Let's take a look at these changes, shall we?
- Bigger screen - 4 inches 16:9 vs 3.5 inches 3:2
Two years ago, Steve Jobs ridiculed all the Android phones with bigger screens, saying that "3.5 inch handset size is the 'sweet spot' for mobile phone design; big enough to produce detailed, legible graphics, but small enough to fit comfortably in the hand and pocket." And what do we see now? A bigger screen. But Apple has a history of dismissing products it currently doesn't own a piece of, only to release a new product in that market later, and proclaim itself the innovator of that space, and rumors were already flying around last year that Apple would introduce an iPhone with a larger screen. It simply didn't arrive until this year.
In this case, Apple is playing catch-up with the competition, where consumers are buying phones with larger and larger screens in excess of 4.5+ inches. My old phone from two years ago was 4.3 inches, with a 15:9 widescreen aspect ratio. - Thinner and lighter - "World's thinnest smartphone" at 7.6mm
Not really anything innovative here, just your usual "spec bump"; smartphones seem to constantly be getting thinner and lighter, so it makes sense that a new phone being released is thinner and lighter. It does help in making a phone with a larger screen more pocketable, so the thinner design is welcomed.
However, iPhone 5 will not be the "world's thinnest smartphone" - I'm not saying that by the time it is released, another phone will come along and be thinner. I'm saying that a thinner smartphone already exists. Chinese phone maker Huawei has a phone that's 6.8mm thin. Not that it's going to stop the hoards of Apple fanatics from taking Apple's claim as gospel. Who knows, maybe Apple will sue Huawei for keeping Apple from taking that title. - New CPU - Apple A6
Supposedly twice as fast as its predecessor, the A5, Apple was mum about much of the details of the new processor. This, like the previous point, is your usual spec bump. One would hope that they've upgraded the chip to a 28nm fabrication process, which is the size of all the current Android flagship phones.
The important thing here, though, is not really the technical specs. As long as it actually performs well, numbers don't really matter. - New Antenna - 4G LTE
Did I mention that my two-year-old phone already had 4G? Granted, it was WiMAX instead of LTE, but Verizon also launched their own LTE phone more than 1.5 years ago. Talk about being behind the curve...
My guess is that Apple probably didn't want to release a phone with LTE until after there's enough LTE coverage, and/or had a better way to manage the battery life when the LTE antenna is on. Which is understandable. But even now, there are many regions in the US not covered by any LTE network, so maybe it's strictly a battery thing. - New Connector - "Lightning"
Probably the worst "upgrade" of all time. If you're going to change your connector and force all your existing customers to upgrade their accessories, why not make it a standards-compliant connector, instead of a proprietary one? And charging people $29 for an adapter that likely costs you less than $5 to manufacture is just the epitome of greed. - New earbuds
Meh. - Updated Camera - Better low-light performance, panorama stitch mode
As far as low light performance goes, won't know how it actually performs until the phone is released, but would be better if the actual image sensor is larger. Panorama mode has been available on Android for a while now. - New Map/Navigation
This is more of an iOS 6 upgrade than an iPhone 5 upgrade--You don't necessarily have to have an iPhone 5 to get iOS 6, and maps/navigation should be part of the OS upgrade. Finally with built-in turn-by-turn navigation. Which Android has had for about 4 years... and the Android version has navigation with mass transit, a function lacking in the new iOS navigation. How innovative!
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