When will we get an iPhone 5S or iPhone 5C sent in?

 

 

Last year we had a cracked screen iPhone 5 sent in two weeks after the release…. How long until we see an iPhone 5S or iPhone 5c??

 

It’s definitely going to be water damaged or cracked, and it’s definitely going to break someone’s little heart. The pain of a favorite shiny new gadget turned old and stinky in one little instant is a first world pain so many of us share.

 

The only thing we can do is give you some cash to take it off your hands, and some sympathy. Probably a neat little magnet or pen too.

 

With San Francisco company Square trade releasing smartphone durability testing results yesterday, and the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C coming in at a slightly worse score than the iPhone 5, we’re going to place our bets, hope it isn’t you, and predict 8 days until we pay someone CASHMONEY for a sad little iPhone 5S or 5C.

 

These durability tests also placed Samsung’s Galaxy S4 in right bam blam last place of the 5 smart phones that were tested, with the phone not even functioning by the end of the testing, with it’s screen half falling off.

 

So, be happy you ain’t an android kid, try not to drop your shiny new iPhone, and try not to be the first person to send us in a broken iPhone 5S or iPhone 5C. Unless you want some kind of publicity. Like Kim Kardashian and her sex tape. Kind of. In that case – Here is where to start! 

 

And, we just decided. We’ll give an extra $10 payment to the person who sends in the first iPhone 5C or iPhone 5S. Deal?

 

 

 

Image courtesy of bgr.com

New iPhone 5C Ad screened during the Emmy’s

 

 

Apple released another iPhone 5C ad in the middle of the Emmy’s but we were too busy celebrating Breaking Bad FINALLY winning something and feeling weird about Claire Danes dress and wishing we were cool celebrities who get to dress up and be fancy with champagne and gold trophies and stuff.

 

Oh, you guys too? Yeah, we thought so. So here’s the ad again.

 

 

Now everyone go buy some cheap champagne and pretend you’re a witty fancy dressed up celebrity RIGHT NOW!

 

 

 

Image courtesy of www.studiosystemnews.com

Tim cook’s first tweet

 

 

Apple CEO Tim Cook has joined Twitter! Hooray!  Actually, he joined back in July but waited until the day of the release of the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S to send out his first Tweet.

 

 

And wasn’t it a magnificent one!  “Visited Retail Stores in Palo Alto today. Seeing so many happy customers reminds us of why we do what we do.”

 

 

We wonder if there was perhaps a few more gold iPhone 5S available at the Palo Alto store with so many happy customers?

 

His twitter handle is @tim_cook and you can follow him here https://twitter.com/tim_cook

 

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of Apple

Bought a Verizon iPhone 5S and having trouble activating it? We got you

 

Hands up who bought an iPhone 5S unlocked through Verizon and can’t activate it because it’s saying your SIM is not valid?

 

Hopefully not too many people, and hopefully those people have sorted it out by now, but we thought we’d give you a fix just in cases.

 

 

If you have had this problem, shaking your phone wildly and shouting at it that the “SIM IS VALID YOU STUPID SHINY BEAUTIFUL THING” won’t help. It’ll look awesome, but it won’t help.

 

Call Verizon, or go see them if you can’t handle their customer service. Thanks to Appleinsider,  we know that Verizon’s internal issue ticket number for this is 6504781. Giving the Customer service agent this number will speed things up significantly.

 

 

Good luck, and quit shaking that beautiful shiny new iPhone 5S! Much more of that and you’ll be sending it in to us! ( We’d love to take it off your hands….keep shaking it…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of motionhouse.co.uk 

iPhone 5 response time is soo much better than the other guys

 

 

 

 

Just like this guy, Apple’s hard work has paid off with a win! Probably not going to be seeing Tim Cook in an orange G-Sting accepting a big ‘ol gold medal though, which is… good.

 

A company called Agawi tested all the major Smartphones to see the time lapsed between when a user touches the screen to when the device responded to the touch.

 

They did this using a camera that captures 240 frames per second – super fast – alongside their own custom made device called a TouchMark.  Using this technology they were able to measure what they call a Minimum App Response Time, or MART.

 

The MART is how long it takes the device to respond, as above. The smaller the MART, the better the device’s screen response.

 

 

GET TO THE NUMBERS iPHONE ANTIDOTE

 

 

OK, ok. Geez.

 

 

Apple’s iPhone demonstrated a MART of 55 milliseconds. The next closest competitor was… the iPhone 4.

