D’oh, forgot the smiley at the end, I was joking on the last part…
Yeah the prices outside the US seem quite high. A premium of $150-200 on top of the US unlocked prices.
I have an iphone 4 (not S) so either of the new phones would be a substantial upgrade. But I’m a klutz, and I’m not sure I should be trusted with a nine hundred dollar phone.
I just upgraded in July to the 5 because my contract was almost up and Canada’s new wireless plans were going into affect in August. Good thing I did, because the new plans are ridiculous.
American prices are subsidized on contract, the Australian prices are for outright sale. Of course when you sign up to a plan with a carrier it will be subsidized.
If you compare the US and Australian outright prices, they’re still $150-200 more here in Oz. The base model unlocked 5S is $USD 809 in Australia vs $USD 649 in the USA.
I was forgetting about GST though. Subtracting GST from the Aussie price gives $USD 736 vs 649. So a premium of about 12%. Not too bad.
The fingerprint scanner sounds cool. I don’t bother using the lock code because it would be a pain in the ass to have to type in a code every time I want to do something on the phone, so having the home button itself be a fingerprint scanner would be pretty neat.
Still I’m pretty happy with my 4S though. I don’t like having to change all the connectors for a newer model.
I was watching a story on the news tonight about the new iPhone and one of the bullet points they put up was that it had a “fingerprint censor”. It made me wonder if it also came with a spell checker. 
I have an iPhone 5 and mmm… that 5S looks nice. Certainly a bigger jump than from the 4 to the 4S. I’m gonna console myself with iOS 7. Some commentators are saying the 5C (Color?) is neither here nor there. It certainly makes more sense to phase out the 4S instead of the 5.
Does the fingerprint scanner work with fingertips? Because I thought most variation in fingerprints is in the centre of the finger, where the whorls and loops are, but I only use my fingertip to press the button (like typing, or playing the piano). They seem to be using their fingertips in the videos.
If I were concerned about privacy, I’d be more concerned about Find My iPhone, which requires your location to work.
Also: all the 5C colours use the black faceplate? And the gold 5S uses a white faceplate? Can’t they come up with matching colours?
Well, as it stands it’s time for me to upgrade as I’m still on a 3GS and it will not get iOS 7 – All along I intended to wait until the iOS upgrade was no longer supported to upgrade the hardware – gave me over a year of use beyond the contract.
On the CNET liveblog coverage of the event, when they had Elvis Costello on: “Now here’s a sad song: Your cheap unlocked off-contract iPhone isn’t here today.”
I’m wondering if someone getting the 5C be able to hold on to it through as many upgrades as someone with an equivalent 5S – probably not with equal support of features after iOS8. I went from iOS3.something to iOS6.1.2 over 3+ years and it was starting to tax the 3GS. Will probably get a 5S to be confident about holding on to it longer until it too becomes unupgradable. I’ll wait about a month or two to hear the feedback before actually taking the step.
I’ll miss the old original form factor, must admit.
Do people think it’s a waste of money to pay monthly but not be on a contract? I think my phone can last more than 2 years but less than 4, and I’m torn between always being on a contract, and using my phone for longer.
Reports from the “hands-on” room after the announcement today are that the fingerprint scanner works extremely well. I am intrigued. It would be better than the passcode lock, but you may not be aware that you can set the phone to only require the passcode after some time being locked. That makes it much more convenient, and, while it doesn’t protect you from a thief who get hold of the phone shortly after you used it, it’s better than no security at all.
I have a 4S as well, and changing the connectors will be somewhat painful (but not that much–I don’t have any docks, just cables). However, every one of my old 30-pin cables is about to fray at the joint, and they are a pain to insert correctly if you can’t see the little icon on the cable, which I often can’t, being mostly blind. My wife has a 5 (and a new iPad) and those new connectors are very smooth and easy to use–and much less prone to wear from bending. I’ll be happy to see those old cables go.
They have to keep the 4S for another year and ditch the 5 to keep to their pattern. For the last few years, the current (base) model has been $199 with contract, the 1 year old model has been $99 with contract, and the 2 year old model has been “free” with contract. They want to hit those 3 price points in the US market. The 5 and 5C are so close in specs (nearly identical except for the camera, I think) that they would need to occupy the same price point, leaving a hole. That’s why the 4S stays for one more year, and the 5 goes away. Next year, we’ll have the 6 at $199, the 5S at $99, and the 5C at $0, I feel sure.
Not very impressed.
The new iPhone 5c looks pretty gaudy especially when combined with the new iOS7 like here. It’s also a lot more expensive than many people expected and I can’t see it expanding iPhone market share in Asia for example. That’s probably the reason Apple stock prices fell after the announcement.
The 5S is decent enough though personally I find the screen too small. The fingerprint scanner is nice though it would have been much bigger if they had built a payment system around it using NFC.
Overall there seems to be a lack of innovation. I find phones like the LG G2 and Lumia 1020 a lot more interesting than the 5S/5C.
Boring and incremental. I thought this would incorporate a game changer like a built-in Leap Motion controller. Jobs would have fired up the ol’ Reality Distortion Field Generator and gotten a contract as an exclusive feature on phones and pads.
I’m torn. I have a 4S and usually upgrade every second year but I can’t see any compelling reason to upgrade to a 5S. Might have to wait and see what next year brings and get off the S roundabout.
Why would you want to be on a contract after your 2 years if you have a functional phone? That’s the ideal situation - you’re paying the exact same rate you were while on contract, while being free to shop around other networks and wait for the perfect time to upgrade.
I don’t know much about the specs, but the tech blogs seem to think doubling the processor is a very big deal. iOS 7 also seems to be getting extremely rave reviews, and while it’s being pushed to other back models, this phone seems to be geared towards really utilizing it closer to its full potential.
I’m also getting leary of the finger scanner. I think the tech is cool, and I’d probably get some utility out of it - but I’m worried about being an early adopter on that. I’m usually very security lax, but that’s just a step too far for me right now.
what’s their endgame on the scanner? they must know that the “feature” will put off a lot of people, and it is definitely an added cost and a great length to go for apparent little gain.
Having the finger scanner without NFC seems weird to me. I think the immediate gain for the scanner is all the people who forget their Apple ID and can’t make impulse app/iTunes purchases. I’m not sure I’ve met someone older than 50 who knows what their password is, as odd as that sounds. Who knows how much of my inheritance my mom would have spent already if she knew how to buy things without having to be at home near the giant printout of passwords in her life.
I know this is petty, but I do wish they would make the color of the faceplate optional.
I really like the gold phone, but I hate the white faceplate. If I could get a gold phone with a black faceplate, I would be up at midnight on the 20th waiting to be first with my pre-order.
Not sure what you’re kvetching about here. I already don’t have to enter my password for every iTunes purchase I make from either my phone or my iPad. Unless it’s been a couple of weeks or months or whatever, I just hit purchase and it starts the download.
And thus far I have yet to see any retailers that use any kind of NFC for transactions. Frankly, I’m not ready to trust my phone to double as my credit card for any exchange of goods or services. I’ll allow that I could be uninformed about the technology, but at the very least I can’t see where this is anything that even affects people in the US since NFC transactions are (AFAICT) non-existent here.