5S and 5C

It is that time of the year when the tech media goes on overdrive. Apple  announced its next iteration of its best-selling iPhone, the iPhone 5S on September 10th in Cupertino,CA. In addition, Apple threw in a second member of the iPhone family with the iPhone 5C. So did the two phones meet the feverish expectations of the Apple fanboys and haters alike?. Read on.Almost a year to date, Apple held its annual iPhone event in Cupertino today. Much of the feature set and look of the iPhone 5S and 5C had leaked over the last few months. It was almost as if only the confirmation was pending. Apple did confirm the two devices and unveiled them in fully glory to the public. If you want to see they keynote for yourself, it is available here.iPhone 5SThe flagship iPhone gets its annual upgrade with the iPhone 5S. As with previous years, the iPhone 5S is an evolutionary update much like the 4S two years ago.OpticsThe 5S features better optics  that will make an already best-in-class smartphone camera even better. The feature upgrade includes a larger sensor area (Apple says 15% larger) with a f/2.2 aperture. The 5S also includes a new True Tone dual flash that helps in overall better white balance. The 5S features AIS (Auto Image Stabilization). The iOS7 Camera app offers new features that will support the new optics. See the analysis from the camera pros at dpreview here.  iPhone 5S offers a new slow motion shooting mode at 120fps. Expect slo-mo videos to fill your Vine and Facebook feeds soon.SecurityApple is introducing a fingerprint scanner with the 5S called Touch ID. The scanner is build flush with the home button and is supposed to authenticate the user for unlocking the device and to also make purchases on the App Store easier. Until new use cases arise by allowing third party developers to integrate their login systems with the fingerprint scanner (and thus allowing Apple to access a lot more data than it does today), the fingerprint scanner would be a fancy but not of much use addition.Motion CoprocessorApple is offering a motion coprocessor called the M7 with the iPhone 5S. The M7 allows the device to measure motion data from its sensors without draining much of the battery. This could potentially disrupt the fitness tracker industry. How it gets deployed and used by app developers will be interesting to watch in the coming months. The recently released Moto X has a similar solution built-in.HardwareThe iPhone 5S packs Apple's proprietary A7 processor which is the first SoC to boast a 64 bit architecture designed for a smartphone. Apple claims significantly improved performance as a result of the new architecture. Games will be the primary beneficiaries of this and fittingly a new iteration of Infinity Blade was used to showcase it.The WAN component supports more LTE bands on the same SKU courtesy Qualcomm's continuing innovations in the domain. iPhone 5CIn addition to the iPhone 5S, Apple launched its first ever sibling, the iPhone 5C. The 5C is a colorful take on the iPhone targeted at a younger audience and also emerging markets where color is a big deal. Leading up to the launch, market analysts were expecting the 5C to be Apple's big offering to emerging markets like China and India where Android is surging ahead. But Apple chose to retain its premium moniker by keeping the 5C a mid-tier offering. One that retails for $100 less than its premium sibling, the 5S.The 5C bears all the innards of last years iPhone 5 coupled with a polycarbonate case in 5 colors. Jony Ive calls it "unapologetically plastic". Nokia and HTC will have to say something about it for sure. iOS7Apple formally set the launch date for iOS7 for Sept 18. As always, most of the iPhones and iPads should work with this OS although the web is rife with sluggishness on really old iPhones and iPods Touches. That was to be expected. I had covered iOS7 and its new features in a post written soon after WWDC. There was nothing new beyond that. Odds and EndsApple made a big deal about its cases for the 5S and 5C in the keynote today. The 5S was shown with a leather case retailing for $39- a significant premium in itself. The 5C was shown with a silicone case with holes in it- something that lead to the funniest comment on the web today where someone called it the "Crocs case". I agree. At $29, this might be the one to match your Crocs clogs.Apple also made iWork a free offering along with iMovie and iPhoto on all new iOS devices. This is a move to rival Microsoft offering free Office on some of its Surface tablets.There was nary a peep about updates to Macbook Pros, the new Mac Pro, upgrades to iPads or iPods and also Mac OSX Mavericks. The iPad event will probably be in October to give the tablets their time in the limelight and to also allow the phones to shine today. So should you buy one?It depends on what you use currently. The 5S is definitely an upgrade if you use an iPhone 3/4. If you own an iPhone 5, the choice is a little more ambiguous. The 5S does not offer any customer wow feature that would make it a worthy upgrade to a iPhone 5.The iPhone 5C is a more challenging case to make. It is last year hardware with a new outer shell. It is funner and colorful but beyond the initial excitement, no better than the iPhone 5. The 5S is a much better upgrade given the A7 processor and more sophisticated construction.The iPhone 5S and 5C start shipping on September 20- not too long from today. It will sell well. The 5C will definitely sell well among the younger audience. How it affects Apple's marketshare in the US and world wide remains to be seen.