Samsung, the Korean company that makes TV ads mocking Apple fans for waiting in lines, sent its own employees to the Apple Store for today’s iPhone 5s/5c launch. A Samsung video crew was spotted at the iconic Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City by CNET.
The reason for the espionage? Understanding why Apple generates so much hype for product launches.
Tim Cook made a public appearance at the Palo Alto Apple Store this morning for the launch of the iPhone 5s and 5c, and it looks like he may have finally taken to a Twitter account he created back in July to share about the experience in his first tweet ever.
Today Apple released a major update to the Apple TV that was originally predicted to arrive alongside iOS 7 on Wednesday. Version 6.0 of the set-top box’s software includes some big additions, including iTunes Radio, shared Photo Streams support, and AirPlay from iCloud, which is essentially Apple’s answer to the Chromecast from Google.
At the end of last night’s iPhone 5s teardown, the iFixit team still wasn’t sure who made the chips inside the latest iOS device, or where the brand-new M7 was, even. There was a lot of speculation as to who made the A7, Apple’s new, faster powerhouse of a main processing unit, as well.
That’s ancient history, now, as reverse-engineering and security firm, Chipworks, de-capped the various chips on the iPhone 5s logic board to find out precisely what’s what.
SAN FRANCISCO — The gold iPhone 5s is rarer than, well, gold. If you wanted to snag a gold-colored iPhone 5s this morning, you had to start lining up outside the Apple Store at 7:30 p.m. the night before. Apple had only 20 or so at the flagship Apple Store, which was a lot compared to most outlets.
At about 5 a.m. this morning, Apple staffers handed out tickets to everyone in line reserving them an iPhone. But there were only 20 tickets for gold iPhones, people in line estimated, and they were snapped up instantly by those at the front.
By the time I arrived to the Apple Flagship store on Stockton Street at 6:30 a.m. this morning, all the gold iPhones were gone. The line was already two blocks long though but I wasn’t worried because Cult of Mac.com had someone from Task Rabbit holding a spot.
There was only one problem: I couldn’t find her.
It’s almost a given that the iPhone 6 will feature a new, more-advanced camera — although there's been far less of a consensus on what form that camera is likely to take. Some things are known for sure: Apple recently snapped up Nokia’s PureView camera engineer Ari Partinen, although his impact is more likely to be felt on the iPhone 6s or iPhone 7.
Apple also recently received an electronic image-stabilization system instead of an optical one, essentially faking the stabilization technique using software instead of moving parts.
It’s likely that the iPhone 6 camera will have pixels that are 1.75 um instead of the iPhone 5s’ 1.5 um, too.
One of the big new features of the iPhone 5s is the updated camera. Oh, but it’s still only has a 8MP sensor you say? True, but Apple has managed to make the sensor larger and increase the size of each individual pixel so more light hits your sensor, meaning your really crappy night shots are going to be slightly less crappy.
Out of the box, the new iPhone 5s camera doesn’t look that special – other than new dual LED flash – but one of the first places you’re going to notice the improvements are on your low-light indoor shots. The wide aperture and larger pixel size allow for better low-light shots around your house, which means your Snapchats are about to be immaculate. Well maybe not immaculate, but there is definitely be a notable improvement.
You’ll be blown away by the new Touch ID fingerprint sensor in the iPhone 5s the first time you use it. You’ll be prompted to set it up when you first start up your iPhone, and you’ll have to scan your fingerprint numerous times at different angles before your iPhone is happy with it. Once it’s recorded, you can use the tip of your finger to unlock your device and authorize purchases from iTunes and the App Store.
I just wrote a piece about how difficult it is to obtain the iPhone 5s — particularly if you want the gold model — and Apple has now confirmed that it has completely sold out of certain iPhone 5s models in some stores. Demand for that and the iPhone 5c has been “incredible,” the Cupertino company said, but it’s yet to reveal just how many handsets have been sold so far.
Apple never seems to be able to make enough iPhones to meet launch day demand, but it seems the Cupertino company has found that task particularly difficult this year. The iPhone 5s has proven incredibly difficult to get hold of all over the globe, while that fancy new gold model is near impossible to get hold of.
At Apple’s flagship store in San Francisco, there were just 20 gold iPhone 5s units waiting to go on sale this morning, and they were all claimed before the store even opened its doors.
Did you buy an iPhone 5s or 5c this morning? Upon booting up your new precious for the first time, you’ll be asked to download over-the-air an update to iOS 7.0.1.
The gold iPhone 5s seems to be a hit. After selling out so fast on Apple’s official website that ship times are now in October for all gold models, and the Chinese literally swarming to get their hands on one, Apple is bumping production of the gold iPhone 5s to compensate.
