Today at 10:00 Cupertino Time, Apple held an intimate meeting in their 200-seat theatre at 4 Infinite Loop to introduce the new iPhone 5c, 5s, and iOS 7.
Some highlights from the announcement:
iOS 7
- Siri has “higher quality male and female voices” and a more seamless integration with twitter, Safari, and other apps.
- Safari now has a 3D tabbing interface-- similar to what iTunes did with "Album View"
- The iOS 7 Camera has built-in instagram-y filters.
- Airdrop, the P2P sharing found on iMacs, is now part of iOS 7.
- iOS 7 will be a free upgrade for existing iPhone users (4 or later), iPad (2 or later), iPad Mini, and iPod Touch (5 or later) on September 18.
- iWork comes free with iOS 7-- they are immediately downloaded with the update.
iPhone 5C
- "The entire back and sides are made from a single part, its front one glass, multi-touch surface. As close as you look, you wont see joints or seams"
- Each device comes with a color-matched wallpaper
- 4-inch Retina Display
- Higher-capacity battery than other iPhones and an A6 chip
- 8MP iSight Camera
- 16gb model will be $99 and 32GB for $199 on a 2-year contract
- On Sale September 20.
iPhone 5S
- Features the A7 performance chip-- the biggest and first smartphone CPU of its kind.
- Graphics are two times faster and the computing power is two times as fast with its 64-bit re-engineering. "It’s got a new 64-bit kernel, libraries, and drivers. All built-in apps have been reengineered. It’s a seamless dev transition, with full backwards compatibility."
- The M7 Motion Coprocessor continuously measures motion data, accelerometer, and gestural data. It can determinine whether you’re walking or driving.
- The battery life is even better than the iPhone 5-- it has an estimated 250 hours of standby time.
- iSight camera now has an f/2.2 aperture and a 15 percent larger active sensor area (1.5 micron pixel sensor)
- There are two flashes in the 5S-- one white LED, one amber, and the camera has auto-image stabilization.
- Videos can now record in Slo-Mo.
- TOUCH ID: The fingerprint sensor "is capacitive, 170 microns thin, has a 500 ppi resolution, scans sub-epidermal skin layers, and has 360 degree readability"
- With the Touch ID, you only need to touch the home screen and iTunes purchases can be made with the tap of a finger
- $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB on a 2 year contract
- On sale September 20.
For a complete blow-by-blow, check out Techcrunch's live update stream.
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