The Official iPhone 5 Thread (Liveblog links inside!)

[AkumaX]

Apparently, Apple can barely produce enough Lightning cables for their iPhones and iPods.

I gave up trying to find a Lightning cable at Best Buy / Target / Walmart / Radio Shack and finally ordered a Lightning cable from store.apple.com on 10/01 along with an iPod Touch 5th generation. I canceled the iPod Touch 10/12 and the Lightning cable finally started to ship 10/16.

It went from China --> Hong Kong --> Taiwan --> Japan --> Alaska --> Indiana --> Georgia

How can something leave HK, destined for the USA, and pass-through other countries first? It was still delivered on 10/19, though.

Seems really inefficient for these to leave China in individual shipping boxes that are MUCH larger than the product's package inside. They should be coming to the states on pallets and then packaged for shipment directly to customers. It tells me that production is barely keeping-up.



Bestbuy.com still says "coming soon" and one user review indicates that they found the cable in-store around 10/1. My local store says that none in the region have ever received them, except one far away that got over 2,000 units.

I bet Apple Store gets priority and always has them in-stock, even if the store.apple.com does not.

Do you have a Sprint store? Since Sprint arguably has the least amount of iPhone users, they're more likely to have Lightning cables

(bought 10 @ 20% off )

 

[Oyeve]

Seems like apples strategy to change the cable is making them a fortune.

 

[Ichinisan]

I find it odd that people have had such trouble getting Lightning cables. I walked into the Apple Store the day the iPhone 5 came out and walked out with two of them. There were still plenty of them on the rack too.

It takes me 2 hours to get to the closest Apple store. I'm not wasting 5 hours of my day to get a $20 cable.

 

[Ichinisan]

Do you have a Sprint store? Since Sprint arguably has the least amount of iPhone users, they're more likely to have Lightning cables

(bought 10 @ 20% off )

Not sure about Sprint stores in my area. How did you get 20% off? I forgot to mention that I did check a corporate AT&T store multiple times.

 

[Ichinisan]

Seems like apples strategy to change the cable is making them a fortune.

They have to sell it to me before they can make any money off it. Took me a month to get one. I still kept checking 5 local retailers even after my store.apple.com order and none ever received them.

That's not a good strategy.

 

[Anonemous]

Not sure about Sprint stores in my area. How did you get 20% off? I forgot to mention that I did check a corporate AT&T store multiple times.

Sprint has a promotion where you buy 2 or more accessories and you get 20% off. Bought 2 of those lightning cables and got it for 18/piece after taxes.

 

[Ichinisan]

Sprint has a promotion where you buy 2 or more accessories and you get 20% off. Bought 2 of those lightning cables and got it for 18/piece after taxes.

I hope that deal is still on. I want to get 2 more. Then I'll have 4 including the one that came with my phone.

- One for the bedside
- One at the computer
- One in the car
- One at work

 

[MarcZ]

Am I the only one who sees the iPhone 5 more of a redesign rather than an upgrade??

 

[CZroe]

Am I the only one who sees the iPhone 5 more of a redesign rather than an upgrade??

LTE
A6 CPU
Better WiFi
More memory
Bigger screen
What does it need to be considered an "upgrade" by you? NFC?

 

[Ichinisan]

...
Bluetooth 4.0
Lightning

Am I the only one who sees the iPhone 5 more of a redesign rather than an upgrade??

You might be.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

...
Bluetooth 3.0
Lightning



You might be.

Bluetooth 3.0 affects how many people? Of the small % of population who uses bluetooth, most of those who do use it, use it with voice. Bluetooth 1.0 would work just fine.

Lightning is a downgrade/sidegrade. It does affect people because it's a new plug.

