The Giants believe they?ve drawn the blueprint for how to defend Michael Vick, and they?re looking to continue to add pressure.
While many teams are hesitant to rush any athletic quarterback for fear of what happens when they break containment, the Giants want to put the pressure on the Eagles quarterback for the cumulative effect.
?As a quarterback who runs a lot, you should expect to get hit even more even when you stand in the pocket. You?re going to get hit,? Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul said, via Jorge Castillo of the Newark Star-Ledger. ?We?re coming; we?re going to hit you regardless so whether you throw the ball or you run the ball, we?re going to hit you. If you throw the ball and release it, as long as we get there before he releases the ball, we can hit him.
?The ref?s the only one who can tell us no.?
The last time the Giants played him, they broke his right hand, knocking him out of the game briefly. He complained that many teams, including the Giants, were hitting him late. But he?s taking enough legal hits to necessitate a different plan.
?He?s not inhuman,? Giants defensive tackle Rocky Bernard said. ?You can?t take that many hits and survive in this league, so they?re going to have to change something.?
Of course, teams are hitting Vick early and often this year. He?s been hit 29 times and sacked nine in three games, with 13 hits and five sacks by the Cardinals last week.
?A lot of teams took what we did,? Pierre-Paul said. ?I was watching the Arizona game. Whew! They were killing him out there, man. He needs to get rid of the ball faster.?
At the rate he?s taking shots, if he doesn?t get the ball out quicker, he may not make it through another Giants game, or many other ones.
Richard Bach once said, ?A?professional writer is an amateur who didn?t quit.? From CNN anchors to TNW contributors, those bound by the written word can always benefit from a leg up in the digital age. Here, we give you some of the best apps, tools, and communities for writers and journalists. Whether you?re suffering from writer?s block or en route to becoming the next BBC reporter, we promise: there?s an app for that.
Apps
Bambuser
Live shots just got a whole lot easier. Bambuser?s live video streaming from your cell phone or webcam allows journalists to share their work via social media. Available from GooglePlay, web features like trending tags and international events enable this app to help live news go global.
Dropbox
Available as an app as well as a desktop service, Dropbox has saved the work?literally?of journalists and students alike since its inception in 2007. Creation of an individual folder that can be accessed with a username and password means that users can access this folder from any platform?and that loss of a laptop no longer means loss of work.
iA Writer
In the words of R. Burroughs, ?It is tiny, but it is huge.? Available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch on the iTunes App Store, iAWriter interacts with iCloud and Dropbox to store Writer documents and make them available on all devices. Features including Focus Mode and Certified Text Editing, plus the official site?s Writer Support network, allow users to focus on individual aspects of text, an editing process that?s decidedly painless.
Soundnote
Gone are the days of transcribing for one quote. iPad?s note-taking device allows journalists to tap one word from a portion of an interview to play back what they may have missed. Users can also share audio notes via email or transfer them directly to their laptops.
Viddy
Available on the App Store and coming soon to Android, Viddy is a backpack journalist?s dream. An advanced camera, added visual and musical effects, and various transitions allow users to create their own video packages and upload them to social media. Co-founder and President?JJ Aguhob created Viddy out of frustration, seeking to simplify the editing/uploading process. Anger management at its finest.
Wikipanion
Much as we all pretend to be above Wikipedia?we?re not. That?s why Wikipanion, designed for iOS, offers direct access to Wikipedia servers, offering automatic search results while you type. For international authors, support and search/browse abilities are available in 75 languages. Fabelhaft!
Writing Prompts
Almost all writers have suffered from the ?block.? With 60 sketches, 250 scene elements, and 600 text prompts, this Apple app offers prompt generators to keep juices flowing. And with text prompts available in online or offline mode, an Internet connection is no longer required.
Tools
Audioboo
Is sound social? Audioboo thinks so. Available across mobile and web platforms, this London startup enhances audio on the go, letting users add details including tags and locations and offering easy listening/sharing capabilities. Audioboo Plus?is an annual 60 pound upgrade that allows users to post to Facebook Fan pages and be included on the Audioboo iTunes page. Those of the corporate persuasion can join Audioboo Pro, a separate offering that lets companies add multi-contributors to a single account and enjoy extended recording time, among other features.
