“After Apple unveiled a pair of new iPhones Tuesday, Tim Cook & Co. made the phones briefly available for some hands-on (and fingers-on) testing,” Heather Kelly writes for CNN. “I got to spend some time playing with both devices. An in-depth review will have to wait, but here are my first impressions.”
“The rumored golden iPhone is real, and a very classy champagne shade… The 5S also comes in silver and another new color Apple is calling “space gray.” The gray iPhone is the only one in the 5S lineup that has a black faceplate instead of white,” Kelly writes. “The most intriguing new hardware feature on the 5S is the fingerprint sensor in its Home button… Each phone can record up to five individual fingerprints — say one for each member of the family you don’t mind using it (maybe purposefully leaving out the kids). It worked seamlessly when I tested it… it’s a much faster way to open the phone than entering a pass code, and there is no “reading your print now” type of delay on screen.”
“The lower-priced iPhone 5C doesn’t have as many fancy new hardware features. Instead, its pizazz is mostly on the outside. Apple rounded the corners down and encased the 5C in a smooth hard plastic shell instead of metal,” Kelly writes. “The polycarbonate body does feel sturdier than other plastic phones, and the phone still has bit of weight to it. The entire back side of the phone is one seamless piece of plastic and comes in blue, green, pink, yellow and white. The colors look subdued in press images, but in person the green and pink are a bit more fluorescent and bright.”
Read more in the full article here.
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To me these look like some of the coolest looking iPhones Apple has made.
I wonder how the volume buttons on the side feel.
I would for the white.
…
I would GO for the white.
Yep – I’m getting the black one…people are crazy. Improved camera, fingerprint so I don’t have to type that damn code in anymore, and improved processor and graphics. Sign me up!
I hear the black one scratches a bit easily. Maybe that has been improved. But damn does it look nice!
Most use some sort of case, so scratching is minimal. Of those that do not use a case, scratching is often quick and continuous.
Barebackers beware!
Oooo! baby I like it Raw!
ODB
Black? There is no black. Not even a 5c black. Not that I would by a 5c but who’s “brilliant” idea was it not to have a black 5c?
To answer this article’s title question: “There is no purpose for the iPhone 5c”… or even the iPhone 5S.
That’s why Cook discontinued the 5, he knew that if given a choice, consumers would choose the 5 over everything else.
Forcing consumers to settle for a phone several years old in the 4S is both shameful and embarrasing!
I’m keeping my 5 for a long time. A fingerprint scanner is worthless, more speed in the 5S will be negligible. And the 5c is a bigger ripoff than the Surface RT.
The only good thing to come out of this is the worldwide revelation that Tim Cook must go soon.
Shameful indeed.
Boy am I disappointed with my 4S. What a piece of shit. And each year they upgrade it with a new OS with more features, security, and capability, ho hum. Can’t imagine keeping it until the contract is up. Life is so hard. What to do, what to do.
No one’s saying the 4S is bad… for when it was released. I had one myself before getting a 5.
But I sure as heck wouldn’t lock myself, today, into a 2 year contract with it. Especially since it’s only half the capacity (8GB) of the original 4S.
indeed, Who the hell wants 8 gb. that is embarrassing and will only make the buyer feel remorse for buying such a small capacity device. As a parent who takes insane amount of video and photos and WANTS to have them all on the phone to actually show people and have the photos and video on me… I back up, but hate doing without. 8 GB is really really retarded. Anyone who does not see that is an apologist and fooling themselves. So that customer then has to be tortured and step up, realizing that there is no real bargain. If you don’t make your product obsolete, Samsung will. Honestly, if you have a 5, there is no reason to upgrade besides just wanting the 5S. Video slo-mo is kind of cool. Apples flash shots always sucked, lets see what the new LED does.
What a moronic comment. I have an 8GB iPhone 4 which is more than adequate for my work, music and photo needs. The design is iconic (a consequence of an informed design aesthetic) and the iOS is upgradable – what more could you ask. The oldest iPhone has more caché (style and substance) than the most recent Android.
And as for carting around more than 8GB of photos and videos… God! You’ve got to be a blot on the horizon when you hove into view, if you compose photos as badly as thoughts, convinced, I’m sure, that anyone would be *retarded* not to want to see them.
How are things up in Mountain View?
They are nice, for sure the 5S is the way to go, the things that disappointed me are no 128GB model, and no 802.11ac. Before you say it BLN, i know you don’t really need it, but it should have still been included. I just hate having to sign another 2 year contract with the robber barons at AT&T. And buying out of contract? Well, maybe just wait for the iphone 6 to do that. Frankly for me, my iPad is more important than my iPhone. But that is just me spouting off, so don’t take it personally.