But come on. Overall the phone is an upgrade. Larger screen, more RAM, far faster CPU, and you feel it. Look at the people talk about the new Google Nexus 4. It's specs are great, but for such specs, it's not like it feels WHOAH. The Galaxy Nexus feels just as zippy, and maybe if you compare load times, yeah that Nexus 4 will win here and there, but you still get microstutter that's there whether you have a 1ghz phone, 2x1.2ghz phone or 4x1.5ghz phone. Now you're calling that an upgrade? It's the same in both cases. You really don't gain THAT much more on a 4S versus a 5. You don't really gain that much more on a Nexus 4 over a GNex.

 

[CZroe]

Bluetooth 3.0 affects how many people? Of the small % of population who uses bluetooth, most of those who do use it, use it with voice. Bluetooth 1.0 would work just fine.

Lightning is a downgrade/sidegrade. It does affect people because it's a new plug.

But come on. Overall the phone is an upgrade. Larger screen, more RAM, far faster CPU, and you feel it. Look at the people talk about the new Google Nexus 4. It's specs are great, but for such specs, it's not like it feels WHOAH. The Galaxy Nexus feels just as zippy, and maybe if you compare load times, yeah that Nexus 4 will win here and there, but you still get microstutter that's there whether you have a 1ghz phone, 2x1.2ghz phone or 4x1.5ghz phone. Now you're calling that an upgrade? It's the same in both cases. You really don't gain THAT much more on a 4S versus a 5. You don't really gain that much more on a Nexus 4 over a GNex.

He meant 4.0. It affects me because the whole reason I left iOS was when my iPhone 4 didn't work well with the only decent Bluetooth wristwatch out there and the only similar one with iPhone support is the upcoming BT4.0 Casio G-Shock. It uses it for ultra-low power standby connections.

 

[dagamer34]

Bluetooth 3.0 affects how many people? Of the small % of population who uses bluetooth, most of those who do use it, use it with voice. Bluetooth 1.0 would work just fine.

Lightning is a downgrade/sidegrade. It does affect people because it's a new plug.

But come on. Overall the phone is an upgrade. Larger screen, more RAM, far faster CPU, and you feel it. Look at the people talk about the new Google Nexus 4. It's specs are great, but for such specs, it's not like it feels WHOAH. The Galaxy Nexus feels just as zippy, and maybe if you compare load times, yeah that Nexus 4 will win here and there, but you still get microstutter that's there whether you have a 1ghz phone, 2x1.2ghz phone or 4x1.5ghz phone. Now you're calling that an upgrade? It's the same in both cases. You really don't gain THAT much more on a 4S versus a 5. You don't really gain that much more on a Nexus 4 over a GNex.

Tech enthusiasts need to be careful and remember that the average person upgrades their phone every two years, not every year, in which case the iPhone 4->5 and Galaxy S/Nexus S->Nexus 4 are HUGE upgrades. Only so much gets better in a single year. You can only pull off a groundbreaking 3GS->4 style upgrade once.

 

[CZroe]

Tech enthusiasts need to be careful and remember that the average person upgrades their phone every two years, not every year, in which case the iPhone 4->5 and Galaxy S/Nexus S->Nexus 4 are HUGE upgrades. Only so much gets better in a single year. You can only pull off a groundbreaking 3GS->4 style upgrade once.

You sure? The iPhone 5 was an upgrade over the 4S in almost every way you can differentiate. Screen size, chassis thickness, performance specs, network technology, style... the list goes on.

What else could it add between the generations that other phones might? I can only think of gimmicks or things that aren't ready for prime-time, like NFC.

 

[Red Storm]

To me it's all about software. iOS has not changed much since the original iPhone, with the exception of stuff like the notification center which it desperately needed.

 

[CZroe]

To me it's all about software. iOS has not changed much since the original iPhone, with the exception of stuff like the notification center which it desperately needed.

You mean since iPhone OS 2.0 and the iPhone 3G when it first officially became a smartphone with the ability to run native executables. That was a pretty big change! So was multi-tasking/backgrounding/suspended apps.

 

[ControlD]

You mean since iPhone OS 2.0 and the iPhone 3G when it first officially became a smartphone with the ability to run native executables. That was a pretty big change! So was multi-tasking/backgrounding/suspended apps.