Evernote
Sketchy memory? A user network of more than 35 million shares your pain. Accessible from almost every device, Evernote allows you to capture anything from drawings to web clippings and make it searchable from your laptop, cell phone, or camera at your convenience. The result is a network that shares project notes, favorite websites, and story ideas, yielding happy news making.
freeDive
Based out of the Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkley?s Graduate School of Journalism, freeDive serves as a free, open source data-sharing tool. With built-in search and filter applications, tips for effective search results, database building techniques, and acceptance of tips on how to improve, this new tool has great potential.
HootSuite
Businesses have been using HootSuite to manage social media presence for years. HootSuite?s goal is to become a one-stop ?dashboard? for all social media interaction. Its latest addition, Conversations, went live this week and is now available in?beta version for the free, Pro, and Enterprise tiers of Hootsuite?s customer base. Already 5 million strong, its ability to update all social platforms with a single entry and schedule future postings makes it a journalist?s best friend.
Livescribe
21st century Tolstoys use Livescribe?s paper-based computing platform, centralized by its smartpen, to record what they write and synchronize written notes with the corresponding audio. Available from PCWorld and the App Store, Livescribe?s smartpens?the Echo and the Pulse?offer features including memory storage, built-in speakers, USB connectors, and OLED Display.
Storify
Journalists who need multi-platform sources need look no further than Storify. Users can type in a search prompt on any topic and sit back as Storify collects relevant info from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more to offer a range of media elements that help craft your story (a search for ?Facebook Timeline? offers sources organized by each individual social platform, allowing me to move chosen sources into the main text). The team behind Storify is ?building the story layer across social networks,? allowing users to gather sources the digital way.
WordPress
Becoming a blogger has never been quicker. First released in 2003, the free, open source blogging tool is now the most widely used system on the Web. The ability to run multiple blogs from one installation, tag articles, and be on the lookout for grammatical errors makes it a tried and true mainstay. And as tech writer Erik Sherman explains, it is a tool that allows work to be dressed up or down to your heart?s content.
Editor?s Addition: Contently
We use Contently at The Next Web to organize our feature production schedule. It allows me to upload a selection of assignments for each weekend, and writers from various groups can then claim pieces from the pool or I can assign them directly. I can go over changes with the writer and see various revisions come in via the app, and even edit the piece in there before bringing it over to WordPress.?If you?re a journalist or editor with contributors to oversee, it?s probably worth taking a look. ? Joel Falconer
Communities
EJC
Aspiring reporters, look no further. A quick look at this online networking community?s homepage reveals job vacancies for a reporter out of BBC Afrique and a link to a toolkit on how to improve emergency journalism. This brainchild of the European Journalism Centre allows users to add multimedia, share their blogs, and join/create groups on relevant topics.
Knight Community News Network
An initiative of J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, KCNN helps citizen and professional journalists alike launch and operate community news and information sites. Free resources, including learning modules to improve user content and sources for research on citizen media behavior, help aspiring newsmakers create their own stories with the help of working professionals.
Quora
Co-founded by former Facebookers Adam D?Angelo and Charlie Cheever in 2010, Quora users can upvote or downvote submitted answers to questions on almost any topic. Alongside Quora?s own algorithm for ranking the best answers, users also have the power to suggest edits to answers offered by their peers. An official iPhone app was released in September of last year.
The Reddit Edit
The power of Reddit is nothing new. What is relatively new is turning to Reddit as an original news source. Colorway reported earlier this month that despite claims to the contrary, more and more journalists are using Reddit to gather ideas from the site that gets more than three billion page views per month. The result is Reddit Edit, a more polished presentation of categorized news headlines that seeks to court media skeptics?although that number is decidedly dwindling.
Skyword
Primarily a content production platform, Skyword offers writers the chance to create content for various brands and receive bi-weekly payment in the process. Their newsletter links to online conversations on topics such as how to handle critique and features monthly spotlights with ?Skywriters? to find out what makes them tick.