Don’t know why everyone is hating on this phone. They usually would have the traditional 5 in this price bracket but instead they released something new and exciting. If you’re shopping at the $99 price then the 5c seems a great choice.
Also, it’s quite clever of Apple if you think about it. Instead of having customers choose between ‘last year’s’ phone and the new one, they’re both new. I think this will help customers choose the 5c because it still feels new. And while I know nothing about it I would wager the 5c may actually have a higher margin than the S.
AAPL is down 6% today, 3% yesterday, the new phones haven’t exactly impressed investors.
Don’t really know what to think about ’em, not going to upgrade my 4S that’s for sure. I’ll wait for iPhone 6.
You used the word investors when I think you meant speculators.
Investors look at things in the longer term and are aware that there are always blips and uncertainties when new iPhones are launched. It takes time for the market to work out what has really happened. As an investor, I’m not concerned by this drop in the share price, I’m confident that it will rise again very quickly.
@alanaudio: Thank you for your calmness and wisdoms. I hope it will bounce back soon. It is heart wrenching to see AAPL dropped so fast this morning.
The recent $505 share price was based on such things as sales beginning on China Mobile’s network with its 700M customers, as well as NFC capability, finger print sensors, a Star Trek warp drive, a personal transporter, and a holodeck. When only one of these items is actually presented we lose all the pie-in-the-sky speculators and the share price returns to normal.
The market valuation of Apple (as you and I know it) is based on movement that makes money not judging merit. If you recall, the market was hyping ‘disappointment’ before the product launch. The Wall Street players (those who do all the talking) want the share price to fluctuate – their money is in the spread, up or down. If Icahn just increased his position, I’d read that as more significant measure of Apple’s value than all the braying coming out of Wall Street about disappointment.
To put this in context, Microsoft by comparison, is arguably (and laughably) in free-fall on the product side (the innovation side, the quality side, the management side, etc.) because of stupendous and chronic incompetence but they kick out an annual dividend – and Wall Street is happy. It’s only recently that Wall Street has begrudgingly begun to acknowledge that ‘maybe’ Microsoft is headed for irrelevance. Microsoft hasn’t fielded anything of value for years and even a $900 million write down – nearly a Billion dollars – didn’t move the share price as it should have. Amazon was rumoured to be considering a ‘free’ phone (now that’s a marketing strategy with legs), Facebook has a P:E ratio that has no relation to reality or reason. (I advised a friend NOT to participate in Facebook’s IPO – her trade would never make the floor in time to make any money. Zuckerberg made billions and she lost $10,000 because her buy only got to the floor in time to catch the downturn. That’s where Zuckerberg’s money came from, so he and Wall Street were happy. I doubt she’ll ever get her money back.
Listen to the calm sensible voices like alanudio
Samsung/Google must be spending a lot of time and money with the person(s) attempting to flame Apple and specifically this site now. Though your money and time would be better spent on the mindless tech analysts that could be swayed and not the well informed that frequent this site.
The fear of Apple is patrable for good reason and becomes far more apparent as the attempts increase. Cheers
I love all of the phones both the 5c and 5s. I have the five (white) and will purchase the 5s because of it’s understated elegance and camera features etc.I’m torn between my favorite white and the gold one. Wish I could have both! The 5c looks really great and I love the whimsical colors and would buy one of each if I could.The female Lily Pulitzer crowd down here
is going bananas because of the colors. A few friends are opting for 5s in gold. They’re the Gucci crowd.
Here’s a serious question about the fingerprint sensor – what if I cut my finger? Presumably if I have a band aid on I can’t open my phone. What if it leaves a scar? Will it recognize me despite the new scar?
The fingerprint recognition is an alternative to using a password, so you can still use a password to gain access instead of a fingerprint.
I’m quite prone to cutting my fingers, so I’d be tempted to record a fingerprint from each hand to avoid the problem that you describe.
You can record 5 different fingers. Surely you aren’t going to paper cut 5 different fingers.
I would rather have an iPhone without phisical home buttom.
White faceplates are for little girls. Sometimes I really don’t know where Apple thinks they’re going.
Um…OK. That’s so nonsensical that it almost defies a response. How about we play adult and rephrase that as you don’t like white faceplates.
The rest should only be shared between you and your shrink.
I will miss the glass back. I love how that feels in my hands. 😉 yet I was constantly paranoid of scratching and breaking it whenever I put the iPhone down on the table.