To be fair it always had the ability to run native executables. It just took the jailbreak community to show Apple how popular (and lucrative) it might be. I guess you can say the same thing about multi-tasking, folders, and any number of other enhancements that have been added over the years as "must have" upgrades.

 

[CZroe]

To be fair it always had the ability to run native executables. It just took the jailbreak community to show Apple how popular (and lucrative) it might be. I guess you can say the same thing about multi-tasking, folders, and any number of other enhancements that have been added over the years as "must have" upgrades.

I didn't mention folders for the same reason I didn't mention copy/paste, but multitasking was a major upgrade for iOS/iPhone OS. It has definitely had it's fair share of leaps.

 

[Ichinisan]

You mean since iPhone OS 2.0 and the iPhone 3G when it first officially became a smartphone with the ability to run native executables. That was a pretty big change! So was multi-tasking/backgrounding/suspended apps.

Cut/Copy/Paste was sorely missing on the first iPhone. Don't remember if it came with 2nd or 3rd iOS release.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

To be fair it always had the ability to run native executables. It just took the jailbreak community to show Apple how popular (and lucrative) it might be. I guess you can say the same thing about multi-tasking, folders, and any number of other enhancements that have been added over the years as "must have" upgrades.

Oh come on. You can't expect an OS to be released with EVERYTHING. Many Android lovers used to say how they could multitask run executables, copy paste, etc etc.

Great, but even a 2009 phone like the Motorola Droid runs out of memory all the time and maps closes. Multitasking my ass. And in the end it's not any different than some system managed multitasking like iOS. Not full blown multitasking like on Symbian or webOS.

Copy paste was a blown execution. It took HTC to upgrade it to include flags like the iPhone for it to be useful. On the Motorola Droid to copy paste in Gmail you hit SHIFT on the hard keyboard and you keep trying to select the right text until you get it. Took til when? Dec 2010 for Gingerbread to have decent copy paste? Google didn't introduce multitouch keyboards til Gingerbread also.

You're right Apple didn't include every feature on the table when the iPhone first launched in 2007. I was using Symbian already and had experienced Windows Mobile previously. How many of you actually knew smartphones that well other than Blackberries? How many smartphones had a freaking camera? Look, Apple did something new in 2007. You can't expect that it had everything out of the box.

I always say, look at Google. Look how long they took to give us 60fps animations. 2012. And what % of phones even run Jellybean right now? There you go.

We're now 6 iterations into iOS. While you might've argued Copy Paste came too late, that was 2009--before a real Android competitor was even on the board. Multitasking came in 2010, but what kind of multitasking could you do on a Motorola Droid anyway? I have one. It's not usable at all. Push notifications were implemented in 2009, and I could seemlessly get tweets, IMs, e-mails, all my notifications without multitasking. It was functionally equivalent. I think by iOS4, there was very little need to really jailbreak. The notification center was fixed by iOS5. Now we're just seeing small incremental features.

The thing that's left on the table is to revamp the homescreen maybe, and with widgets kinda being leaked into the notification bar, who knows what's next for iOS. But considering it took Android til 2011 to get a decent UI (ICS), I wouldn't really bash Apple for being "slow." Competition dictates what's slow, and unless you think Apple's gone the way of legacy BB and Symbian, I don't think you can say at all that Apple's behind the curve.

 

[ControlD]

Oh come on. You can't expect an OS to be released with EVERYTHING. Many Android lovers used to say how they could multitask run executables, copy paste, etc etc.

Great, but even a 2009 phone like the Motorola Droid runs out of memory all the time and maps closes. Multitasking my ass. And in the end it's not any different than some system managed multitasking like iOS. Not full blown multitasking like on Symbian or webOS.

Copy paste was a blown execution. It took HTC to upgrade it to include flags like the iPhone for it to be useful. On the Motorola Droid to copy paste in Gmail you hit SHIFT on the hard keyboard and you keep trying to select the right text until you get it. Took til when? Dec 2010 for Gingerbread to have decent copy paste? Google didn't introduce multitouch keyboards til Gingerbread also.