 

 

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 had a MART of 114ms. The Lumia 928 had a MART time of 117ms, the HTC One had a MART of 121ms and the Moto X came in so slowwwwly at 123ms.

 

 

 

Rohan Relan, the Agawi CEO, spoke to Venturebeat and had this to say about the results.

 

“App responsiveness is judged by how quickly the app can respond to your inputs, smartphones with touchscreens that have lower MART scores feel snappier. This is probably why, to many users, the iPhone keyboard feels more responsive than an Android phone keyboard.”

 

 

Agawi has not yet tested the iPhone 5C or iPhone 5S, but plans are in motion to do so. They also advised that further testing is necessary.

 

 

… But we’re pretty sure the initial testing sounds about right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of  The Honolulu Advertiser & Macrumors

Pictures of people lining up outside Apple stores

 

No surprises here, guys. We could say something about materialism or Generation X/Y/Z or technology or society or how the terminator is coming…

 

But really we just wanted to show you pictures of people lining up outside Apple stores for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

 

Perhaps some comfort for those who are not getting a new iPhone, cos it’s pretty funny.

 

Or if you are one such liner-upperer, perhaps you can use it as some form of visual bonding with others who are doing the same as you! These pictures are from all over the world, proving passion for Apple products is truly international! Yay you guys, you big phone getting first guys!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Appleinsider.com, Cultofmac.com, The Daily Telegraph, news.com.au, & CBS

Our first hand impressions of the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C

 

 

It’s almost September 20th, which as we all know is the date that Apple releases the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C.  That makes us feel like this:

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-LbvFckptY

 

 

So… guess what we went and did?

 

 

We kinda went to Australia for you guys. Why would we go to Australia and why should you care? BECAUSE IT’S ALREADY FRIDAY THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER HERE GUYS. IT’S THE FUTURE. WE’RE IN THE FUTURE.

 

 

It’s pretty cool. Seen a couple of these guys around.

 

 

 

 

 

But more importantly, we’ve also seen these guys –

 

 

 

 

and these guys –

 

 

 

We’ll be doing a proper rundown and how to on these babies soon, but we wanted to give you our first hand impressions on their aesthetics and how they feel in the hand.

 

 

If you’re sitting outside an Apple store somewhere right now, you should congratulate yourself. These are worth lining up for. But you should also beware- stock for the iPhone 5S has been really low over here – so much so that it is reported that some stores have no stock of the Gold iPhone 5S. At all. Some stores are advising customers that they won’t have any for three weeks.

 

 

While the U.S., having a population slightly larger than Australia (Sarcasm…), and being the home of Apple, should have more stock, especially in bigger metro areas, but this is something you might have to be prepared for.

 

 

In other countries, online stock for the iPhone 5s is also drying up. In countries such as Germany, France and the U.K, shipping times have slipped to 7-10 days.

 

So here’s what we think.

 

The iPhone 5C

 

 

It feels really nice. It has a curved, light, slippery feel. We were expecting the color to be more obvious from the front of the phone, but it’s actually quite subtle. It looks like a really nice, colorful, iPhone 5. From the back and sides, it looks like it feels magnetic. Does that makes sense?  You’re drawn to the bright and poppy color.

 

Our personal favorite is blue, and our least favorite is the salmony red. Sorry Apple, but something that makes us think of fish flesh is not something we’re gonna want to use erryday.

 

The 5C is slightly heavier, but not as much as you would expect. It feels good and substantial in the hand. The polycarbonate is smooth and shiny and looks anything but cheap – the shell is finished to a level of craft that amazes when you try to find a seam or a join line.

 

 

The iPhone 5S

 

 

 

 

Although carrying pretty significant changes under the hood, the iPhone 5S looks very similar to the iPhone 5, with the same aluminum body, same dimensions, and same weight in the hand.

 

Physically new to the iPhone 5S are the new colors, the fingerprint sensor, the duel – LED flash on the rear, and the word iPhone on the back is in slightly lighter font to match iOS 7. And the colors.

 

The colors, Space Gray and White are nice, really, but we can’t take our eyes off the Gold color to look at the other options for long. It’s so subtle in its gleam, it’s like it adds this beautiful character to the phone, but is too humble to talk too much about it. Not like those brash 5C’s.

 

The fingerprint sensor feels nice to touch, and it works. That’s it, it just works. We tried it with multiple people and it worked no matter how hard we tried to trick it. And we’re pretty smart kids. It took less than a minute for the phone to learn each person’s fingerprint, and once that had been done, reading them took only a couple of seconds.

