The excitement of the rumour mill, the titillation of every leaked photo led to higher than ever levels of expectation over the iPhone 5
features, and while the announcement was greeted with some derision at
the lack of perceived headline improvements, the record sales tell an
entirely different story.
Given the underwhelming changes to the iPhone 4S,
the iPhone 5 launch really needs to re-energise customers to prove
Apple can repeat the game-changing trick it managed with the iPhone 4.
The iPhone 5 price is predictably high, so consumers will need to bear that in mind too when looking for their next smartphone.
So is the Apple iPhone 5 the greatest smartphone ever, and did it finally see Apple ascend to the top spot in our 20 best mobile phones chart? Or was it a case of too little, too late... and what about those darned Maps, eh?
Design
We'll
begin in the traditional manner: how the thing actually feels in the
hand. With the iPhone 5 there will be many types of prospective buyer:
the upgrader from the 4 (or more-money-than-sense iPhone 4S upgraders),
those tired of their Android handset and those taking their first steps
in the smartphone market and want to get one of them iThingies their
friend/child has.
Well,
all of those picking up the iPhone 5 will have the same reaction: this
thing is amazingly light. You've probably heard the numbers by now (20
per cent lighter than the predecessor, as well as beating most of the
opposition too at 112g.)
It's an odd
sensation, but it actually detracts from the experience when you first
pick it up. We've praised the weighty feel of the iPhone in the past,
lending it a premium feel in the face of toy-like phones, and it's
almost disappointing that Apple decided to join that clan.
However,
through extended use this problem quickly disappears, as the overall
effect of the phone is still a chassis designed for strength, it just
sits more anonymously in the pocket.
You'll
obviously see the change in height too – the iPhone 5 stands 123.8mm
tall to allow for the larger 4-inch screen. In truth, those not familiar
with the iPhone 4S probably wouldn't notice the difference, which is
why it's a good move from Apple to include the larger screen if it's not
going put people off that hate larger phones.
The
decision to stick at 4-inches is Apple's admission that while it
recognises people are all over the idea of having more screen real
estate to play with it doesn't want to move away from the thumb-friendly
nature of the device.
Through a
mixture of moving the centre of gravity slightly as well as
repositioning the screen within the bezel, it's still possible to scroll
your thumb mostly around the whole display one-handed, which Apple is
clearly keen to keep hold of.
However,
we're not convinced of that argument any more, and the power button was
still a little out of reach when using the phone normally, as was
anything in the top left-hand corner of the screen.
This
was no issue in reality, as scooting the phone down a touch in the palm
is a natural action. But if that's the case, then why not offer a
4.3-inch screen at least?
There's more
to a phone than a screen these days (although increasingly less and
less) and the general construction of the iPhone 5 is excellent to say
the least.
We've
tested both the ceramic white version and the anodised black, and the
two tone effect on the back of the phone is stunning, both visually and
under the finger.
It doesn't beat the sheer beauty of the HTC One S, with its micro-arc oxidised back and rounded lines, but it's well-set in second place.
The
two sections of pigmented glass at the top and the bottom of the phone
add a pleasant effect, and the sapphire glass is meant to be thoroughly
durable, to complement the Gorilla Glass on the front.
Apple
knows consumers get furious when they drop and iPhone, and is clearly
seeking to stop the smashes before they happen with a tougher exterior -
although it seems the anodised black version is pretty prone to
scratching, with a number of users mentioning chipping on the darker
hue.
Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice
President of Marketing, reportedly replied to an email from a user
pointing out that aluminium will scratch and chip in natural use - and
we're also hearing that white iPhone 5 models are being returned through
flaking as well.
We kept our black iPhone 5
in a soft pocket in a bag for much of its life, yet saw the following
chip with minimal key / coin contact in under a fortnight:
For
a device of this premium quality, users will expect it to survive the
pocket test, and especially do so for the first two weeks of life. It's a
big fail for Apple to expect users to accept that a product can be
damaged so easily.
