Apple ‘iPhone 5S’ specs leak: 4-inch IGZO Retina display, NFC, 12MP camera, 2GB RAM, quad-core GPU, fingerprint reader, sources claim

“Right on schedule for a mid-September release date, photos and hardware specifications of the iPhone 5S have leaked from the Chinese supply chain,” Sebastian Anthony reports for ExtremeTech. “Looks-wise, the iPhone 5S appears to be identical to the iPhone 5 (no surprise there), but the internal hardware specs have received a significant boost.”

“If the leak is accurate, the iPhone 5S will have a quad-core PowerVR SGX544MP4 GPU, 4-inch (1136×640) IGZO display, 2GB of RAM, and the brand-new introduction of NFC and… a fingerprint scanner,” Anthony reports. “The CPU, according to the leak, will be the same Swift core found in the iPhone 5′s A6 SoC, but clocked at a higher speed.”

Anthony reports, “The leaked photos, where were posted on Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) by C Technology, show an iPhone 5S without its rear cover (revealing an NFC antenna) and a stack of semi-assembled iPhone 5S in what appears to be production-line trays. The hardware specs come from EXP Review, a Chinese-language hardware site. Judging by state of the phones, the photos probably come from a Foxconn factory in China.”

Read more, and se the photos, in the full article here.

44 Comments

  1. I hope this rumor is not real, because if it is, i will not change iPhone for the first time.

    Come 4 inches. i least the could go to the Z10 size that is really good. TrueStory

      1. Sorry about my English, (i was freaking busy) second of all, I had every single iPhone since the original iPhone, in my house 3 Apple TV’s, 1 MacBook Pro, 1 iPad Mini. 1 iPad 2. On my parents house there is 1 iPhone 4, 2 iPhones 4S, 1 iPhone 5, 1 iPad Mini & 1 iPad 2. my ex-wife use and iPhone 3GS and my girlfriend use an iPhone 4S.

        So here is my question for you douchebag, Do you think i work for samsung? Also since when this site cares about proper English, you jackass.

        1. tony x,
          Troll tactic #1 is to list a string of products as if that indicated anything, like this:

          Yes, I sure am a pilot/playboy I own a Gulfstream650, an F15 and a harrier jump jet and my rock star girlfriend has a Lear 45!
          And that make me a pilot/playboy you douchebag!

          So, let me ask you tony x; do you really think I am pilot/playboy?
          Then stop posting nonsense and acting like an ass.

        2. Just shut up already and stop calling everyone a troll who criticizes Apple.

          If they don’t change the design and screen size, I’m not upgrading either. Ridiculous. The same design for 3 years plus.

        3. You have a problem with reading?

          Where did I call tony a troll?
          I merely pointed out the fact that trolls tend to string a list of apple equipment together, like that means anything.

          Never called him a troll, just told him to stop posting nonsense lists of products, like it meant something (anything).
          however if the shoe fits…

        4. Agreed.
          I would happily give up my S4 if iPhone went to a larger screen.
          4.5 would be enough.

          I am not liking android but I just can’t go back to a small screen.

    1. Yes, you go to buy your BlackBerry Z10 but I’m warning you that company is in deep financial doodoo and it’s very questionable if the company will last two more years.

    1. Not quite; since iPhone 4, Apple already uses IPS FFS technology, which allows TFT to be much more translucent than usual IPS. However, technical limitations and price does not allow use this technology in bigger screens, such as for iPad, so, for now, iPad 4 is power hungry.

      So the difference between power consumption of IGZO-based screens versus current iPhone screens is not going to be that dramatic.

  2. Apple is not specs driven, but customer experience driven. This sounds like a wish list for some geek with a checklist. Why would Apple up the power driven requirements without some a comparable power reduction to maintain or improve battery life? Is IGZO going to save enough power to compensate? We’ve seen iOS 7, so what requires this horsepower improvement? I find this rumor doubtful. Cool, but unlikely.

    1. It’s all gonna be about the service they tie in with the fingerprint scanner. At minimum it could be like a prepaid account that can be used for transferring money between friends, etc. At most it could be a new payment service that aims to be competitive with the big boys.