Twitter Blog
We?re well aware of the power of Twitter, but not all Tweets are re-Tweeted equal. The website?s blog offers insight into how the platform can be used most effectively to share and promote content. A post published last week (http://blog.twitter.com/2012/09/best-practices-for-journalists.html) outlines four simple strategies for how news outlets and individual authors can increase follower growth and engagement. And if you?re still seeing red after last Sunday?s Patriots/Ravens game, this post (http://blog.twitter.com/2012/09/nfl-week-3-onlyontwitter-edition.html) highlights how hashtags and trending topics spread through constant interaction.
Wired Journalists
They don?t come more collaborative than this. Founded in 2008 to connect journalists online, the brainchild of?Howard Owens, Zac Echola, and Ryan Sholin hosts various groups, forums, and headlines for digital writers to use and share information with their peers on topics ranging from bilingual journalists to those who support facial hair awareness.
Terry Murray has been a fixture of the Philadelphia Flyers organization. Now he?ll help mold players preparing to join the big team.
He discussed his role as the head coach of the team?s AHL affiliate ? the Adirondack Phantoms ? with CSNPhilly.com. (Murray accepted the job in June.)
Tim Panaccio points out all the times Murray has worked for the Flyers:
Three times, Terry Murray played for the Flyers. Then he coached them to the 1997 Stanley Cup Final. He later scouted for them. ? More recently, he was an assistant coach under Ken Hitchcock, and then John Stevens.
(One might also joke that he coached ?Flyers West? ? aka the Los Angeles Kings ? before being fired last season.)
Murray said it won?t take him much for him to get re-acclimated with the organization itself, although he?ll need some time to put ?faces to the names.?
With the lockout in full swing, Murray said he?ll turn to guys like Brayden Schenn and Sean Courturier to help lead the team.
?The drills will be the ones I used over the years,? Murray said. ?Brayden will remember and be familiar with them. These are smart hockey players.?
? ? And they do it right the first time. Yeah, I will look to him and to [Sean] Couturier and players who are the smart and good players to set the example every day.?
At least until ? or if ? the NHL games start again, that is.
Reading is a large cosmopolitan town of England in the Royal Berkshire County situated at a distance of approximately 36 miles from the west of London city. Reading is an ancient town with a very rich culture and history. The town of Reading has progressed in all directions over the years however the biggest progress it made is in the field of education. Being a home to two large and high rated universities of UK is nothing to be neglected. The cosmopolitan town of Reading is correctly pronounced as Redding. The town has a completely variety of lifes necessities and living facilities. There are world class shopping malls, planned housing, superior class highways and main boulevards, multinational companies and much more in Reading. The car and taxi from Reading to Stansted airport or any other major airport of London is a trouble free procedure for all people residing or touring Reading. The road trip from Reading to London is highly comfortable and ideal for travel.
The town of Reading has regional offices as well as headquarters of some fo the countrys as well as worlds reputed and large multinational companies. The most prominent ones include the UK offices of Microsoft Corporation and Saga which are situated in the central Reading. The residents of the town of Reading rely a lot on cab services and private hire cars for transportation. You can hire a private car from Reading to Stansted airport and manage your returning flight at Stansted easily and conveniently. If you are planning your next trip to the town of Reading, we would highly recommend you visiting some of the popular and must-see places in the town. The most popular attractions in the town of Reading include Reading Museum and Town Hall, Mapledurham, Beale Park, Kings Reach Meadow Association, Dinton Pastures Country Park, Museum of Berkshire Aviation, The Hexagon Wellington Country Park, The Face Bar, REME Museum Of Technology, The Mill At Sonning, Grosvenor Casino Reading, Basildon Park, Genting Electric Reading, Bucklebury Farm Park, Prospect Park, Palmer Park Sports Stadium, Premier Karting and many more.
For getting to the town of Reading after landing in UK, it would be the best thing to hire taxi from Stansted airport to Reading. The local taxi hire companies of Reading offer superior class airport transfer services bring passengers from all major airports of UK at extremely moderate prices. It does not cost much in hiring transportation from airport to Reading. The two universities situated in the town of Reading are also the reason for immense traffic from Londons popular airports to the town of Reading. Thousands of students from across the world come to the town of Reading each year in order to get top quality education from its universities. The University of Reading and The University of West London (formerly Thames Valley University) are the two worldss highly reputed universities situated in the town of Reading. For an optimum comfort of travel and privacy, you can also hire a private car from Stansted airport to Reading.