The same industrial
band around the outside is in effect again as on the iPhone 4 and 4S,
with small sections removed where the antenna joins.
Apple
has gone for a more advanced form of antenna here, meaning the days of
lost signal are gone, and generally increasing the power of your call
connection and GPS lock on too.
There
are other big design changes here too: the headphone jack has moved to
the bottom of the phone, and the iconic 30-pin connector has been
retired in favour of the new Lightning port, giving a headache to all
those that have invested in chargers, docks and other accessories over
their iPhone lives.
You can buy an
adaptor, but it's pricey at £25. And unless you want to keep it
permanently attached to the bottom of the iPhone 5 you'll need to buy a
few, which is far from ideal.
However,
let's not harangue Apple too much for this: a smaller connector is not
only easier to use (you can plug the smaller cable in either way round,
and the connection feels more solid), but you're rewarded with a thinner
and more compact phone to boot.
There's also a small chink of light on the top right hand side of the iPhone 5
- when the screen is illuminated, you can see it under the band if you
really, really look for it. It's been seen by a number of users, but is
hard to actually replicate unless you mask the screen and hold it at the
right angle.
It's again a sign of slightly under-par machining from Apple, but in day to day use it's almost completely invisible.
The
decision to move the 3.5mm headphone jack to the bottom is an odd one,
as while it allows you to slip the phone into the pocket head-first when
listening to music, which is a more natural action, it's a real pain in
the posterior for some apps that will only work in landscape a certain
way up.
Using it this way means your headphones experience will be one of having to jiggle the jack around two fingers.
It's
not the most comfortable way to hold a phone, and even when using the
phone in portrait mode, the jack gets in the way somewhat. Plus it's
miles away from the volume keys, which makes it hard to change the audio
level in the pocket if you don't use the dedicated headphones.
There
are other smaller design changes to the iPhone 5 too, such as the
iSight front-facing camera moving to the middle and the home button
being noticeably more robust to help reduce instances of a broken portal
to your home screen.
But
enough about what the phone looks like - the killer question is how the
thing feels in hand. And we'll sum it up by saying: smooth. It's a
little slippery, and we were always worried we would drop the darned
thing.
But that's the only negative
thing about the design (apart from the low weight initially and
scratching aluminium) as it sits in the palm nicely and allows you to do
it all with one hand, including hitting the top-mounted power/lock
button with ease.
That lock button is
actually still loose, as it was on the iPhone 4S, meaning when you shake
the phone around you can hear it clicking away, which undoes a lot of
the premium feel Apple is going for.
Make no mistake, the iPhone 5
is one of the most beautifully crafted phones out there - but when
you're paying £529 up front for the thing, we'd hope this would be the
very minimum Apple would be doing.
And
while it looks nice, from the front it doesn't really add much to the
design of the iPhone - it's certainly not the same as the jaw-dropping
design of the iPhone 4 compared to the 3GS... it's another evolution in
the iLine. It's not bad, but for those that hoped the iPhone 5
would be another step change there's a good chance they'll be
disappointed about the look... until they feel the lovely back on offer.
There
was a real chance here for Apple: remove the bezel and give the front
of the screen a look that's similar to the OLED TVs from the likes of
Samsung or LG… but instead we're treated to the same lines as before.
You
always get the feeling that Apple saves what it can for the next
iteration of the iPhone, and while there's nothing wrong with the
current construction we can see the edge-to-edge screen becoming
something amazing on the iPhone 6 or iPhone 5S.
The technology on offer from Apple with regards to the new 4-inch
display is impressive – but only on a scale that matches that seen with
the launch of the Retina Display in 2010.
There's such a
temptation with new technology to bash it for not always innovating and
pushing things further, especially when Apple's announcements are so
full of hyperbole that it's often hard to tell what's actually exciting.
