iPhone 5S/5C thread

[blairharrington]

That's an overly broad (and rather unsupported) argument, don't you think?

I know quite a few people who like the colors -- I'd gladly pick up a green iPhone 5c if I were in the market for a mid-range device. The real question is whether or not this is actually helping Apple's sales, which typically sag in that category (it gets lots of budget and high-end users). We may not know for months, since most of the appeal right now is for early adopters who want the 5s.

Which part exactly?

I'm sure some people like the 5C colors. I just think they made bizarre choices in that regard. I keep reading how these colors will appeal to teenagers and Asians. I find them extremely polarizing. The white is the only one I would bother using.

I'm sorry for repeating what I've said already in this thread but they really should give you the option to disable the lock screen entirely. Even with Touch ID there is a delay from when you can finally access your home screen.

 

[bearxor]

I'm sorry for repeating what I've said already in this thread but they really should give you the option to disable the lock screen entirely. Even with Touch ID there is a delay from when you can finally access your home screen.

I disagree. In my usage I'm finding TouchID to be only marginally slower than having no lock screen. I think the only reason it appears a little bit slower now is due to the animation that runs when you do unlock the phone. The icons flying in are way too slow.

Sincive basically always turned the iPhone on via the home button, it's probably more of an impact for me than for someone coming from an Android device that had a lock screen enabled. But once you've used it for a few days and it starts to learn your print it's really fast.

 

[Oyeve]

I've given up on iPhone completely. With my iPhone 4 mysteriously deactivating when the battery hit absolute zero and the horribly small screen on my iPhone 5 to the small useless screen. I'm probably biased as I received my note 3 from work and use it with my S4 I see myself never going back to an iPhone. Even if it took phenomenal pictures, the file system is to draconian to be useful anymore, not that it ever was.

 

[lopri]

I have a feeling they will ditch the "c" moniker for the iPhone 6's successor. When rumored ahead, I had a hard time buying that they would actually call it "5c."

Perhaps I was prejudiced by the leaks claiming wallet-friendly iPhone's introduction, but it really sounded to me like iPhone 5c[heap], 5c[rap], 5c[razy], 5c[ut] (as in price-cut), etc,. No way that kind of tone appeals to Apple customers, I thought.

The 5c is more comfortable to hold in hand for sure, though.

 

[Eug]

Safari is lightning fast on this 5S. Pages pop up instantaneously and a couple of times I was waiting because nothing was happening, only because it had already happened. The page loading was so fast that I didn't see it. On my previous phone (RAZR HD), I could always watch it load up.

However, the speed for rendering really depends on Safari, as everyone knows. Chrome seems noticeably slower in some stuff, and that difference is illustrated by some (limited) benchmarks. Safari is much, much faster on iOS than Chrome.

SunSpider 1.0.1 Safari: 420 ms
SunSpider 1.0.1 Chrome: 1477 ms

In this JS bench, Safari is 3.5X as fast as Chrome.

As for Peacekeeper, Chrome on my 5S gets 1107, but Safari gets 1718

For what it's worth, my 13" 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo Penryn P8400 MacBookPro5,5 gets 257 ms in SunSpider 1.0.1, and 2367 in Peacekeeper. This is in Mavericks, so it's also running Safari 7.0: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9) AppleWebKit/537.71 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Safari/537.71

iOS 7 also runs Safari 7.0. Here is the build number for Safari for iOS 7.0.2:

http://i594.photobucket.com/albums/tt24/EugW/Computer/Apple/iPhone/iPhone5S/IMG_0253_zpsc17c259a.png

 

[Red Storm]

My wife saw the 5C and asked if there's a case that will cover all the plastic, and she doesn't want a 5S and would rather wait for the 6.

Do I have to jailbreak her Verizon iPhone 5 to get it working on T-Mobile?

 

[lopri]

My understanding is that Verizon iPhone 5 works on T-Mobile network without jailbreak or anything, but no LTE.

