clearer and the screen longer. That alone should validate the hype, and while the 5 isn’t the biggest thing that Apple has ever created, it’s definitely worth the attention that it’s been receiving.
Zachary Risinger is a fourth-year English major. He can be reached at zrisinge@uci.edu.
Filed Under: Opinion
People of a certainly level of beauty and popularity would scoff at the idea of owning an android. “What, you don’t have an iPhone? What are you, poor?” For them, the iPhone is a pretty well-designed smartphone that does everything they would possibly need–from a technical standpoint–and is as indispensable of a status symbol as owning a designer bag. You see, they don’t care if the new iPhone really isn’t “the biggest thing to happen to the iphone since the iphone”, they care about the status of owning one. Apple making the new phone longer didn’t add too much to the resolution of the screen, but it made it immediately distinguishable from the old iphone, further elevating the necessity of owning one.
Apple realized this very early on and is making a killing while geeks argue over technical merits. BTW I’m a die-hard android fan and windows/linux user(I say this to prove a point that I’m not an “apple fanboy”)
The iPhone 5 release 1 running iOS6 is a significant improvement in engineering, yet not a major change in software functionality: operating system and applications. One rightly has to consider the trade-offs between the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s. If you want the latest version of a smart phone then you need to consider the coast of a two year data/text/voice plan vis-à-vis the economics of a previous generation unlocked smart phone, which generally requires no alteration to your current phone service agreement.
Taking the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s as an example:
A 16GB iPhone 5 is $199 plus a two year phone plan that will most likely cost an extra $240 dollars, minimum, for a total cost equal to $439 plus tax.
A 16GB unlocked GSM iPhone 4s, does not operate on CDMA cellular networks, is available from the Apple Hong Kong store
[http://store.apple.com/hk/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone/iphone4s ] for approximately $620 dollars.
As to which operating system is best: Apple’s iOS6, Google’s Android, Windows or Blackberry / Research in Motion’s QNX – well that is free market choice. The functionality and the application milieu of each operating system is similar enough to exceed most people’s expectations.
In order to maximum personal product satisfaction each buyer must be wise and prudent in the exercise of their free market choice.
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There’s truly only one way to describe the widespread addiction to iPhone products… world’s best practice marketing! I won’t ever deny the significance of the first iPhone as a solid product that actually delivered the first truly acceptable user experience to the masses (relative to the offerings of the day) and set a new standard. That delivery became an embedded perception that should’ve dissipated years ago when other products were forced to rise above the new standard and have done so ever since the first iPhone.
I succumbed to the hype with the iPhone 4 and regretted it for 3 months until I could no longer stand it and embraced Android. There’s no longer any comparison despite what diehard Apple users may think… the walled garden of Apple just doesn’t cut it against pure freedom of the Android platform. In a business application I can configure my Android phone to deliver every piece of information the second I flick the screen on… in contrast, the iPhone required me to load and switch between 4 applications EACH TIME (i.e. mail, calendar, weather and date/time). This represented nothing less than inefficiency and there’s been no improvement in later iterations of iOS except for the notifcation pulldown.
iOS is years behind for business requirements and I’m a firm believer that anyone who accepts it as a competent phone is either deluded, not concerned with efficiency or just happy not to be using an old Nokia 3310.
it sucks seriously..
No NFC maps sucks wifi issues rattling in the screen, This thing needs to go back to the drawing board… Sent from My Galaxy Nexus running jellybean 4.1.1 NFC enabled and google maps work properly…