As expected, at an event in San Francisco today, Apple VP Tim Schiller took the wraps off the company’s newest mobile device: the iPhone 5. In addition, the company announced a new version of iTunes, an update to its mobile iOS software, dubbed iOS 6, and more.
But really, the more isn’t that important. What people are really interested in is the new iPhone. So, here’s what we know:
The iPhone 5 is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4/4S. It is also 20% lighter than the previous model. It’s made of all aluminum and glass. Since the display is taller, with a 1136 x 640 resolution (aka 16:9 like your HD TV), there’s an extra row of icons and the pixels per inch are 326.
All of Apple’s apps are updated to support the larger resolution, and apps that aren’t yet updated will simply run at normal resolution with small black bars surrounding them. In other words, letterboxed.
The iPhone 5 supports almost every cellular and Wi-Fi band in the world including GSM/GPRS/EDGE/CDMA/EV-DO/HSPA/LTE and Wi-FI a,b,g,n with dual-band. It also features a new Apple A6 processor that’s twice as fast as before, and offers twice the graphics performance with 22% less physical footprint.
The new device will also sport an 8 megapixel camera with improved low light, color processing and lens, and, panorama mode. As for battery life, Apple claims better performance than the iPhone 4S, which is actually pretty good. It remains to be seen how that will stack up during real world tests with 4G LTE on all the time, however.
Pricing for the device, which will be available in both black and white, starts at $199 for the 16GB version, $299 for the 32 GB and $399 for the 64GB model. You will be able to use it with Verizon, AT&T or Sprint in the U.S.
iOS 6, the latest version of Apple’s mobile software, will be available on September 19th for current iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.