If she is not digging the 5c and doesn't feel her iPhone 5 is slow, she might as well sit out for the 6 that will finally bring a larger screen. (but then again if she has upgrades to use it doesn't hurt to get a new one, i guess)

 

[Red Storm]

My understanding is that Verizon iPhone 5 works on T-Mobile network without jailbreak or anything, but no LTE.

If she is not digging the 5c and doesn't feel her iPhone 5 is slow, she might as well sit out for the 6 that will finally bring a larger screen. (but then again if she has upgrades to use it doesn't hurt to get a new one, i guess)

Well I'm trying to move her off Verizon onto my T-Mobile family plan. So I just pop in a sim and it should work sans LTE?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Well I'm trying to move her off Verizon onto my T-Mobile family plan. So I just pop in a sim and it should work sans LTE?

5C and 5S should work. The VZW version has Band 4 LTE, which is needed for T-Mobile. The 5 won't work with LTE.

Edit: Does the VZW iPhone 5 have AWS HSPA? This I do not know, so you should definitely check up on it.

 

[lopri]

Someone with first-hand knowledge should better answer your question. Sorry for my half-assed attempt. I merely heard of it.

 

[cheezy321]

My understanding is that Verizon iPhone 5 works on T-Mobile network without jailbreak or anything, but no LTE.

If she is not digging the 5c and doesn't feel her iPhone 5 is slow, she might as well sit out for the 6 that will finally bring a larger screen. (but then again if she has upgrades to use it doesn't hurt to get a new one, i guess)

I unlocked my iPhone 5 thru VZW and later found out that it will not work on T-Mobile or AT&T. Basically they block the US providers on GSM but it works on GSM outside of the US.

 

[bearxor]

The Verizon, AT&T and TMobile iPhone 5S and 5C are identical. The Verizon version is unlocked out of the box. I slipped my AT&T SIM in to a VZW 5S we got here and didn't have any issues. I also never had an issue with an iPhone 5, but not LTE on AT&T/TMo with the 5.

If you have a Verizon 5S, you shouldn't have an issue utilizing it to its fullest extent on AT&T and TMobile.

 

[bearxor]

I unlocked my iPhone 5 thru VZW and later found out that it will not work on T-Mobile or AT&T. Basically they block the US providers on GSM but it works on GSM outside of the US.

Did you actually try a SIM from AT&T or TMobile? What you're saying would make sense for Verizon's older non-LTE devices.

 

[cheezy321]

Did you actually try a SIM from AT&T or TMobile? What you're saying would make sense for Verizon's older non-LTE devices.

I tried a friends AT&T sim and it said 'no service'. Did not try a Tmobile SIM

 

[cheezy321]

Double post

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I can try this later tonight as I now have a nano SIM for AT&T and a Verizon iPhone 5.

 

[s44]

Do I have to jailbreak her Verizon iPhone 5 to get it working on T-Mobile?

I don't think it has AWS. If you don't need that, fine. But you could just Craigslist swap to someone who's going on VZ.

 

[bearxor]

I've never had an issue whenever I've tried it. I'm even contemplating ordering the wife a Verizon 5S Silver on a line we're going to cancel that's eligible for an upgrade. Would be cheaper than the AT&T mid-cycle upgrade cost.

 

[bearxor]

I don't think it has AWS. If you don't need that, fine. But you could just Craigslist swap to someone who's going on VZ.

You know, I totally misread some of this conversation and missed it was an iPhone 5. In that case, yes, this is totally correct. The Verizon iPhone 5 doesn't support AWS HSPA+.

But you're in DC, right Red? DC is one of TMobile's largest refarmed markets. You should pick up PCS HSPA+ in a huge area of the market. Check out airportal.de.

Typically, wherever you have TMobile LTE, you should have PCS HSPA+.

 

[blairharrington]

I disagree. In my usage I'm finding TouchID to be only marginally slower than having no lock screen. I think the only reason it appears a little bit slower now is due to the animation that runs when you do unlock the phone. The icons flying in are way too slow.