We've had a chest freezer for around two years now?it's a great way to take advantage of grocery store sales, farmer market finds, and garden bounty. But once your freezer starts to fill it can be easy to forget exactly what you have in there which is why it's a good idea to keep a freezer inventory.
Household weblog Mrs. Happy Homemaker offers their family experience using a freezer inventory; the prime benefit is that you don't have to dig through stacks of pizzas and roasts to figure out if you still have that bag of broccoli at the bottom. Instead print out and laminate this freezer inventory, attach it to the lid of your freezer, and make sure you add and subtract food as it enters and leaves the freezer. You can write on it with any wet-erase marker.
For my family, having a freezer inventory is a huge benefit when it comes to weekly meal planning. We end up with less wasted food due to freezer burn and it helps us know how much to buy of frequently-eaten foods when they go on sale.
The Pirates appeared to hit rock bottom on Wednesday, when they were shutout primarily by a pitcher they gave up on waivers to the Mets prior to the start of the season (Jeremy Hefner pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing three hits, before rookie Jeurys Familia finished up). As it turned out, that was still just a warmup.
On Friday evening, the Pirates were no-hit by a guy named Homer. A guy who had one career shutout in 109 major league starts. And you?ll never guess who that had come against. In fact, both of Homer Bailey?s complete games had come versus the Pirates. He?s now 8-2 with a 2.51 ERA in 12 starts against the Pirates and 30-31 with a 4.81 ERA in 98 starts against everyone else.
The loss was the Pirates? 81st of the season, which guarantees they won?t snap their record skid with a winning season. They could still conceivably win five straight and finish at .500 for the first time in 20 years. But, let?s face it, that?s not happening. The Pirates are 6-20 in September after going 11-17 in August.
As for Bailey, he deserves plenty of credit. He fanned 10 and faced one batter over the minimum. His postseason rotation spot was still in doubt as of a couple of weeks ago, but he had moved well ahead of Mike Leake of late even before tonight?s showing. He?s taken advantage of a very weak schedule of late, but 13-10 with a 3.75 ERA in 204 innings is nothing to sneeze at. His no-hitter tonight was the Reds? first since Tom Browning threw a perfect game in 1988. Incredibly, it was the first no-hitter versus the Pirates since the Cardinals? Bob Gibson threw one in 1971.
?Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction?you must improve.? ? Horst Schulz
Constant improvement is a mantra among IT channel companies, especially when it comes to the services they deliver and the clients that receive them. There?s no place for complacency in an industry as competitive as this, and owners have to keep their eyes, and business practices, focused properly on process upgrades and other enhancements to ensure their long-term success. Identifying the areas where a company needs improvement can be difficult, but making the changes that strengthen those services can be a more daunting task.
Good companies become great by tightening the screws on their processes, streamlining and automating each step involved in service delivery and support. They review their metrics and assess their performance based on industry benchmarks constantly, looking for new ways to improve their operations and their level of customer service. When everything is running optimally within the business, they can focus more time and attention on both current and prospective clients. The same principle applies to IT solution providers, vendors and distributors.
In order to reach the point of eternal service enlightenment, most successful companies continually:
Perform internal operational assessments.
Seek client feedback; current, former and prospective.
Implement industry best practices.
Frequency is often the stumbling block for smaller organizations, especially in the harried world of an emerging solution provider. How do you find time to conduct all the necessary steps on a weekly, monthly or even quarterly basis?
It?s not easy, but companies in search of greatness make it a high priority ? on par with their sales and operational responsibilities. After all, when an organization offers top quality service, it can make many of the other business operations a lot easier. Life for the sales, marketing and customer retention teams is much simpler when they?re not putting out fires, allowing them to focus more time and energy on growing the business.
So how do good companies gain the service expertise and knowledge needed to be great?? A number of them seek the input of their peers and related industry experts, and engage in meaningful discussions with those who face similar challenges and opportunities. The CompTIA IT Services and Support (ITSS) Community has provided that type of forum for several years, bringing together a myriad of services-dependent solution providers, vendors, distributors and industry professionals. Their meetings offer much more than networking opportunities and brainstorming sessions; they collaborate to develop key initiatives and best practices to improve the industry.
