New iPhones: C certainly DOESN'T stand for 'Cheap'

Asian markets...

Just got back from a month+ in the Philippines and Hong Kong.

1: Even in the tiniest mobile markets on the littlest Philippine islands are displayed plenty of US$400 and US$500 smartphones. Even more surprising, regular people own them too. People that may live in what we would call a shed, they have the latest $500 smartphone. Middle Class is spreading fast.

2: Contracts? It seems to be 99.99% PAYG. The monthly plans on offer are so cheap ($10 data plans) that the margin isn't going to significantly subsidize a $500 phone over two years (obviously, do the math).

3: Huge phones seem popular. Tiny phones are not Flash & Splash enough. iPhones are too small to be the most desired. iPhablet and make it snappy!

4: 3% of a billion is a big number.

Biggest change

in OS6 they downgraded the maps to use shitty Apple maps. In the latest, they downgraded search to use shitty Bing.

How does it feel when your handset owners decide what search engine you must use?

Home buttons works?

Most people i know with an iPhone have that annoying home button app that gives you a home button on screen all the time. Most say its because after about 10 minutes in a sufficiently humid country (so anywhere in SE asia)... the home button broke.

I wonder if this will be any different.

As ever, if i do buy one, i wont rush ... lets wait and see if they have another "holding it wrong" problem.

Summing up the whole announcement in 4 words...

Much ado about nothing :)

Same old delusional overpriced shite

As for the price, I got an HTC One free of charge on a 2 year £32/month contract. And you're telling me I'd have to pay a wedge up front, as well as an extortionate contract for that gaudy plastic piece of 5C shite?

They really are a cult, aren't they?

FFS

Ok, I'll admit to be being a fan of some (not all) Apple products, but I'm becoming less and less so, given the frankly drug-addled design decisions it's been making recently.

Gold and Silver options? 64bit processing? Fisher price UI? *this* is what Apple identified that it's customers want??? What f*ing market research were they doing??? Christ, take one look at your competitors Apple, and you can see what the market wants...

For the first time in ages, I will not be upgrading my iphone. Time to look for something a bit classier, with a bigger screen, more useful gadgets and more storage.

Great article! How much were you paid exactly for this pro-Apple love letter?

"but it is a significant upgrade"

...

"Interestingly, even given all of these features, Cupertino's stated battery life for the iPhone 5S is identical to that of the iPhone 5C."

What are you talking about, did you see something different to the rest of us? A new CPU, motion sensor, supposedly better camera and a fingerprint scanner. How does that count as significant? A new CPU should be more battery efficient (ignoring the Tegra line there), a motion sensor won't be active unless apps are using it so shouldn't cause drain by itself and a fingerprint scanner.... BEHOLD! THE GREAT INNOVATORS, APPLE!

I'm no Apple fan (I know, I hide it well) but surely it's clear to most now that they have massively lost their way. A slight upgrade and a plastic rehash of last years model aren't going to set the market alight.

Storage

I was thinking that surely apple must realise the most important feature they are lacking is one that every phone I have owned in the last 10 years has had (with the exception of my iPhone)... A memory card slot. In the beginning it didn't matter - the camera on the 3G was shit. But the 4s and 5 have better cameras and the apps are getting bigger and bigger. I don't want some gimmicky fingerprint reader that probably doesn't work, I just want a fuckin' memory card slot so I don't have to clear my phone out on a weekly basis.

Apple = Dicks.

Question to developers

I've been tinkering with iOS development using iOS 6 SDK, XCode 4.x, OSX 10.8 on a fairly old unibody MacBook.

How will developing/releasing apps be affected by iOS7 - will I have to upgrade XCode (which requires the new OS) to be allowed to release apps now or can I still build against the iOS 6 SDK as before? I'm not sure my Mac will even support Mavericks...

Is it just me...

or does the back of the 5S look like a HTC One copy

We get this every 2 years. Odd years are the .5 releases, which are never that exciting. If you're on a 2 year contract between even years you get to take advantage of the main releases.

Looking forward to the iPhone 6 next September.

Cheaper of the 2 - you mugs

See? Not necessarily "cheaper" but cheaper of the 2 models.

So 5C is still last years price and 5S is the newer "revolutionary" expensive model.

See how Apple spins it?

Ready to be mugged, Fanbois?

I found the innovation!

"plus a flash with two LEDs – one cold, one warm – that can choose from 1,000 possible color temperatures to best match the environment" - that's the only bit that's an actual innovation that I can see.

So it's still too small, too expensive, and iOS is still too much like all the previous versions.

Pass.

Downside to fingerprint.

Fingerprint security? All it means is when somebody mugs you for your phone they will also cut your finger off :(.

People will have to buy fingerless gloves too :).

My girlfriend saw the new iPhone C and said “Oh look, they made a Nokia Lumia…”

XBox all over again.

As I went on record that Microsoft uturned in days on their policy of pre-owned games, Apple will u-turn within weeks on the pricing of the C version of this phone as its way overpriced.

So, still no WOW moment from Apple!

It's just another stale itteration of 2007 tech. It'll take the plebs another generation before they realise it.

Utter crap!

A seven hundred quid gold telephone will be popular with the drug dealers in their wrapped Range Rovers. Stands out well for the muggers and pick pockets too.

Just heard this on Swiss radio

Over half of mobile phone users do not secure their mobiles as they find it too inconvenient to set and enter a PIN.

So, the report surmised, Apple is not trying to increase the security level per se; it is just making it easier for the user to apply and use any security.

That seems, to me, to be an excellent motivation.

Everyone has missed the point

This is Apple.. that have been identified as OPENLY allowing the NSA to peruse their systems as they please.

And now their newly released iPhone has a new "feature"... a fingerprint sensor. So it's never sent to apple... really... how to hell do we know?!

I, for one, will not be putting my finger anywhere near one. I'll stick to my pin-unlock on my HTC One ta!

Does anyone else think the iPhone isn't that pretty any more?

The design is a little tired. The big top and bottom bezels, the visual language that never changes...

Apple can surely do better than this..

Nokia Colour Scheme?

Very sceptical about the colours. Same nasty lurid green and yellows as the ElopSoft phones. £469+ for a "looks just like an iPhone 5, until you realise it is made of plastic" handset.

Steve Jobs would not have let this through even the initial planning stage. Mind you, Steve Jobs would NEVER have allowed a marketing 'crat to do an Apple product launch -he had very fixed ideas of where marketing people belonged.

So,

$100 for an extra 16Gb of flash storage, worth $10. What a bargain. The Scientologists have nothing on Apple when it comes to separating the proverbial fool from his money.