However
when Steve Jobs took to the stage to announce the Retina Display, he
said it was sharper than the human eye could discern – and he was right,
as despite other far-reaching efforts to up the sharpness nothing has
really made us squint at a display in awe than that first shown on the iPhone 4. So
we're not going to berate Apple for sticking with the same 326ppi
resolution, nor 'only' extending the iPhone 5 display to 1136 x 640
pixels - it's the look that matters, and overall effect of the screen is
very pleasing indeed.
There are black bars above and below when
using older iPhone apps that haven't been optimised for the screen, but
after the novelty of seeing them for the first time we barely noticed
anything different after two or three days' use - and already we're
seeing a number of optimised apps springing to life in the App Store
after just a few weeks of life.
Apple
has done away with layers of technology below the screen to bring the
display as close to the glass as possible, something it says will bring
increased brightness and sharpness to the user's eye.
In practice,
it's quite different from the iPhone 4S in quality and brightness,
although tilting the phone to extreme angles lacks the impressive look
we've seen on phones like the HTC One X.
However, just because you can't see the colours as accurately at acute
angles isn't really something to criticise a phone for, unless you're in
the habit of letting your friends watch films from two seats away from
you. But
enough of the comparisons: how does the screen look to the new user?
Well, the answer is crisp, clear and bright with no discernible
over-saturation when watching movies or browsing the web. We noticed no
obvious discolouration - some people say the iPhone 4S had a slight
greenish tint to it - so it's clear this is the best Apple display yet.
It's
a lot better than the iPhone 4S in side by side comparisons, with the
new phone definitely looking brighter, crisper and more true to life
than its predecessor.
However, for all the reality on offer, it's not got the snap and pop that still wows us on the Samsung Galaxy S3,
with its Super AMOLED HD display with superb contrast ratios. If asked
to choose which handset we'd like to watch movies on, browse the web or
go navigating in the car with, we know we'd pick the Galaxy S3 every
time.
Both displays have the same 'painted on' effect when
looking at the home screen that makes you wonder if you're looking at a
dummy model with a sticker on, but those that say 4.8-inches of screen
is too big haven't played with the S3 very long - we predict at least
half would be enamoured by the larger size within a day. That's
not to say the iPhone 5 display is too small, as for many it's the most
they'd accept in screen evolution. It's just that if 3.5-inches was the
perfect one-handed size, 4-inches is a little too big (try getting your
thumb up to the top-left corner to head back through apps) so if that's
the case, a little bit bigger wouldn't make much difference and would
give an improved experience to the apps so crucial to a smartphone user
today.
We can't say we really felt the extra screen space added
much to the feel of the iPhone 5 - typing was still slightly cramped as
there's no extra width on offer, and while having a taller screen
allowed for more information to be present, it didn't have the feel of a
massive step change from the iPhone 4S.
When it comes to the interface on the new iPhone 5, well, there's not a lot new about it at all. You can read our full iOS 6 review
to get a good flavour of the new treats on offer with Apple's latest
platform evolution, but let's talk about how they work within the phone
itself.
For the uninitiated, Apple's iOS is designed to be all
about simplicity, which is why you're presented with a grid of apps that
can be easily sorted into folders by long pressing on any one and
dragging on top of another.
This
method will also uninstall apps too, making it a much simpler system
than anything you'd find on Android, where you have to jump through a
few more hoops generally to create folders and get rid of unwanted
software.
However, the downside to this trick is the fact it's
been there so long. If this is your first smartphone (or first iPhone)
then you'll be impressed by the simplicity - but then again, you may
wish you had a bit more power under your fingertips.
For instance,
where Android is so strong is in its customisation - meaning if you
want to have one home screen full of widgets and another full of icons
and a third with a massive widget for your music player, that's as easy
to do as just filling the whole thing with icons.
With iOS 6
you've only got weather and stock widgets in the notifications bar,
which is accessed by pulling down from the top of the screen to give
information on apps or message that have come through.