ITSS is the original CompTIA peer group, serving as stepping stone for many of the association?s other communities that are actively engaged in specific vertical markets and technologies. Several of those groups came about from a specific initiative or work session developed by services members, and providers continue to benefit from joining the discussion in each.
Service is a foundational element of all CompTIA communities. This quality will be on display when the ITSS, Managed Print Services, and Mobility groups gather together in Fort Worth, Texas on October 29 to 30 for the CompTIA IT Services and Support Community Meeting. This joint meeting agenda is packed with discussions and topics to help solution providers or any IT services-oriented professional improve their businesses. Several of the scheduled activities focus on service delivery transformation, including:
A keynote presentation by Steven Young, senior director of service delivery transformation with Cisco Technical Services.
A panel presentation with members of all three participating communities.
Roundtable from the perspective of each group.
In the joint meeting, members will also explore a number of the issues facing the IT services industry and initiatives that each community could adopt for 2013 to explicitly address those concerns and/or opportunities. Whether you?d like to attend the multiple-group event or just learn more about the ITSS and other CompTIA communities, contact Cathy Alper at ?CAlper@comptia.org.
Brian Sherman is founder of Tech Success Communications, specializing in editorial content and consulting for the IT channel. His?previous roles include?chief editor at Business Solutions magazine and senior director of industry alliances with Autotask. Contact Brian at Bsherman@techsuccesscommunications.com.
Razer is officially putting the gaming laptop industry on notice. Come September 30, the company?s second iteration of its Razer Blade notebook will be available for purchase. Featuring over 100 tweaks and improvements, it?s a force to be reckoned with. We have all the details and some juicy unboxing ready for you.
Boasting a slim 0.88-inch aluminum chassis, the 6.6 pound Blade is one of the thinnest and lightest gaming notebooks on the market. But don?t assume that the Blade?s skinny profile means Razer?s skimped on the specs. The 17.3-inch notebook is packing a 17.3-inch full HD display, Nvidia GTX 660M GPU, 8GB of RAM, a 500GB 7,200-rpm hard drive and a 64GB SSD. A yet to be announced Core i7 processor will be powering the whole affair.
Razer?s innovative Switchblade interface, complete with multitouch LCD touchpad and 10 progammable macro keys are also making an appearance. Razer has also left USB 2.0 in the past with 3 USB 3.0 ports.
There?s a catch. The Blade is going on sale for the wallet-emptying price of $2,499. Still, that premium should come as no surprise to dedicated PC gamers; something this slick-looking is never cheap.
Sticker shock aside, we?re impressed with the overall design of the chassis. It looks like the love child of an Alienware M17x and a MacBook Pro. While we have yet to run our benchmarks, we?re eager to put the new, improved Razer Blade through some rigorous testing, including an all-night fragging session. Stay tuned for our full review.
The definitive guide to Apple's taller, thinner, lighter, brighter iPhone 5
The iPhone 5 was, is, and remains inevitable. An iPhone, new to be certain, but still an iPhone. Some say this is a sign Apple has lost their drive for innovation. Others, a sign Apple has kept their sense of focus. Both are facets of a single truth -- that through craft something is revolutionized, refined, and one day, replaced. The question then becomes, where is the iPhone 5 along this continuum? Is it a boring, uninspired, end-of-line update that should have Apple desperately seeking to once again "think different", or is it iconically, deceptively, insanely great enough to delight customers, inspire developers, and once again drive the entire industry forward?
Previously on iPhone...
A lot of the features found in the iPhone 5 can also be found in earlier generation iPhones. Rather than repeat any of it, here are our previous iPhone reviews:
Gone is the sandwich of chemically treated glass, and stainless steel antenna of the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. And in their place the iPhone 5 offers a lighter, thinner unibody that houses not only a new, all-digital Lightning connector, fast LTE 4G networking, a monstrous Apple A6 processor, but for the first time, a taller, in-cell display.
iPhone 5: The design
The iPhone 5 doesn't offer a radically new shape, but the shape is about the only thing that's not radically new this year. Measuring 123.8 mm high, 58.6 mm wide, and 7.6 mm deep, the iPhone 5 rises higher than the iPhone 4S but no wider. It's also 18% thinner and 20% lighter. It's so light and thin that it almost feels fake, like a dummy phone at a carrier store. Almost. Apple claims it's both bigger and smaller, that there's both more of it and less of it. And that's absolutely true. In fact, it takes a moment -- an awkward, giddy moment -- to adjust to the sensory paradox. Because the overall volume of the iPhone 5 is 12% less than its predecessor, it feels like it's gone from a short, substantial slab to a long, lithe slice.
