Here’s a Recap of What We Learned at the iPhone 5S/5C Event

We’re as bummed as you are that we couldn’t actually stream the Apple iPhone event today, but we followed along with the coverage and we’ve got a lot of stuff to share with you.

Preliminary iOS stuff

• Acording to Apple,  700 million iOS devices will have been sold by September’s end
• iOS7 will be out September 18th for the iPhone 5 and 4S
• They’ve introduced a new feature, iTunes radio, which hasn’t launched yet
• iPhoto, iMovie, iWork, Keynote, Pages, Numbers will all be free to download with the new iOS7
• There will be New ringtones and alert sounds and better camera features
• Siri will have inline Wikipedia, web search, tweet search, and photo search functions

“A few of you might have seen some shots on the web. And that’s cool, because everyone is really excited about this.”

5C Specifications

• The case is made of a hard-coated polycarbonate material (which is a fancy word for plastic) that has no seams or joints, along with matching buttons on the side
• Comes in blue, white, pink, yellow, green, which are all totally normal color names so good for Apple
• Apple has also designed rubber cases with microfiber lining, which also have these cool cut-out circles in them so you can see the original color underneath. They’re environmentally friendly and toxic-free
• It’s steel reinforced on the inside — the steel also forms the antenna
• 4-inch Retina display, integrated touch layer
• 8-megapixel rear camera, same as the original 5; larger HD Facetime camera on front, as well as larger pixels and better backside illumination
• A6 processor, which makes it again like the original 5B
• However, the battery is slightly larger than last model
• Of course there will be iOS7 — and the default wallpapers match the phone’s colors

“The most forward thinking phone anyone has ever made.”

5S Specifications

• 76 mm deep, weighs 112 g
• official colors appear to be calld Space-grey, Gold, and Silver; they’re all made of high-grade aluminum with chamfered edges, which is apparently a thing
• new home button as part of design, no square on it — it’s been replaced with a metal ring instead
• runs with a new chip called the A7; 64-bit desktop architecture. 2x general purpose registers. Over one billion transistors
• iOS7 will also be reengineered for 64-bit, but will still be backwards compatible with older apps
• Graphics are supposedly 56x faster, can now run OpenGL|ES 3.0 (just like the Nexus 7)
• To demonstrate these better graphics, they ran a live demo of the upcoming Infinity Blade III, which will be available around the same time the phone comes out
• A new M7 “motion co-processor” was also introduced, which works alongside the A7; it enables health and fitness apps, and measures accelerometer, compass, and gyroscope
• To illustrate this motion sensor, they also unveiled a new fitness app, “Nike+Move”

Battery Life

• 10 hours talk time, 10 Hours LTE browsing, 250 hours standby
• small improvement to 225 hours of standby in last iPhone 5

5S Camera

• 1.5 microns pixels for camera, “five-element Apple-designed lens”  with F2.2 aperture
• 15 percent larger active area on camera sensor
• Apparently when you take a photo, it actually takes multiple photos at once and picks the best one
• It also sets white balance and exposure automatically when you open the app, and a true-toned flash analyzes and presents the proper color flash. This will offers over 1,000 different color temperatures
• Auto image stabilization is also on the way as well, 10 frames-per-second burst mode
• A new slow motion feature can do 120FPS
• The camera will also take HD video at 720p, also with 120FPS
• Finally, it will have a 28-megapixel panorama
• Presumably iOS7’s camera functions will improve as well, though some of these specs are dependent on the 5S’s camera

“The third feature is all about security.”

Fingerprint Sensor

• That’s right, it’s official! The system is called Touch ID
• This fingerprint sensor is 170 microns thin, senses 500 ppi, scans your sub-epidermal skin layers, and can read in any orientation
• It’s built right into the home button with a scratchless sapphire crystal lens and stainless steel detection ring, so no more swiping
• You can also use the fingerprint sensor to authenticate iTunes and for other apps, so hopefully one day this will be included in the developer kit for the 5S so that more app creators will be able to incorporate it into their designs. However, right now it is not an option
• It can also handle multiple fingerprints — which you’ll be able to share your phone’s apps with others and create multiple profiles
• Claims to be encrypted so that only the phone is able to read your fingerprints, and that the fingerprints will not be stored on any kind of larger server, but no doubt a lot of people will be upset by the idea of supplying a digital scan of their fingerprint anyway for NSA-related reasons

Pricing

• The 5C will start at $99 for 16GB, $199 for 32GB — with a contract, of course
• Off contract, however, it’s not that cheap — it’s still $549 without one
• This falls in line with Apple’s usual decision to lower the price of the older phone by about $100, but clearly the 5C is intended to replace the 5 entirely
• Those nifty environmentally-friendly cases will also run you about $29
• the 5S will start at 16GB for $199, 32GB is $299, 64GB is $399 — once again, with a contract
  
• the cases for the 5S start at $39 apiece, in multiple colors (but also very environmentally-friendly).
• 4S will now be available for free. Hooray! I’m pretty sure I’m due for an upgrade!

Availability

• Preorder for the 5C starts on September 13th
• Both the 5C and 5S will be available in stores at Sept 20th in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and even China
• by December 2013, it will be available in 100 countries under 270 different carriers

Finally, the show ended with a surprise performance from Elvis Costello, who played a few song from his upcoming record, (“See, I’ve got product announcements, too!”) Wise Up Ghost. A joint production with The Roots (!!!), the album will be released on September 17th.

Obviously a lot of this is stuff we already knew to expect — the fingerprint sensor, the cheaper colored option, etc. But the newer camera looks pretty amazing and the graphics certainly seem impressive. Already there are some critics who say that the 5C isn’t as low-cost an option as they were expecting, and some are concerned about the way the fingerprint sensor will work, but personally I’m pretty excited for these new developments. You know, mostly because i have an old-as-balls 4 with a cracked screen and I would really enjoy getting having Siri to talk to me finally.

What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments below.

(via Apple)

Meanwhile in related links

• Looks like most of those rumors were pretty accurate
• Too bad Glen Tickle didn’t get what he wanted
• So what does the “C” in 5C stand for, anyway?