With its 64-bit A7 processor and Touch ID sensor and improved camera, the 5s has a lot to offer By RupeRt Misiek
Pros: Touch ID sensor; 64-bit A7 chip
Cons: No battery life improvements
Company: Apple, apple.com/uk
Price: £549 (16GB), £629 (32BG), £709 (64GB)
Adding an ‘s’ to last year’s new-shape iPhone is a pattern we’ve seen since the 3G became the 3GS in 2009. And once again in 2013, Apple has evolved its existing smartphone platform. Only this time the iPhone 5 has split into two – a new flagship 5s and a more playful 5c in a range of pastel colours.
Design and build
It’s not just the iPhone 5c that demands you choose a colour. With the 5s, Apple has introduced a new Gold option. There’s also a Silver device, and a black and grey model, dubbed Space Grey. Construction is the same, a rather delicate and scratchable aluminium body with aluminosilicate glass front, and inset plastic top and bottom end cheeks behind. Specified at 112g and 7.6mm thick, it’s just as light and thin as before.
Touch ID
For technical innovations, the 5s boasts two major breakthroughs, along with other minor component changes that nonetheless ought to lift the user’s experience higher than ever. The Touch ID fingerprint sensor is the result of Apple’s purchase of biometric specialist AuthenTec Inc. The result is a Home button that will only respond to the touch of the owner.
To use the Touch ID feature, you’ll also need a passcode. This is so that if the fingerprint scanner stops working, or if you pass your iPhone to someone while driving or lose your hand in a freak accident, you can still access the device using this code. In the Settings app, under Passcode and Fingerprint, enter your handset’s passcode. Even if someone snags your unlocked iPhone, they can’t add their own fingerprints; they’d need to know your passcode.
The 5s can store up to five fingerprints, so you can have it memorise two of your own fingers and still have space left for your significant other’s prints, too. iOS 7 prompts you to tap your finger on the Home button several times. It may also ask you to change your grip on the device, so it can map a larger portion of your fingertip. A fingerprint icon continues to add details as you tap, until the phone tells you the process is complete.
You can also use your fingerprint anywhere you’re prompted for your Apple ID password – including iTunes Store purchases. Go to buy an app, for example, and the 5s will ask for your fingerprint. If you can’t or don’t want to, tap in your password instead. For most, the Touch ID system should prove useful and effective at locking your phone. How long before it becomes trusted enough to part-authenticate cash payments is another question.
A7 processor
Apple has used its own processors for several generations of smartphone, starting with the A4 that premiered in the iPhone 4. Its latest offering is the A7. It’s a real marketing coup to be able to promote ‘up to 2x’ speed increases, especially when that’s measured against the already fast A6 found in the iPhone 5.
Ask a user of last year’s handset what they’d like to see improved, and you’re unlikely to see ‘speed’ anywhere on their list. While competing Google Android smartphones still suffer perceptible lag issues in the interface, making users chase the rainbow of faster devices, the latest iOS 7 runs smoothly and slickly on recent iPhones.
The real boon for the A7 chip and its architecture is what it will do in future Apple devices. Given the possibility of more than 4GB of memory, and raw performance that now challenges Intel’s Core processors, we see little reason to not expect the MacBook Air or a similar lightweight laptop to be offered with battery-sipping ARM power quite soon.
Battery life
More power typically means greater demands are placed on the battery, and Apple has developed several strategies to deal with this. To offload some of the low-level background processor duties, which nonetheless would keep the main CPU busy enough to deny it power nap moments, an additional co-processor has been added. The M7 chip’s stated role is to process incoming sensor data such as accelerometer, compass and gyroscope, some of the components that give the phone its orientation.
With the current fad in fitness and health monitoring apps, Apple has spotted a new area that can be improved, without impinging so much on battery life. There’s also been a minor swell in battery capacity, from 5.45 to 5.92Wh. How does this 8.6 percent increase relate to real-world battery life? We were unable to check this prior to going to press, but you’ll be able to read the results of our tests and other elements of the iPhone 5s at tinyurl.com/o6aqgrb.
We can say that where some named brands have been found to fib with their advertised specs, Apple tends to play with a straighter bat. So when it says it has added two hours on its runtime when browsing over 4G, we’re inclined to believe that’s possible.
That improvement is probably as much due to the change of cellular RF chipset, which should now enable an iPhone 5s to work across any upcoming 4G LTE service in the UK. As well as roam across more next-gen networks when you’re travelling beyond these shores.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities are probably unchanged, and here lies a small disappointment as Apple has not taken the cue of its own upgraded AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule routers to add 11ac wireless to the iPhone 5s. The emerging wireless standard – still in draft until next year – introduces not just faster throughput but increased range, too.
The absence of 802.11ac on the 5s is not a deal-breaker of course, no more than the continued restriction of audio quality will stop music lovers from acquiring a new iPhone this year. To whit, the iPhone continues with its barely CD-quality audio subsystem, where there is a simple opportunity to expand to high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz capability, for example.
Camera snapshot
Both cameras on the iPhone 5s have been improved from their 5 counterparts. While the front FaceTime webcam maintains its 1.2Mp resolution, but gains better low-light sensitivity through larger sensor pixels, the main photo and video camera receives the pixel enlargement and also benefits from a clever two-part LED flash system.
Called True Tone flash, it mixes two light bright LED sources of different temperature to more naturally light your subject, and avoid the washed-out glare of most simple flash units. On the video side, faster processing allows the camera to capture more frames every second when filming. By optionally shooting at 120fps, then replaying at a more familiar 30fps, we have the illusion of slow-motion, but as fluid as regular footage. People are going to have a lot of fun with this feature.
Macworld’s buying advice It’s easy to dismiss the iPhone 5s as a resell of the 5 with a gimmicky finger reader. We can’t say how successful the Touch ID feature will be, but its existence suggests the technology may have come of age. And the 64-bit A7 processor insures it against future iOS developments. Read more at tinyurl.com/o6aqgrb