There’s no getting around the fact that you look like a total dork when taking photos with your iPad, a problem only slightly mitigated by using the iPad Mini. But id you start shooting video with the Padcaster Mini, all bets are off. Even with my finely-tuned DorkDar (like a radar for nerdiness), I have no idea whether the Padcaster Mini will make you look awesome or utterly ridiculous.
4 hours after it became available for preorder on the official Apple site, the iPhone 5s is in short supply.
The biggest demand so far seems to be for the new gold iPhone 5s model, where pre-orders across all three U.S. carriers have already shipped to October. Other models, however, are faring better.
There were so many app updates tumbling out into the new iOS7 app store on Wednesday that we didn’t have time to cover them all, but the update to the iOS Kindle app is definitely worth a look. I do most of my reading on an actual Kindle device, but I love the fact that I can pick up on any device thanks to Whispersync. And now the iOS Kindle experience is way less ugly than before.
The new Google Translate is ready for the iPhone and iPad, and it’s a fantastic update. While other apps are better at giving you context and points of grammar, Google’s app is hard to beat for fast translations of single words or phrases.
And now it adds a third way to input words: handwriting.
Triggertrap Mobile has just released v2 of its camera-controlling software, allowing you to hook it up to any of 300 camera models by wire, and fire the shutter remotely.
Of course, that’s not all it does: Triggertrap can use any and every sensor in your iPhone to trigger the camera, along with timers.
I never make actual phone calls – they’re for people who don’t know how to use the internet. But I used to, and I remember one thing: real telephone handsets are way more comfortable to use than cellphones, especially for long calls.
Which is to say, the POP Desk handset will look great next to your fax machine.
Kids: Love ’em or hate ’em, they’re here to stay (unless they stop being born in some kind of Children of Men nightmare world). And one of the things we love and hate most about kids is that they are drawn to our iDevices like a hooker is drawn to dangerous situations.
Now, these monsters get their own section in the app store, which means that you should probably consider visiting the Restrictions section in your iPhone’s settings and switching off the store.
Update:
After ripping it apart and posting in real time, iFixit finished the teardown of the gold iPhone 5s last night. The team there pulled it to pieces (carefully, gently) to find out just what makes it tick. They were able to see inside the A7 chip, can’t find the M7 chip, and were able to identify the maker of the iSight camera (Sony). All in all, some great stuff from the folks down under.
What they found isn’t too surprising, but it’s a ton of fun to read through the details, below.
Original Post:
The team over at venerable rip-into-gadgets site, iFixit, have gotten their hot little hands on a brand new iPhone 5s, and they’re tearing it down to let us all know what’s inside. If you’re into seeing the guts of Apple’s latest iPhone 5s, check out all the gory goodness below.
Update: It looks like Jimmy is the one who got the first two iPhone 5s, one for himself and one for his mother in Indonesia. What a nice guy! The Herald Sun has a nice article on Jimmy and his bit of fame.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the iPhone 5s goes on sale tomorrow around the globe. We’ve been watching the lines start to form via the magic of the internet, keeping an eye on Twitter and Instagram, for starters.
As you get in line tonight, and tomorrow morning, feel free to send us your photos of the queues you’re sitting and standing in to us via email or Twitter.
Here’s several form-ups we’ve seen:
As we noted earlier this week, iOS 7 includes some code that will allow third party manufacturers create universal controllers for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch using Apple’s latest mobile operating system. It’s groundbreaking stuff, especially for a traditionally game-averse tech company, but we’re starting to see the first wave of controllers to come out.
By now you’ve probably already seen this story floating around the internet, but in case you haven’t, here’s your assigned Apple reading for the day. Bloomberg Businessweek has an exclusive interview with Apple’s Tim Cook, Jony Ive, and Craig Federighi for its latest issue.
With the launch of two new iPhones, Apple’s top designer Jonathan Ive granted very rare back-to-back interviews with USA Today and Bloomberg Businessweek.
Having read everything he’s ever said in preparation for my book about him (due mid-November), I recognized the usual Jony Ive talking points; the striving for simplicity, the importance of caring, and so on.
But there are a couple of paragraphs in the USA Today that especially gave me a strong sense of Deja vu.
It wouldn’t be a major iOS release without another lockscreen bug. This time, you use Command Center into tricking iOS 7 to give you full access to the Camera Roll and sharing options. The method was uncovered by a veteran lockscreen-bug-finder named Jose Rodriguez, who admits that he likes to “submit my iPhone to cruel methods of torture” in his spare time (which he apparently has a lot of).