iPhone 5 gets bigger, thinner,faster It’s by no means perfect, but it’s a terrific new smartphone nonetheless – and unquestionably retains the title of handsomest phone you can buy,

iPhone 5 gets bigger, thinner,faster

It’s by no means perfect, but it’s a terrific new smartphone nonetheless – and unquestionably retains the title of handsomest phone you can buy,

The launch of a new iPhone long ago passed from mere product introduction into the realm of cultural phenomena. Still, underneath all the hype, the iPhone 5 really is just a new smartphone. A terrific new smartphone. It arrived in Apple stores in developed markets on September 21. The new model lacks any single gee-whiz breakthrough, like the Siri voice assistant introduced with the iPhone 4S. But the new version brings it up-to-date in a host of areas, particularly speed, without sacrificing the things that made it special in the first place. The iPhone 5, which in the US starts at $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage on a two-year contract, unquestionably retains the title of handsomest phone you can buy. The fit and finish really are more like a fine wristwatch, as Apple boasts, than a gadget you might shove into pocket or purse. The new screen measures 4 inches diagonally, compared with 3.5 inches on all previous iPhones. That makes it, at 4.87 inches, slightly taller than its predecessor. But it maintains the identical width, changing the screen’s aspect ratio to 16:9, the same one used in movies, and allowing an extra row of app icons. Meanwhile, it’s 18% thinner than the 4S – Apple says it’s the thinnest on the market – and, at 3.95 ounces, 20% lighter. Solid The result is a phone that’s compact and feather-weight, yet, thanks to the materials used in its aluminum-and-glass body, conveys a sense of solidity and feels great in the hand. It also comes with newly redesigned headphones called EarPods that are the first-ever from Apple that don’t either immediately fall out of my ears, hurt or both. The most controversial hardware change in the iPhone 5 is bound to be the new, smaller “Lightning” port for accessories and charging. It’s much easier to use than the previous 30-pin connector, and it doesn’t matter which side of the plug is up. That’s a real blessing for those of us who fumble constantly with the micro-USB plugs on many other phones. On the other hand, using it with speaker docks and other accessories built for earlier iPhones and iPods could add up. An adapter costs $29, and the kind of cable included in the box, which allows it to be used with most car- and wall-chargers, will cost $19 if you want to buy an extra. Timing technology One of Apple’s under-appreciated abilities is its sense of timing. It often isn’t first with new technologies, waiting until it can bring something special and Apple-like to the table. With the iPhone 5, the most obvious something-special is how fast it is and how long it runs at those speeds. The new model is the first iPhone to run on the new 4G LTE networks being rolled out by carriers. These networks aren’t everywhere: Of the three major US carriers offering the iPhone, Verizon Wireless has by far the broadest coverage, with AT&T trailing and Sprint just getting started. But if they’re in your area, you’ll find the iPhone 5 roaringly fast – far zippier than any previous iPhone at downloading Web pages, uploading photos, installing apps and doing pretty much anything that requires an Internet connection. My AT&T test unit routinely registered download speeds five to 20 times faster than a 4S running over the slower network that AT&T confusingly labels “4G.” Fast, fluid The iPhone 5’s speediness isn’t confined to the Internet. Its new Apple-designed A6 chip and revised iOS 6 operating system make functions like opening apps and scrolling through screens faster and more fluid. Of course, the iPhone 5 maintains compatibility with Apple’s vast universe of songs, videos and an app catalogue that now exceeds 7 lakh. But one app in particular is worth paying close attention to. With iOS 6, Apple has replaced the previous Google Maps application with one of its own. The new app is gorgeous, and provides built-in, spoken turn-by-turn navigation. But my initial test unit was too easily confused, especially in urban areas. At one point, as I was driving south on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, it thought I was going north; at another point, it mistakenly thought I was on Fremont Street, a couple of blocks away. I encountered a similar issue walking in downtown San Francisco. Secret weakness Over the last year and a half, Samsung, HTC and Motorola, among others, have already come out with LTE handsets running Google’s Android operating system. But many had a secret weakness: power consumption. Because LTE requires more juice, they either delivered sub-par performance compared to 3G phones, or grew to sometimes ungainly dimensions to accommodate a bigger battery. By contrast, the iPhone 5 on LTE actually exceeds the battery life of the iPhone 4S on 3G. What you’ll get in the real world depends on how you use the phone. In my case, even with the screen set to maximum brightness, I was able to download a movie over Wi-Fi; use the new Apple mapping-and-spoken-navigation app on two car trips; text, Tweet and use the camera’s neat new panorama mode to shoot photos at Stanford’s upset football victory over the University of Southern California while watching video highlights from the San Francisco Giants baseball game over LTE; and, oh yeah, make some phone calls. At the end of a very long day, I still had 10% of the battery left. Hot feature Moreover, the rear of the phone grew noticeably hot when the GPS system was in use for an extended period, though I didn’t notice any undue impact on the phone’s battery life or performance. Apple says some heat build-up is to be expected given the demands of the GPS system, and that my experience with the app’s inaccuracy was unusual; it provided me with a second unit that seemed to do better. Still, users should be wary until they’re convinced the new app is as good as the one being booted out to make way for it. In the end, the debates over the iPhone 5 will be as endless as the queues of consumers that waited to buy it last week. Apple-bashers will say the screen is too small, compared to giants like Samsung’s Galaxy S III. And they’ll bemoan the absence of a Near-Field Communications chip, which among other things can be used for mobile payments. (Apple says there isn’t yet enough consumer demand to warrant including it.) And they’ll have some valid points. The iPhone 5 is by no means perfect, and we’re lucky there are a lot of really good smartphones on the market. Bloomberg Apple sells 50 lakh iPhone 5 units in 3 days! Apple sold out of its latest smartphone, with more than 50 lakh iPhone 5s sold in the three days since it hit stores, the company said on Monday. While sales were solid, analysts were concerned that Apple was unable to produce the new phone fast enough to meet demand. The early total for the iPhone 5 topped sales of the iPhone 4S, which sold more than 40 lakh units in its first weekend after Apple introduced it in October 2011. Expectations for new Apple products are so high that Wall Street appeared not to be wowed by the latest numbers. Investors sent shares of the stock down 1.4% at $690.14 in mid-morning trade. “It appears investors were disappointed with the slowdown in growth in the first weekend,” said BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk. Apple said while the majority of iPhone 5 pre-orders have been shipped to customers, many were scheduled to go out in October. The world’s most valuable technology company is being closely watched for any supplier problems that may slow down the smartphone production. “We believe that sales could have potentially been much higher if not for supply constraints,” William Power, an analyst with Baird Equity Research, wrote in a note. He forecast Apple selling 80 lakh to 1 crore units in the fiscal fourth quarter ending in September.