 

Outside of the physical, the phone is super fast and the camera is really improved beautifully. The slo-mo is hella fun.

 

 

So.

 

 

We’ve been playing with iOS 7 on our stinky old iPhone all day, and we really like it, but now we can see how much better suited it is for playing on a shiny new iPhone 5S, or a bright poppy iPhone 5C.

 

 

We’ve decided, by the way. Gold iPhone 5s. Possibly a blue iPhone 5C for like… just in case.

 

 

Now we go play with Kangaroos. P.S. Seeing a baby Kangaroo hop back into it’s mother’s pouch is pretty much one of the most unexpectedly gross things we have ever seen. It sounds kinda… slurpy.

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of iPhoneantidote. 

Everything you need to know about iOS 7

 

 

So, like bunches and bunches of fellow Apple product owners around the globe, you downloaded iOS 7 onto your iDevice and are a little unsure about some of the features… or you’re thinking about updating but are a bit scared too because of how different it’s supposed to be.

 

Please don’t fret our pretties! We’re here to guide you through every little part of iOS 7 and to convince you why you should update, even if it is a little bit scary.

 

 

There has been, apparently, a few people for whom the download hasn’t worked properly. That sucks, and is solely because so many people have been trying to download it at the same time. If this is happening or has happened to you, all we can suggest is to try to be patient. It will download.

 

At this stage download errors probably shouldn’t be occurring, as the speed bump of super keen iOS 7ers should have died down. We’ve heard reports of the download taking hours, but this too should no longer be happening. Our download took 36 minutes, and it was super easy.

 

 

Our first impression was BLAM BRIGHT AND BLOCKY. Our second impression was a thoroughly great one. Everything is simplified in a way that some part of you deep inside you knew you wanted, but most of you you had no idea until you saw it come to life in front of you.

 

It looks fantastic, and everything seems to work organically and smoothly and flawlessly together.

 

For the first couple of minutes after we downloaded iOS 7, the phone was responding a little slowly, particularly in the Photos app, but that only lasted a few minutes, and then everything was working at regular speed.

 

So. What’s new? What’s different? How do I find the whatsamacallit now?

 

 

Follow us into the iOS 7 rabbithole!

 

 

 

Alrighty, so we’re looking at a completely new design with over 200 changes, and yeah, it looks pretty different. But don’t freak out too much. First things first. Now you can slide to unlock on any part of the screen.

 

 

 

 

Take a deep breath, and take it all in. Look at the icons independently, if you want. Each one is in line with each other, in grid formation, and borderless. They seem bigger than before. The designs on them are simplified, with less detail and fuss.

 

 

 

Jony Ive redesigned the iOS so that each icon looked less like it was a real thing. The note pad no longer looks like a fake representation of a notepad, for instance.

 

 

Everything has a white backed interface, which also might take some getting used to, but makes everything look a hell of a lot more simple and and refined and ….unflippety. Yeah. Unflippety.

 

 

There is a new color palette. Basically, the new colors are bright, they’re boppy and distinctive.

 

 

Each app uses black lettering on a white background and each one has a different accent color. For example in the messages app  it’s red, for notes it’s pale gold, for photos it’s blue. The font is, well, Apple calls it more refined- it’s better looking, basically. It’s neater, rounder, tidier.

 

 

 

 

There’s a few apps that have changes which are mostly aesthetic, so we’ll show you these first, and let you know if there are any small upgrades.

 

 

Calendar

 

 

 

 

 

We LOVE the new Calendar. It’s red accented, and allows downward scrolling through the months, the ability to see declined events, and an inbox tab for invitations to events. As with most of iOS 7 it’s super simple and easy to navigate between seeing today as a whole with events hourly and seeing it as part of a month.

 

 

 

Clock 

 

 

Also red accented, the Clock icon now displays the correct time. Sounds funny when you read that first, makes sense the second time around.

 

As you can see above, some of the clock faces are black, and some are white- simple really, black denotes somewhere where the sun has set, and white for where it is still daylight.

 

Times can also be swapped from digital to analog by tapping on the city name.

 

 

 

Calculator 

 

 

The calculator pretty much works the same as it did before, and as we believe it always will, because it’s a calculator. it calculates, and it’s good at it. Stop putting pressure on it to do more with it’s life already. It’s orange accented, cos it wants to be dammit.

