Thinnest, lightest iPhone ever, with Retina display of 326ppi
UPDATE: Here’s the full-blown Macworld account of the Apple iPhone 5 news.
Apple this afternoon pushed aside the dozens of leaked images of its iPhone 5 and showed the real thing, as seen here, via the Macworld liveblog. It’s being described as the lightest (112 grams, 20% lighter than iPhone 4S), thinnest (7.6mm, 18% thinner than 4S) phone ever made by Apple, and entirely made of glass and aluminum on the outside. Touch sensors built into the screen allow for the thinnesss. The 4-inch screen boasts Retina display of 326ppi.
The UI has been adjusted for the new 4-inch screen, so includes 5 rows of icons, for example. “More apps on every screen,” according to Macworld.
The iPhone 5, as expected, does support 4G LTE with a theoritical max downlink of 100Mbps. Not to mention GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. Better WiFi too, with 802.11 a/b/g/n, including 2.4GHz adn 5GHz 11n.
Apple hasn’t shown the innards yet, but this image did appear on the web shortly before the Apple media briefing.
Apple HDblo shows what it claims is an iPhone 5 logic board, boasting an Apple A6 processor and LTE hardware. Apple confirmed the A6 during its demo, touting the processor as being twice as fast as the A5 and twice as fast at processing graphics. Apple showed the phone running the video game Real Racing 3 to prove its new phone’s gaming chops.
Apple also detailed Panorama camera technology, 1080p HD video and greatly improved battery life. What’s more, Apple boosted the audio quality, with wideband audio, plus added a noise canceling earpiece and a third microphone. The iPhone features a new connector, dubbed Lightning, that’s smaller and sturdier, according to Apple, and adapters for the current 30-pin connector will be available.
Apple has updated iOS 6, too, with better support for maps, Siri improvements and more full-featured Facebook integration.
Pricing? Same as what the the 4S was: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB, along with 2-year carrier contract. Meanwhile, the 4S itself is now $99 for the 16GB model and the iPhone 4 with 8GB is free. Pre-orders start Sept. 14, as had been rumored.
Not that everyone didn’t know the new smartphone would be called the iPhone 5 (uh, just like we KNEW the new iPad would be called iPad 3), but Apple did allow a little bit of the drama from its official unveiling to seep out earlier in the day when intrepid journalists and fanboys plugged terms such as “iphone 5” into the Apple website’s search engine and found references to that name. At least one iPhone case company also leaked its new offerings, for a larger iPhone, before Apple did its thing.
Apple got everyone’s juices flowing Wednesday morning as well by shutting down access to its online Apple Store in preparation for refreshing it later in the day with the new products.
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