Hands-on impressions of the new iPhones
Big iPhone reveal has no big surprises
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- CNN's Heather Kelly spent a few minutes with new newly launched iPhones Tuesday
- 5S fingerprint sensor worked seamlessly, though adding profiles takes some time
- A slow-motion video looked impressively professional
- The polycarbonate body on the iPhone 5C feels sturdier than other plastic phones
Several hundred bloggers
and other guests -- including musician Elvis Costello, who had been
invited by Apple to play a few songs -- were ushered to a nearby room to
handle the phones.
I got to spend some time playing with both devices. An in-depth review will have to wait, but here are my first impressions.
Design of the iPhone 5S
Big iPhone reveal has no big surprises
iPhone 5S has finger
The body of the iPhone 5S
is the same shape and design at the iPhone 5, but the company has
rolled out some new color options. The rumored golden iPhone is real,
and a very classy champagne shade of fake gold. The face of the phone is
all glass over the screen and surrounding white frame, while the muted
gold is only visible on the sides and back.
The 5S also comes in
silver and another new color Apple is calling "space gray." The gray
iPhone is the only one in the 5S lineup that has a black faceplate
instead of white.
Fingerprint sensor
The most intriguing new hardware feature on the 5S is the fingerprint sensor
in its Home button. It doesn't replace the old pass code and can even
be turned off. The phone can be unlocked by using either a fingerprint
or the code, so if you hand a friend your phone while you're driving,
you can just tell them what number to enter.
Each phone can record up
to five individual fingerprints -- say one for each member of the
family you don't mind using it (maybe purposefully leaving out the
kids). To add a new print, you first must enter your security code. Pick
a finger, preferably the one you use most to press the Home button. For
most people, this will be their thumb.
To record a print, you
place your finger on the home button until it vibrates and then lift and
repeat. This goes on for a number of times as it gets a full image of
the finger. It also grabs a few impressions of the sides of your finger
for a complete picture.
To open the phone with a
fingerprint, you press the Home button down as usual but then keep the
finger on the small circle. It will automatically skip the pass code
screen and take you to the home screen. You also can use a fingerprint
to pay for purchases from the App Store or iTunes.
It worked seamlessly
when I tested it, though adding new profiles takes a bit of time. But
it's a much faster way to open the phone than entering a pass code, and
there is no "reading your print now" type of delay on screen.
Camera
The new camera on the
iPhone 5S is packed with a number of legitimately cool new features, the
result of software and hardware improvements.
The new burst mode,
which takes rapid-fire photos at a rate of 10 per second, is meant for
capturing moving subjects such as twitchy children or sprinting
athletes. I took 40 shots in four seconds -- so many that scrolling
through them created a neat time-lapse video effect.
You can dig through all
40 images yourself to find the winners, but Apple has added a feature
that identifies what it thinks are the best in the bunch automatically
based on things such as exposure, blur and if the subject's eyes are
open. Out of the 40 images, two were highlighted with a small gray dot.
In the camera roll, the burst photos were lumped together in one pile so
I could easily delete all the extras after I picked my final shots.
With another new
feature, I tried making a slow-motion video. The camera can record 120
frames per second, which is helpful for slowing down and stretching out
detailed scenes. You scroll to the Slow-Mo setting before shooting the
video. After the clip is recorded, you choose what section of it to slow
down. The final video looked impressively professional, even though it
was just of tech bloggers milling about a room.
The room was a bit too
bright to accurately test out the new flash. Apple claims the flash will
automatically adjust color and intensity depending on the subject and
lighting situation. It has two different colored LED lights instead of
the usual one. A better flash would be a welcome improvement over the
traditional LED flashes on iPhones (and most other smartphones) that
flood scenes with harsh light.
Graphics
The faster processor
inside the 5S means everything is zippier, including the graphics. This
is the case with every new iPhone, so it's hard to tell how much of an
upgrade this one is. But the high-end game apps did look rich.
Apple is calling the the new graphics "console level," so next time we'll have to test it head to head with an Xbox.
iPhone 5C
The lower-priced iPhone
5C doesn't have as many fancy new hardware features. Instead, its pizazz
is mostly on the outside. Apple rounded the corners down and encased
the 5C in a smooth hard plastic shell instead of metal. Plastic has a
reputation of being cheap and breakable, but Apple is pitching this as
high-end plastic.
Apple design head Jony Ive even says, "The iPhone 5C is beautifully, unapologetically plastic."
The polycarbonate body
does feel sturdier than other plastic phones, and the phone still has
bit of weight to it. The entire back side of the phone is one seamless
piece of plastic and comes in blue, green, pink, yellow and white. The
colors look subdued in press images, but in person the green and pink
are a bit more fluorescent and bright.
Apparently Apple didn't
think one super bright color was enough, so it also created a line of
$29 soft silicon shells for the 5C. The blue, green, pink, yellow, black
and white cases have a grid of holes in the back so you can see the
original shade of the 5C through them as lines of dots.
