iPhone 5S Hands On

So, today I visited an Apple store for the first time since the iPhone 5S and 5C were released. My wife was in for a repair on her iPhone which gave me ample opportunity to have a play with the newest iDevice on the block.

Picking up a display model I have to say, it's very impressive. What struck me immediately was its thinness, managing to make my iPhone 4S look positively lardy in comparison. I know the dimensions and weight are almost identical to the iPhone 5, but it's still a marvellous thing to behold when you do get your hands on one .

The first thing I went for was the TouchID demo they have on the display units. This app basically allows you to map your fingerprint to the phone and test it without actually saving it. About 5 taps later and my thumb was successfully mapped and the device was registering my touch with 100% precision. This is very impressive technology for sure.

Next up is the camera, which is a similar 8mp effort as the 5, however with a greatly improved sensor. Now, while I couldn't check any photos on a large screen, the quality of what I was dealing with on the phone itself was superb. Great colour balance and fantastic clarity, everything you want in a decent camera. The slow motion video was well implemented and great fun, though I'm not sure if I'd ever use it properly, it's a fun enough toy.

With the boosted processor, iOS 7 whipped along at a fantastic pace. I've noticed that it can hang a little on my iPhone 4S. With the 5S being designed for the new OS, the performance is excellent. Very quickly opening apps and transitioning between screens.

The new champagne gold colour is quite nice in the flesh, however I still think it's a little gaudy. However, the silver and slate colours are beautiful and understated. I think I would personally go for the silver colour myself, that one to me is clean and elegant.

Initial impressions for the iPhone 5S for me are really good. The TouchID feature is particularly impressive in my eyes. I'll be getting a 5S in the coming months when my upgrade is due so look for a full review coming soon. However, on first impressions this is a stellar handset and worth every bit of the hype

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iOS7 Review

So, after months of waiting, Apple finally released iOS7 to the public on Wednesday. This is the first chance I've had to play with it, so I'm understandably excited.

Now, I'm not going to detail all the changes, that would take far too long and to be honest, there's already been plenty written about the new features, so I'm going to pick out a couple of things I use and detail those.

1: The UI

As you can see, it's a complete redesign. The Forstall design era is well and truly over. The new UI is flatter, features a lot of visually pleasing tricks and gimmicks.

For a start, the apps sit forward from the background, so if you tilt the phone on the home screen the background moves slightly. It's not a big difference, but it's a nice effect nonetheless.

Fonts have been refined, everything is cleaner and neater. It's rather nice.

2: The task menu

Swipe up from anywhere in the phone (including the lock screen) and you get this task menu. Simply enough it gives you quick short cuts to common functions such as Bluetooth, wifi, airplane mode, air play and the current music playing.

It's a nice feature, something iOS has been lacking since it's inception.

3: Multitasking

So whereas in iOS6, multi tasking consisted of the screen sliding up and a row of your open icons, in 7, you double tap the home button and you are greeted by this rather splendid card view.

While it does look similar to the Palm Pre's Palm OS, it makes multitasking look much snazzier, even if it doesn't add any functionality.

4: Notification Centre

The notification centre has had an overhaul. The transparency that sits throughout iOS7 is present here. Swipe down from any screen, again, including the lock screen, and you get a quick overview of your day. The weather, calendar events and your stocks.

The previous notification centre was overly cluttered and too busy for me, so this is a welcome change.

5: Camera

The camera app now caters directly for the Instagram lovers out there, with live filters and square frame photos all available from the camera's menus, it's a fairly pointless change in my eyes. But, plenty of people will enjoy it, so I can see the reasoning behind it.

The Verdict

I've only been able to play with iOS7 for a few hours, but overall it's a welcome change. iOS was getting stale and restrictive.

Although this UI change is very reminiscent of Android 4.3, it puts Apple back into the game when it comes to a modern UI.

One thing I will say is that on the iPad 2 it runs pretty slowly. So I'm assuming that on the iPhone 4 it will be the same. I'm running iOS7 on my iPhone 4S and whips along at a decent rate, so I would say the best way to experience iOS7 is to use iPhone 4S/iPad 3 or upwards.

Still, I like this UI a lot and I'll be interested to see the extra functionality on the 5S, such as the TouchID and Air Drop functions.

iOS7 is free to download now through iTunes or over the air when your device is connected to a wifi hotspot

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Apple Announce The iPhone 5C and 5S

Straight from the live text, Apple have announced the next generations in the iPhone range.

First up, the 5C. The 5C entirely replaces the iPhone 5. It features exactly the same internal components save for an improved battery. The main difference is the new hardened polycarbonate shell, which comes in a range of colours.

The 5C is taking over the traditional "Previous model" price point. In the past, when Apple has released a new phone, they have knocked the previous model down to an 8gb storage amount and cut the price by about $100. This changes things. For the first time, it's still available in 16 or 32gb and there has been a significant design change. As well as this, a range of silicone rubber cases has been designed to complement the iPhone 5C, in a range of rather bright, teen friendly colours. Here is the green phone combined with the blue case... yeah...

Other than the case though, the phone is identical to the iPhone 5.

The new flagship phone for Apple is the iPhone 5S. This is an evolution on the 5 adding a raft of new features to the device, not least, another new colour palette:

That's right, that's a champagne gold colour you can see in between the traditional slate and silver colours. 

But away from the colour of the unit, there have been some serious revisions under the hood. The new A7 chip is 64 bit, contains 40x the processing power that the original iPhone had and is complemented by a second chip, the M7 co-processor which is dedicated to processing data from the motion sensors. This means that more of the phone's raw processing power can go towards apps and games, without having to worry about tracking the gyroscope and accelerometer in the phone.

The camera has also gotten a bump, featuring a 15% larger sensor and an f/2.2 size aperture to provide the best quality photos possible. The camera is capable of burst mode, 120fps slo-mo and features two LEDs for the flash, which the phone automatically adjusts to give you the perfect low light exposure.

The biggest new feature however, is TouchID. Yes, it's a fingerprint sensor. This excites me far too much.

Essentially, the home button now allows you to unlock your phone. The home button now contains a fingerprint sensor, protected by laser cut sapphire, which lets you simply touch your finger to the button and unlock the screen. This can also be used to authenticate iTunes/AppStore/iBooks purchases and save you constantly entering passwords. For the concerned among you, the fingerprints are encrypted and saved on the A7 chip, they are never shared with iCloud, nor are they allowed to be shared anywhere within the phone, which is a definite relief.

The iPhone 5S and 5C will both ship with iOS7 on the 20th of September. iOS 7 is available to download on the 18th of September. You can pre-order the 5C from Friday 13th of September, however there are no pre-orders available for the the 5S, you'll simply have to go and queue if you want one.

The UK prices are as follows (screen caps from the Apple UK store):

If you want the full, blow by blow details from the press conference, check out our live blog of the event here

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