It's
similar to that seen on Android phones, but with Jelly Bean (Android
4.1) we're offered the chance to see larger message previews and
interact with important parts of apps without having to open them -
impressive and a much more intuitive way of doing things.
Intuition
is the thing iOS 6 now lacks. Where Apple wowed the world with the
simple nature of the original iPhone, the current set up isn't really
that far removed from that first iteration, at least visually.
Things
like all settings being locked down to one place, meaning you have to
jump in and out of the apps to simply do things like alter the amount of
days to sync in Mail, is ridiculous. Contextual menus have been absent
from the iPhone ecosystem for far too long.
Another
issue is the fact Apple isn't able to work out how to do live icons
effectively. While some show new information, such as the Calendar, the
likes of Weather still say the same 23 degrees with a sunny outlook.
We
know you can do better than this Apple, and when you look at the
awesome Live Tiles on offer from Windows Phone, it beggars belief that
the Cupertino firm seems to think users wouldn't appreciate the chance
to take a glance at the screen and know who that missed call was from,
see what the temperature is outside or simply attach a contact as an
icon for quick access.
It's also extremely frustrating to not at
least have the option to have the icons auto-arrange still. When you
delete an app all the others don't automatically line up to fill the
space, which hurts the OCD nature in many of us.
We get that Apple knows some people want to keep icons in familiar places, but the auto-arrange option should be there.
But
let's talk hardware here: the A6 chip on offer in the iPhone 5 may only
be dual core, but it's certainly ridiculously snappy. It's meant to be
much faster than the A5 chip powering the iPhone 4S, and in practice it
really is, with GeekBench telling us than the clock speed is 1.1 to
1.3GHz on each core.
It manages to nab a score of around 1450 on
GeekBench, which is over twice as fast as the iPhone 4S - impressive
given they're both dual core phones.
And that's the beauty of
Apple's iPhone strategy, and one that pays dividends for users: it
doesn't play the numbers game, as it will only end in criticism. Sure, a
quad core CPU would have been a good marketing tool, but at the expense
of battery life and design Apple knows that consumers will get an
equally great experience with just the two cores.
We
didn't notice anything approaching lag during our time with the iPhone
5, with everything snapping back and forth with the kind of speeds we'd
hope to see. Holding down the home key to access Siri was instant every
time, and double tapping to bring up the list of apps running was
equally fast.
This may all sound obvious, but some smartphones
will introduce some delay into oft-used tasks, where the iPhone was
happy to keep chugging along with no problems.
There was one
issue we encountered during an iCloud backup to bring all the apps and
settings from our previous phone, and that was during the repopulation
some apps wouldn't delete, and would sit there installing forever until
the phone was forced into a restart.
This was irritating as it
stopped other apps from downloading at the same time, meaning we had to
keep turning the blasted thing on and off again just to actually get all
the apps we wanted on it.
There are those that have criticised
the 'multi-tasking' window in the iOS system, stating that it's not true
multi-tasking... which is true.
But try keeping all those apps
running at once and using the phone for more than half a day, and you'll
realise that Apple's strategy of putting some apps in stasis or
shutting them down (but still showing them as recently used for easy
access) is a good move on the whole.
We do wish more apps were
able to run in the background (Skype would be a great start, as would
many social networks) but on the whole we're fans of battery life, and
there's every chance Apple will refine the process in the future.
After
a couple of weeks' use, we slipped easily back into the familiar iPhone
routine with iOS 6 and the standard interface. It does feel irritating
at times, especially when having to jump in and out of the settings
menu, but the new visual touches permeating the device mean that you
won't feel thoroughly short changed by iOS.
And of course there's
the debate of not getting to have a clean slate when you get a new
phone, with iCloud / iTunes backup meaning you've got exactly the same
experience as before on your device. Of course, this is mega lazy as you
can choose a fresh install and manually update your information, but
for a lot of people a spring clean on a new phone is outweight by
convenience.
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