With a chassis carved from anodized 6000 series aluminum, hardened Gorilla Glass on the front, and inlays of ceramic or pigmented glass on the back, the iPhone 5 has been compared both favorably and ludicrously to precision, luxury time pieces. Hyperbole aside, the manufacturing process literally does have to be seen to be believed.
The iPhone 5 still only comes in two colors, but this year those two colors are also two-toned. There's black and slate, and white and silver. The black is Darth Vader black, and can all but disappear on a dark surface in low light. The white is Storm Trooper white, its crystalline diamond-cut chamfers brighter and shinier than ever. While the blackout look of the anodized aluminum on the black and slate iPhone 5 is more singular, more monolithic, it will also show chips, scuffs, and scratches more readily than the naked aluminum of the white and silver model. Neither, however, are immune to that particular phenomena.
I exchanged my first iPhone 5 after noticing a chip in the bezel, but the new one has held up just fine under normal, careful use. Unfortunately, there's no adamantium/vibranium super metal in the real world. The iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S had glass backs that were susceptible to shattering with sufficient impact. The iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS had plastic backs that were susceptible to cracking along the edges. The iPods had and have stainless steel backs that have always been susceptible to scratching and scuffing with normal use as well. If maintaining a mint-condition iPhone 5 is a concern, look into getting a case or skin.
So back to the shape. Yes, the iPhone 5 is every bit the flat, rounded rectangle the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 were before it. That's intentional. It's inevitable. It might be boring or unimaginative to some, and that's a fair point. But Apple's not playing at dice. They're not spinning fashion. They're building an iPhone. An iPhone that looks like an iPhone the way a Lamborghini looks like a Lamborghini, and a MacBook Pro looks like a MacBook Pro -- the way any product from any high end brand looks like and embodies that brand.
Apple conceived of this iPhone form back in 2005 and have been working inexorably towards it ever since. They're closer this year than any year past, achieving an unprecedented level of thinness and lightness, a screen that dominates the front as never before, and they've finally been able to return to aluminum for the back, albeit with glass still lingering at the top and bottom.
In that regard, the leap from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5 is no less significant, ambitious, or impressive than the leap from the original MacBook Pro to the unibody MacBook Pro in 2008. In both cases, it wasn't about making something that looked radically different but about making something that worked radically better. That's how it should be. That's how great design works. And if there's one thing Apple nails more consistently and constantly than any other company in modern memory, it's great design.
The real question is, once Apple fully realizes this vision of the iPhone, once they've gotten as close to perfecting it as technology allows, what will they do next?
iPhone 5: The 16:9 display
The 4-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio, 1136x640 resolution, 326ppi in-cell display is the iPhone 5's most obvious, most visually impressive new feature. Up until now, every iPhone has had a 3:2 aspect ratio display. The original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS all had 3.5-inch, 480x320 resolution, 163ppi displays. With the iPhone 4 in 2010, Apple switched to the Retina display. It was still 3.5-inches, still 3:2 ratio, but the density doubled to 960x640 at 326ppi. That made the pixels essentially disappear.
With the iPhone 5, for the first time, Apple has changed not only the screen size, but the aspect ratio as well. They've made it taller but not wider, bigger but no less dense. Retina was all about the quality of what you see. 16:9 is about the quantity.
The reason for the screen size change was likely competitive, at least in part. Some percentage of the market was choosing a bigger screen instead of an iPhone. By switching to a bigger screen, Apple has increased their addressable market, and now people can choose an iPhone with a bigger screen. At the same time, Apple wants to maximize content and minimize distractions like bezels and casing. Given LTE 4G and the new, thinner design, Apple couldn't decrease the screen-to-casing ratio by staying with a 3.5-inch display. They can and did by switching to a larger, 4-inch one.