Sincive basically always turned the iPhone on via the home button, it's probably more of an impact for me than for someone coming from an Android device that had a lock screen enabled. But once you've used it for a few days and it starts to learn your print it's really fast.

You might be right. It's the animation. Regardless I still find it to be too slow. Give users the option to hit the power or home button to find all their icons immediately. It's what I have on my S4 and it's ideal for me personally.

 

[bearxor]

It's the animation. Regardless I still find it to be too slow.

It's way too slow.

 

[Eug]

I'm really, really liking this 5S camera. For the first time I feel comfortable leaving my point-and-shoot at home for the vast majority of pix. I don't think I could say this for any iPhone camera before this. No, it's not as if I'd carry my point-and-shoot everywhere, but it was annoying not to have it when I needed to have a pic taken. My iPhone 4 has an absolutely terrible camera, and I also wasn't very impressed with my RAZR HD's pix. The camera on the iPhone 5 just didn't seem quite there yet either, at least the times I've tried it with my friends' iPhone 5 and based on the pix I've received from that phone.

I'll reiterate: If you're looking for a new iPhone, even if your budget is a bit tight, STRONGLY consider getting the 5S over the 5C (and of course 4S), because the 5S really is that much better. The camera alone justifies the added cost.

 

[PricklyPete]

I'm really, really liking this 5S camera. For the first time I feel comfortable leaving my point-and-shoot at home for the vast majority of pix. I don't think I could say this for any iPhone camera before this. No, it's not as if I'd carry my point-and-shoot everywhere, but it was annoying not to have it when I needed to have a pic taken. My iPhone 4 has an absolutely terrible camera, and I also wasn't very impressed with my RAZR HD's pix. The camera on the iPhone 5 just didn't seem quite there yet either, at least the times I've tried it with my friends' iPhone 5 and based on the pix I've received from that phone.

I'll reiterate: If you're looking for a new iPhone, even if your budget is a bit tight, STRONGLY consider getting the 5S over the 5C (and of course 4S), because the 5S really is that much better. The camera alone justifies the added cost.

The biggest problem with the cameras is the wide angle lens for me. I realize the necessity of this for a phone form factor... But it is way too restricting for anything other than snapshots.

 

[Eug]

The biggest problem with the cameras is the wide angle lens for me. I realize the necessity of this for a phone form factor... But it is way too restricting for anything other than snapshots.

I agree, that is a disadvantage with these cameras in general. I will say that if I have a very specific reason to bring a camera, like a birthday party, I will still bring one. But it may not necessarily be my point-and-shoot either. It could be a point-and-shoot, but it instead could be my dSLR. Or else my waterproof camera for the pool.

OTOH, before 2013 I kept on thinking before that I should think about always having a point-and-shoot in my pocket because whenever I used a phone camera I just didn't like the results that much, esp. in lower light. But I didn't carry that extra camera in my pocket because it was a hassle. That has changed with the 5S. No longer do I think that I need that extra camera. Yeah, it still has drawbacks, but the quality for the shots it can take has finally reached that (mostly) "good enough" threshold for me for snapshots that all previous iPhones lacked IMO.

In fact, I'm now considering buying a 5S for my wife for Xmas, mainly because of the camera. She takes tons of iPhone 4 camera pix of our kid and they almost universally suck. However, it's hard to justify a brand new phone just for the camera, esp. since I was originally considering giving her this phone anyway next year if the iPhone 6 got a 4.2-4.3" screen or got other improvements.

 

[justin4pack]

So I have had every iphone since they have come out and I just got the 5C(green) because I am a green fan and I love the features of the new ios, but I think im going to get rid of it and go back to android because of 1 thing...I cant get over the screen size. Now don't get me wrong im not a fan of the 5.5+ I think 4.8 is kinda the sweet spot if not 4.6. 4.0 is just too small.