 

 

 Notes

 

 

 

 

 

Notes! The app that tech writers everywhere used as an example as Apple moving away from skeuomorphic design! It’s here and it’s definitley not skeuomorphic. It’s the simplest representation of a piece of paper we’ve ever seen, really.

 

 

With this version you also have the ability to look at notes separately according to account – gmail, iPhone, or all.

 

 

Maps 

 

 

 

 

Maps now offers turn-by-turn walking directions and automatic night mode. Walking directions is cool, because we like to walk. Automatic night mode uses the current time in your location and an ambient light sensor to judge which mode, day or night, is more suitable. That’s some future stuff, there.

 

 

 

Music 

 

 

 

Within the updated, red accented, music app, you can now play music purchases from iCloud.

 

 

Phone App 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No functional upgrades, because it’s the simplest function of all, really, on your iPhone. But now it looks simple, round, and kinda old fashioned crossed with futuristic? Can that be a thing? Like the old rotary phones that had circular finger dialing bits, crossed with the simplistic representation of awesome technology. Yeah, it’s a thing now.

 

 

Movies 

 

 

 

 

You can now play movie and TV show purchases from the iCloud. that’s… Kickass….

 

 

And now a photo of iPhone Antidote’s cat, because why not? His name is Oscarpants. He’s staring into your soul.

 

 

 

Let’s see.. what else is there? oh yeah-

 

 

Control Center.

 

 

The new Control Center can be accessed by swiping upwards from the bottom of the screen. It includes quick access buttons for AirPlane mode, toggling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Orientation Lock, and the Do Not Disturb mode.

 

 

It can also be used to adjust volume, brightness and open apps like Calculator, Clock, and Camera. Here is also where you’ll find the much talked about flashlight. ( Interesting fact we just learned- Australians call Flashlights torches. Weird.)

 

 

The control center also holds the music player widget, where you can control your music- FF, RW, etc. And yes, we did have skrillex playing when we took this photo because we wanted you to think we were cool. Did it work?

 

 

If you don’t want this option because of your gaming preferences or if you just like swiping a lot and don’t want anything to come of it, you have the option to turn it on/off both within apps and on the lock screen via Settings > Control Center.

 

 

Notification Center.

 

 

Improved both visually and functionally, the notifications center is like a little man inside your phone. This guy gives you all the important information you need to know about your day. Messages, calendar events, stocks information, reminders, weather.

 

You can choose specifically what you want to be displayed here in settings and you still access it by swiping down from the top of the screen.

 

Now however you get the new ‘today’ tab, and if you dismiss a notification on one device, it will be dismissed on all of your devices. Something new that’s really cool is if you have an appointment in the calendar, the notifications screen will provide location based information like weather and driving times for where your appointment is.

 

 

AirDrop:

 

 

K guys- This is just for those lucky enough to have an iPhone 5 or later, the 4th Gen iPad, the Mini and the 5th Gen iPod Touch. Sorry everyone else.

 

Similar to a feature popular with Samsung features where users bump their phones together to exchange files and photos- except you don’t have to bump phones together with this feature. Because we’re cooler than that.

 

Basically – turn it on, tap share in an app and it will tell you nearby iOS users in the vicinity. Tap on the person you want to share contacts, websites, photos, etc with and that person has the option to accept or reject the information. If they accept it, it’s immediately sent over WiFi.

 

 

You do have the option to turn this feature off, and to only have people within your address book requesting to send you information. Just in case you were really strict on getting random people on the bus sending you stuff. Not to say that stuff wouldn’t be awesome. It might be.

 

 

 

Multitasking

 

 

Yay! Multitasking improvements!

 

Double tap the home button to run through all the apps that you have running, and now you can see a preview of that app in a ‘card’. Switch between them super easily by flicking through the cards, and clicking on the one you want to go to.

 

This also permits any app to keep content up-to-date in the background.

 

What is sweet and a little bit oddly addictive is that to close an app that’s running, you just flick the open image upwards. You can close multiple running apps by using multiple fingers. Try not and say ‘Whee’ when you do it, we dare you.

 

 

 

Camera

 

 

The camera improvements are really noticeable and really nice.

 

Instead of toggling with a often super amazingly frustratingly hard to move in a hurry button, you now have the option to swipe to choose a camera mode.

 

You have the option of shooting in video, still photo, parnoramic and a newbie- square aspect, which is basically cropped and instagram sized. Hipsters and positive outlook memer’s rejoice – there is also the choice of 8 real-time photo filters with iPhone 4S or later, and 5th Gen iPod touch.

