iPhone 5 Review: Apple finds its 4G Camry

After booking over 2 million preorders during the announcement weekend, iPhone 5 has finally arrived in store. In order to avoid the 3-6week shipping delay now scheduled for the device, I skipped the preorder all together – and visited an Apple store to purchase a unit on launch day. For me, there was no overnight wait, or dramatic to-do. Like a number of savvy shoppers, I visited the much smaller Apple store in Emeryville, CA – rather than the expected Zoo at flagships store in San Francisco, New York, and elsewhere.

Hardware:

While fondling my 16gb iPhone 5 for Verizon, I quickly realized that the hardware is the only reason to purchase this device – iOS6, and a majority of it functions will arrive to older iDevices free of charge this week. Although the device looks largely the same as previous iPhones, it now includes an LTE radio allowing much faster browsing speeds. At my home in Emeryville, I recorded an average of 25GB download speed on Verizon LTE. Next up is the screen, it has been stretched to 4 inches. This was done by adding a half inch to the height of the device, for a more widescreen display. Colors and saturation on the display are among the best. It does not look as saturated as Samsung AMOLED screens, but the color accuracy if much better. Other, more subtle changes made inside the devices include a faster A6 process, and 1GB of RAM. The camera hardware, while physically updated, remains at 8MP with the similar photo quality, that is bested only by Nokia’s ‘Pureview’ hardware.

Special mention is given to the new “lightning” port, which replaces that traditional 30pin dock connector. This means that long time iPhone users will need to buy one or more of the $30 dock adapters in order to continue using their hardware accessories. Apple also makes a point to mention that the phone is now 18% lighter. Oddly, the iPhone 5 uses different machining of the new metal back, which in practice makes the metal back material feel like lesser quality plastics in hand. The headphone jack has been moved to the bottom of the device, next to a larger, louder speaker which consumes spaced freed by the smaller lightening connector. Paired with the devices are new ‘EarPod’ headphones which feature an improved designed for better fit and better sound. A marked step up from the previous design, which was a continued sticking point among technophiles.

Software:

With iOS6, Apple adds more polish to its existing operating system. For most users, the most notable changes will be the exclusion of Google services. No YouTube, and no Google Maps. Apple instead includes its own mapping application, powered by TomTom, which finally provides turn-by-turn functionality. Although nice in theory, in practice the mapping application is less than ideal for all but the most casual users of the pervious Google Maps. Most effected will be users within larger cities- and anyone dependent on public transit. While turn-by-turn functionality is executed with polish, there is indeed no public transit or walking directions. This also means you won’t find public transit departure times and other related enhancements found in Google Maps. Apple maps also excludes a street view equivalent, which again – may only impact users in dense urban areas where signage mage be obscure or crowded. For more basic needs however, the included Maps application loads very quickly using vector maps. Although not a replacement for streetview, a ‘flyover’ function does allow interesting aerial shots. It is important to note that these aerial shots are not at all useful for actual navigation.

Other less subtle updates to the OS include redesigns for a number of built-in applications including the App store and Apple music player, additional functionality has also been added to certain built-n apps, including the stocks application which now includes both low and high temperature reports.

Running on the new A6 chip within the iPhone 5, iOS6 is extremely smooth. In my experience upgrading from an iPhone 4, most all interactions with the phone are faster and more smooth. This increase in performance can be attributed in part to LTE connectivity, which speeds apps needing access to web data. Another bonus of the longer iPhone 5 screen is the additional of a 5th row of application icons – folder of apps also get an increase in capacity from 12 to 16 icons.

Conclusion:

The iPhone has become the Toyota Camry of technology. It’s easy to use, and excellently engineered. It is the highest selling model, and sells to arguably the largest cross section of buyers. With iPhone 5, Apple has updated the hardware drastically – with the inclusion of more RAM, a bigger screen, revised headphone, LTE, larger battery, different materials, and a revised dock connector – yet manages this huge change without upsetting the millions of upgrade users who expect a very specific experience from the device. With version 5 of iPhone, Apple has entered maturity with the device. It improves on its best in class hardware, and improves on its best in class software – and without fail, is expected to continue deservedly as the best selling smartphone model worldwide.