You're right Apple didn't include every feature on the table when the iPhone first launched in 2007. I was using Symbian already and had experienced Windows Mobile previously. How many of you actually knew smartphones that well other than Blackberries? How many smartphones had a freaking camera? Look, Apple did something new in 2007. You can't expect that it had everything out of the box.

I always say, look at Google. Look how long they took to give us 60fps animations. 2012. And what % of phones even run Jellybean right now? There you go.

We're now 6 iterations into iOS. While you might've argued Copy Paste came too late, that was 2009--before a real Android competitor was even on the board. Multitasking came in 2010, but what kind of multitasking could you do on a Motorola Droid anyway? I have one. It's not usable at all. Push notifications were implemented in 2009, and I could seemlessly get tweets, IMs, e-mails, all my notifications without multitasking. It was functionally equivalent. I think by iOS4, there was very little need to really jailbreak. The notification center was fixed by iOS5. Now we're just seeing small incremental features.

The thing that's left on the table is to revamp the homescreen maybe, and with widgets kinda being leaked into the notification bar, who knows what's next for iOS. But considering it took Android til 2011 to get a decent UI (ICS), I wouldn't really bash Apple for being "slow." Competition dictates what's slow, and unless you think Apple's gone the way of legacy BB and Symbian, I don't think you can say at all that Apple's behind the curve.

Just for the record, I never mentioned copy/paste one single time in my post ....

My only point was that it seems like a bunch of really cool "must have" features on the iPhone came suspiciously delayed after many times better working versions were already available from "non Apple approved" sources. All the talk about new hardware fueling new features is all so much bunk IMO. I remember Apple talking about holding back Bluetooth on the Touch 2G due to hardware limitations but a simple package install from Cydia gave me full functionality. Funny how that magically became enabled in iOS3 ... just pay the small upgrade fee is all was asked! We all know Apple holds back features to fuel the upgrade fever. I am still using an iPhone so I guess it works.

But anyhow, thanks for turning yet another thread into a look how shitty Android has always been rant. I didn't even have that on the radar. I am convinced you use an Android phone as some sort of personal penance. I can not fathom any other reason you stick with the platform.

 

[CZroe]

Cut/Copy/Paste was sorely missing on the first iPhone. Don't remember if it came with 2nd or 3rd iOS release.

It wasn't on 2.0 when the 3G launched. It arrived with 3.0.

 

[Ichinisan]

You sure? The iPhone 5 was an upgrade over the 4S in almost every way you can differentiate. Screen size, chassis thickness, performance specs, network technology, style... the list goes on.

What else could it add between the generations that other phones might? I can only think of gimmicks or things that aren't ready for prime-time, like NFC.

Not just the screen size, but also other screen specs that improved quality / color accuracy. Also, the camera was improved in many ways.

 

[Oyeve]

Am I the only one who sees the iPhone 5 more of a redesign rather than an upgrade??

The same could be said of any phone, but Yeah, iPhone and IOS are really super stale. Only the hardcore apple fanatics will say it's a major improvement. How can it be a major upgrade if there is no exclusive iphone 5 only apps? pretty much all ios apps will run across all of there devices so why even make a super iphone if it will still run the same shit as the 3gs?

 

[CZroe]

The same could be said of any phone, but Yeah, iPhone and IOS are really super stale. Only the hardcore apple fanatics will say it's a major improvement. How can it be a major upgrade if there is no exclusive iphone 5 only apps? pretty much all ios apps will run across all of there devices so why even make a super iphone if it will still run the same shit as the 3gs?

There are plenty of things a newer iPhone can run that a 3GS can't, including anything with the front camera, anything with a gyroscope, and plenty of games/apps that need the extra GPU horsepower or screen resolution. That said, I don't see why you would think that fragmentation of the software library is a good thing.

Also, there are a ton of iPad and HD-version apps that need a bigger, higher-resolution screen.