 

To apply the real time filters, simply tap on the colored dots at the bottom of the screen. These can be removed or swapped out at any time, even after you’ve taken the photo.

 

 

 

Photo App

 

 

The photos app has been improved  by the addition of a new organizational system and new ways of sharing. You also have the ability to edit the photo and add filters.

 

Now you can select multiple photos and share them to the photo stream, share them on Facebook, iCloud, mail, message Flickr airplay or print.

 

Your photos are now organized really neatly into Moments, Collections and Years, with every compartment having location and date information. Tapping on a Year, and then a Collection within a Year will display photos taken throughout the course of the year, which are divided into Moments.

 

Entire Moments, which are essentially different events, can be shared all at once (via AirDrop, Messages Mail, Facebook and Flickr) rather than on an individual basis.

 

 

 

Spotlight Search.

 

 

Spotlight, used for searching and opening files etc on your iPhone, and previously found on a screen to the left on iOS 6, is now found by swiping down from any screen. Not all the way from the top, cos then you might find yourself looking at the notification center and getting all kind of confused.

 

Try a medium swipe down the middle. There, you go, that’s it. What? We can’t really see you….

 

 

 

Passbook

 

 

 

You can now scan tickets and coupons etc using the camera function on your iPhone, for use within the Passbook App. If you click on ‘Apps for Passbooks, it’ll take you to Disneyland. Just kidding, it’ll take you to the app store and show you the apps you can get to use in the passbook app.

 

 

 

Weather

 

 

We have, so far, loved playing around with the weather app. It’s very pretty and includes representations of what it looks like outside at that precise moment, so cloudy or rainy or starry or what have you. For every location it also gives you the Sunset time and a 5 day forecast with minimum and maximum temperatures.

 

 

Other weathery type information it gives you is humidity, chance of rain and wind speed. Handy.

 

 

Compass

 

 

 

Compasses are pretty cool. And that’s not just because the girl we have a crush on has one tattooed on her arm. Erm… anyway. This one has the red accent on north.

 

 

 

It looks really nice, and now includes a built in level that you swipe to the right to access. If you double tap on the level screen you’ll zero it out at any angle.

 

 

( A level is used to see if surfaces are… level… )

 

 

 

Game Center

 

 

The Game center got a pretty nice makeover. No more fake green felt and wood, now there’s only colorful bubbles of glee on a white background.

 

 

 

Siri:

 

Siri can now be a dude or a chick, depending on whatever reason you have for having a preference.

 

She/he can also now pull up restaurant reviews, change settings, it has integrated Wikipedia, Twitter search, and Bing web search results, it can post to Facebook, and play Voicemail.

 

Also, if you have a hard to pronounce name, like Gargumel, Siri will attempt to learn to pronounce it. How nice.

 

 

Folder Size:

 

 

We googled ‘really big folder’ and this was one of the first hits. we’re going with it. Now you can fit as many apps as you want within a folder, with multiple pages.

 

 

Activation Lock

WHAT IF I LOSE MY PHONE?

iOS 7’s got your back, that’s what.

My iPhone Activation lock means that if you lose your phone, or it gets stolen, then it’s incredibly hard for those awful robbers or the people who find it to use it. Basically, no matter what they try and do in order to use it – erase the device, reactivate it, etc, they won’t be able to do anything without your iTunes password.

 

 

 

Messages.

 

 

Now you can see when a text or an iMessage was sent/received! Pull message bubbles to the left, and you can see exactly when it was you sent/ received that awesomely awesome text.

 

You also have the option to change how names are displayed within messages. Go to Settings > Mail ,Contacts, and Calendars > Short Name ( down the bottom under Contacts). Choices include first name and last initial, first name and last initial, first name or last name only.

 

 

App Store improvements.

 

 

With the App store upgrade, you can see apps that other people in your area are using in the ‘popular near me’ option’.

 

Apple has also added a new “Designed for iOS 7” section to the store. It highlights apps that have been updated or released with an iOS 7-style design, including notable offerings like Evernote.

 

 

Safari.

 

 

Safari looks really nice, and that’s coming from folk who generally prefer Chrome. Safari has itself a new tabbed layout. Tabbed pages can be closed quickly by swiping the page to the left.

 

For those looking for a more private browsing session, you now only have to click the ‘private’ button when a new window is created. Do Not Track can be enabled within Settings > Safari. 