  3. Anyone could come up with such specifications, there is no need for “source” for that.

    As to IGZO screen, in the first generations of it viewing angles and colours are worse than FFS that Apple uses now.

    This is one of the reasons why Apple did not immediately jump on IGZO screens, even though the company invested in Sharp’s future manufacturing significantly.

    If Apple and Sharp would be able to overcome those drawbacks, then IGZO could be a big thing since it it is even more transparent than what FFS allows and this would cut energy requirements for screen.

    1. Yeah that’s what the #1 request is from iPhone users; 2GB of RAM
      And, they also want user upgradable RAM and expansion slots… and, oh yeah, a centronics port. 😉

      /s

      1. Good eyes, like lawrence I also saw quad core and thought, CPU, which made no sense at all. It would be useless specmanship, something Apple rigorously eschews.
        However quad core graphics (like are in the current iPad) might be a reasonable evolution (though really I never find the graphics speed on the iPhone5 to be lacking.) ALso I believed the quad core graphics on the iPad were only necessary because of the ginormous (yes, that’s a technical term ;-)) pixel count.

    1. Same hare. There’s no other option than iPhone. Blackberry is sadly clinging to life and not likely to survive next 2 years, android is a mess off spyware and malware and not user upgradable to current OS, is a poorly implemented rip off of iPhone without the solid design nor security. That leaves windows phone which while at least innovative has zero apps. Plus I already have a ton of apps for Apple.

      I’m due to upgrade soon.

  4. Apple is becoming a sorry ass company, Steve, why did you have to die? Now I hear they are looking for engineers that’s supposed to solved some problems apple can’t? Like hey I am looking for engineers that’s going to fix stupid people, damn I’m pissed

      1. And not even a reasonable troll. Totally transparent. 🙁
        However, the outbreak of paid trolls, astroturfers and blogers in the last year or so do indicate that samsung and google are very frightened.

        1. It’s actually a very old practice amidst human society. But clearly, once Samsung got caught red-handed stealing Apple tech and design, they sent out a slew of poorly paid, ignorant minions. 😛

  5. I will upgrade to the 5S from my 5 if the features listed are actually included. I like the idea of the fingerprint sensor (done right). And if there is a noticeable increase in battery life, that really seals the deal.

  6. Background data and a comment:

    IGZO:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGZO

    Indium gallium zinc oxide, IGZO is a semiconducting material, jointly developed by Sharp Corporation and Semiconductor Energy Laboratories, which can be used as the channel for a transparent thin-film transistor. It replaces amorphous silicon for the active layer of an LCD screen, and, with a forty times higher electron mobility than amorphous silicon, it allows either smaller pixels (for screen resolutions higher than HDTV) or much higher reaction speed for a screen.

    Fingerprint Scanning:
    This technology is ONLY good as a supplement to an already existing login technology. Using it as the SOLE method of security is ridiculous as fingerprints are easily ripped off and used to subvert the scanners. Therefore, if fingerprint scanning is used, it must be part of a two-factor authorization system such as using a fingerprint AND a diabolical password. If fingerprint scanning ALONE is used for security authorization, it’s CRAP!

    [audio src="http://wavcentral.com/scripts/log.msql?id=5346&sound=http://WavCentral.com/sounds/televis/snl/scottish_crap.mp3" /]

    Fingerprints are nice for two-factor authorization because they qualify as ‘something you have’ and are unlikely to lose. Whereas, using something like a YubiKey can be annoying if you left it at home or lost it.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-factor_authentication

  7. When it comes to the screen size comments I think that the iPhone 5 got a very good screen. It’s not too small, not too big. It fits most people. A big screen is nice, for surfing, but its nit needed for much else. I don’t really enjoy holding up a big slab to my face, looks ridiculous second of all there might be some problems fitting a large phone in the pocket. But the one thing that really get me to stick with Apple is the build quality. It is just so much better. Not this plastic shit crap and a plastic screen and it feels like you can twist the phone like the Goosung phones… Apple’s phones feels like pure luxury.

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