 

 Scrolling now hides the app’s controls like in Chrome . You can OPEN AN UNLIMITED NUMBER OF TABS, and scroll through them using a vertical card-like view.

Now there is also a tab in the bookmarks panel that shows links shared by your friends on Twitter and other social media sites.

 

 

EXTRA BITS

 

 

iOS 7 brings new ringtones, alarms, alerts and system sounds. Although for the traditional at heart, unless it makes you feel too old, you can still access the old one’s filed under classic.

 

Personally, we kinda like a phone to sound like a phone, but then we saw that this is what happens if you google the word classic.

 

 

 

 

FaceTime audio calling. Everyone loves FaceTime. Bringing friends together no matter where in the world they’re taking shots/having grandchildren.

 

 

Block Phone Numbers: You have the ability to block phone calls/messages/FaceTime requests on iOS 7. Simply go to Settings > Phone > Blocked to add contacts that will be prevented from contacting you (Their attempts will be sent to voicemail). Take that, Stalker Mc Stalkersons.

 

Automatic App Updates: You can have all your apps download their updates automatically, if going to the app store and doing it manually troubles your soul too much. If you go to Settings > iTunes & App Store, the default setting is off for all automatic downloads, but turning them on means you’ll never have to trouble your soul with it ever again. Warning: this can use battery when you don’t want it to and you can’t pick and choose in between apps.

 

 

iTunes Radio:

iTunes Radio can be accessed from within the Music app! Go here to learn more. We’ll be writing a review of iTunes Radio shortly, so keep your eyes peeled and your ears pricked.

 

 

 

All in all, what a fantastic update, and super nice that we get kinda a new phone, even if we’re not actually getting a new phone. Doubly sweet for those who are getting a new phone tomorrow or in the next few weeks and are getting a double whammy new hardware new software BLING BLAM!

 

We feel like we’ve given you a pretty comprehensive run down of iOS 7 and the changes hidden within, but if you feel like delving a bit more into the ins and outs, Apple has made available free iOS 7 user guides on the iBookstore. At the moment, guides are only available for the iPad and iPod touch but a book targeted at the iPhone will likely follow.

 

 

Our final opinion in one sentence? Looks like iOS 7 kicked a Goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Macworld, Funnyjunk, All4humour, tumblr, cultofmac, imore, idownloadblog.

 

38 hours left guys

 

 

As of right now, there is just 38 hours left (PST) until the Apple doors open at 8AM Friday the 20th September, 2013. That’s local time.

 

And you guys know what happens when those doors open, right? A big hoard of Geniuses will be standing there looking, let’s admit it, a little creepy, a little worried and very, very smiley. Kind of like this, but holding iPhones instead.

 

 

 

 

If you’ve lined up, kudos! Look at you being all dedicated! You get to be first! Being first is pretty good. I hope you guys get a medal as well as a shiny new iPhone.

 

 

 

 

If you didn’t line up, well, you’ll probably still get to see and even buy a shiny new iPhone 5s.  Probably don’t deserve a medal though, sorry guy.

 

Either way- here’s what you need to know. According to 9to5mac, 3 out of 4 units available at the Apple stores will be Space grey, so if you’re after Gold or Silver, they might be a bit harder to get your hands on.

 

16Gb and 32Gb options will be more readily available, as will phones on contract to AT&T.  The iPhone 5S is predicted to sell out in store quite quickly, so be ready guys!

 

Don’t forget, the iPhone 5S will also be available to order online at 12:01 A.M. on Friday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Abbeville.com and carew.com

The Ultimate iPhone 5S & iPhone 5C Rundown (Full Specs)

 

 

So, today’s the day, huh?

 

NEW APPLE PRODUCTS OH MY GOD SKRILLEX NEEDS TO BE PLAYING THE SOUNDTRACK TO THIS BLOG POST.

 

I’m sorry, we’re a little bit excited over here.

 

So, hey, WHATSUP.

 

At 10am pacific time Apple held a special media event at their town hall auditorium in Cupertino, California.

 

Everyone was VERY excited,  even though the select few members of the press who were super special enough to be invited didn’t really show their excitement very well. Here are some of them lined up like they’re waiting for a bus, instead of shiny new iPhones!! Silly super special people!

 

 

BUT! Then they went inside…. 

 

Inside, Tim cook, Craig Federighi, a few special guests, and ( sadly, only) videos of Jony Ive were awaiting.

 

AND…

 

We got ourselves a shiny-ass brand spanking new iPhone 5S AND a pretty bubbly multicolored sparkly iPhone 5C!

 

SUPER RAD

 

Now, this is the part where we say a lot of words about hardware and software specs and you skim through and judge whether you’re going to want one, or whether you’re gonna want to complain about it not being up to par with expectations and in line with what other smart phone giants are doing with their tech.

 

Here’s our opinion on that, first up. We… we want one. Of both. We don’t know how to justify that, but we do.

 

There was a few surprises, which is always great considering the multitude of leaks that appeared in the weeks leading up to this event. We got a few things that we were expecting, and a few other things that Apple kept up their sleeves like the crafty tech magicians that they are.

 

Tim Cook started things off, as he usually does, and he did so by talking about the iTunes Music Festival, which you can read about here.

 

He moved on to speak about how Apple retail is expanding, and how next month, Apple is forecasting that they will sell their 700 millionth iOS device. Millionth. Wowsers.

 

Craig Federighi got up and spoke about iOS 7, how awesome it is, and how with it you might miss your phone calls because of the new techno ringtones? He’d probably like our Skrillex blog soundtrack!

 

Tim then let everyone know that on any new iOS device sold, the following apps will be available to download for free- Keynote, Numbers, Pages, iMovie and iPhoto. SCORE!

 

Then they got down to business. You know the business. The iPhone business.  Two new designs.

 

 

The iPhone 5C

 

 

It’s pretty, guys. It’s really pretty. The 5C is made from one single hard-coated polycarbonate  surface with no seams, part lines or joins which has a reinforced steel structure on the inside. ( Polycarbonate is basically a plastic shell instead of aluminum).

 

It’s replacing the iPhone 5, however the 8Gb 4S will stay in the lineup as their low end model, offered for free on contract.

 

As expected, the 5C comes in a range of bright poppy rainbow bright colors that will no doubt attract many young rainbow bright individuals.Green, Yellow, Blue, White and a quite salmony looking red.

 

 

The phone has a 4 inch retina display, integrated touch, 8 megapixel camera, and is powered by the same chip as in the iPhone 5.

 

The 5C still has both rear and front facing cameras, so selfie takers can breathe a sigh of relief! The cameras are both still 5 megapixel and the back camera has a flash, so you don’t have to prepare yourself for any loss of quality.

 

It will also have slightly larger battery capacity and  a new HD Facetime camera.

 

This colorful sparkle pony will be offered in 16Gb  for $99 and 32Gb for $199 on a two year contract, with cases costing $29 each.

 

The cases-

 

 

So. It’s basically the iPhone 5, except slightly better, but more platsicky and colorful. We really like the idea of the seamless shell, and really wanna see if it lives up to our idea on how nice it would feel in the hand.

 

Jony Ive ( via video) said it perfectly- ” The iPhone 5C is beautifully, unapologetically plastic… It’s simpler, more essential, more capable and more colorful.”

 

 

 

The iPhone 5S

 

It’s really shiny looking. Also, according to Apple, “The most forward-thinking phone we’ve ever created.”

 

The 5S will come in three colors- Gold, Space Gray and Silver, and yes, although not called champagne, the gold is refined and ridiculously shiny and wanted.

 

 

The iPhone 5S has an A7 chip, and is the first smartphone ever to have one. The A7 is a modern instruction set, with 2x general purpose registers, 2x floating point registers, over 1 billion transistors and 100 square mm die size.  It has twice as many transistors for roughly the same size as the A6. It will have Xcode support, and it’s backwards-compatible. 32 and 64-bit.

 

 

This stuff? It means that this phone is hella fast, and hella powerful. The CPU performance is 40 times faster than the original iPhone, and half of that increase comes with the A7 chip. The graphics performance is 56 times the original iPhone. The phone will be significantly and noticeably faster and better at doing everyday operations.

 

 

 

The way they choose to show this? The announcement and demo of Infinity Blade 3, by Epic Games co-founder Donald Mustard. You can run 5 times faster on the 5S than on the iPhone 5, for example, and there is four times the detail on characters, such as this guy:

 

 

 

Infinity Blade 3  will be available alongside the iPhone 5s.

 

The iPhone 5S will also come with a chip called the M7 chip which measures motion continuously – it acts as an accelerometer, gyroscope, and as a compass support. It will also have a CoreMotion API  which will be able to identify your movement, if you’re running or driving, etc. Nike is coming out with an app called Nike + Move which will use these features to keep track of your activities.

 

Battery time is AWESOME! Just looky here:

 

 

The camera on the new iPhone is where a lot of the surprising and most welcome improvements (in our opinion) were made. The new camera has a 5 element Apple designed lens with f/2.2 aperture and 15% larger active sensor area.  It looks like this:

 

 

iOS 7 will automatically set white balance, exposure level and will pick the sharpest from a series of photos.

 

The duel LED flash is there, they’re calling it True Tone. It will allow of better low light photography and  will combine the two lights to get the right color balance for the room.

 

 

There is digital auto stabilization, and, something we love- burst mode.  If you hold the shutter down, the camera will take ten photos per second until you lift your finger off the button. It will also analyze all the burst shots and present which one it thinks is the best, whilst still storing the others.

 

SLO-MO!  Slo-mo  is supported you guys! That’s HD, 120 frames per second slo-mo we’re talking. That is so cool! You can even select which parts of your video you want in normal speed, and which parts in slo-mo. There’s going to be so many slo-mo you-tube videos this winter…. Cue snowballs to the face!

 

Finally, when you shoot panoramic shots, the camera can adjust the exposure automatically as you go along. Thank god, cos the sun just is not a team player when we shoot panoramic.

 

 

Ok, now for security- yeah, it’s the fingerprint sensor. Or, as it’s now known- the Touch ID.

 

 

The new iPhone has a crystal inlaid fingerprint scanner in place of the home button that can read multiple fingerprints. There is a stainless steel detection ring around the home button, so that the sensor can detect your finger without you having to press the button.

 

This is the finger they showed- just in case you forgot what one looked like. Sorry if you did. That’s… awkward.

 

 

The sensor is 170 microns thin, 500 ppi resolution, scans sub-epidermal skin layers and has 360-degree readability.

 

It basically takes a picture of your fingerprint in order to analyze it, all fingerprints are encrypted, and they will never be stored on Apple servers or backed up to the cloud. Awesome.

 

The fingerprint scanner will come in handy for security and shopping – the examples they give are not having to enter a passcode for your iPhone ( or worry about how you’re too lazy to set up a passcode) and having your fingerprint replace the ever irritating iTunes password.

 

Pricing is the same as the iPhone 5, 16Gb – $199, 32Gb – $299, 64Gb – $399 with a two year contract. Cases for the 5S are $49 each.

 

Here’s a picture of Tim Cook talking. It made us feel more involved.

 

 

 

Now we’re down to the nitty gritty end. iOS 7 will be available to download for free on September 18th.

 

The iPhone 5C will be available for pre-order starting midnight the 13th of September, with full release in stores on the 20th of September. The iPhone 5S will not be available for pre-order, but will be available online and in-store on September the 20th.

 

By December, the new iPhones will be available in more than 100 countries.

 

The Apple store has been down since 6am this morning in preparation for the iPhone announcements-but will be back online right now if you want to check out the goods! 

 

Overall, we’re really pleased with these releases. They show consistency, reliability, and significant hardware and software upgrades, alongside iOS 7.

 

Without having physically held or played with today’s releases (yet!), we can’t be for realsies sure, but it sounds like having ( at least) one of these phones will definitely improve how we use our mobile technology, and increase out affection for said technology.

 

We… we really like them. We also believe that it is serious time, guys, to start thinking about upgrading and how you’re going to go ahead and do that. Which phone is best for your needs, and how are you going to get that shiny newness into your hot little hands?

 

We want the champagne 5S, 64Gb, because we like shiny, sophisticated, fast, powerful, and awesome tech that makes everyone’s life better.

 

Just like we do.  Right?  But, also, it has the super sweet camera stuff. And the Touch ID. And the fast and powerful stuff.

 

Whichever one you choose, if you are considering selling a stinky old iPhone in order to get the CASHMONEY to upgrade or buy new these shiny new iPhones, you should click on this blue link right here, which will tell you all you need to know about preparing your old phone for moving on to it’s new forever home.

 

You can also click on this blue link right here to see how much CASHMONEY we can give you for your stinky old iPhone! Super fast, super easy, super large CASHMONEY!!

 

 

And that’s a wrap! We hope this brightened your day!

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy of Macrumors, The Verge, and Engadget. Special thanks to the super awesome Brad Molen over at Engadget for providing pretty much the best live blog we’ve ever read. Serious.