So why 4-inches and 16:9 and not any bigger or the least bit wider? Likely because Apple didn't want to reduce the pixel density of the Retina display, impede the one-handed ease of use of the interface, or sacrifice the pocket-ability of the iPhone.
Personally, I would have have liked to see Apple prototype a 4-inch, 3:2 ratio display. It would give up some pixel density, staying at 960x640 but reducing the ppi to 288, and it wouldn't have increased the amount of information that could be displayed, like the 1136x640 resolution does, but it would have made everything bigger, including text, and maintained app compatibility.
For some, any change from the original 3.5-inch screen will be too much. For others, anything less than 4.5-inches or more is too little. Apple typically ignores the fringes and aims squarely at the mainstream middle. This year 4-inches at 16:9 was the biggest compromise Apple was willing to make, and the best one in their opinion.
In addition to making the iPhone 5 display taller, Apple has also made it thinner. To do this, they used in-cell technology. This allowed Apple to combine the touch sensor into the LCD display, turning what were previously 2 discreet layers, into a single layer that's 0.5mm thinner. That might not sound like a lot, but when you consider the iPhone 5 is only 7.6mm to begin with, it's significant.
The iPhone 5 display is still an LED-backlit LCD, so it's still bright and beautiful. It's still IPS (in-plane switching) so the viewing angle is still excellent, but in-cell makes the iPhone 5 display even better. If the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 looked like traditional cell animation, with images painted right below the glass, the iPhone 5 looks like they're painted right into it. Once again, it looks so good it almost seems fake, like a sticker instead of a screen.
It also makes the iPhone 5 screen easier to read on a sunny day. Not exceptionally so, not even at a high brightness level, but better than previous generations. Add to that a 44% greater color gamut, and blacker blacks than ever before, and you have richer, truer images for everything from interface to avatar, photograph to video. It's stunning, even when compared to the already excellent iPhone 4S display.
4-inches at 16:9 is a compromise, one that avoids turning the iPhone into a tiny tablet, or losing the density and the specific type of usability Apple values. The in-cell Retina display itself is not. As of right now, it might well be the best display in the business.
iPhone 5: Apple A6 performance
Apple says that the iPhone 5 is twice as fast as the iPhone 4S, which sound impressive enough. Apple doesn't typically talk in GHz or RAM when it comes to iOS devices. They prefer to bring experience to a spec fight. But it's the specs that drive the experience. It's the engine in the meticulously appointed car. It's the stats behind the championship team. It's the science behind the art.
In this case it's the Apple A6 system-on-a-chip (SoC), and it's the first custom processor to grace the iOS platform. Previous versions of Apple's A-series, including the A4, A5, and A5X, all ran existing processor designs like the ARM Cortex A9. This year, instead of sticking with the Cortex A9 or moving on the new ARM A15, Apple zigged instead of zagged. They licensed the ARM v7s instruction set and rolled something uniquely their own -- a 32nm CMOS dual-core 1.2GHz Apple CPU. Likewise, instead of going with the dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics chip found in the iPhone 4S, or the giant quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4 found in the iPad 3, Apple went with the triple-core PowerVR SGX543MP3 GPU. And they topped it all off with 1GB of RAM.
Storage isn't any bigger or any faster this year -- you have the same 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB options you had before -- but everything else about the iPhone 5 feels perceptively faster, and it's because of the custom Apple A6. I didn't think Apple would go the custom CPU route for another year or two, but clearly they're investing heavily in chipset architecture and its paying off. Existing between the ARM Cortex A9 and A15, and between dual-core and quad-core PowerVR chips, freed Apple to find the best balance of performance vs. power consumption. What's more, Apple laid out the processor manually. Which is to say, by hand. That's almost unheard of these days, and shows just how seriously Apple is taking every bit and atom of the iPhone's design.
First, the numbers. While Geekbench and Sunspider are the perfunctory performance metrics, they're neither scientific measures nor real-world indicators. There's simply no way to account for the differences in architectures and "optimizations" across platforms. Likewise, HTML5test measures only iOS 6 Safari's compatibility with standards, and nothing iPhone 5-specific at al. Still, for what they're worth, here they are:
Real world performance is more important. How long it takes the iPhone 5 to boot, to launch and app or game, to render a website, and to resolve things like location and dictation are what really matter to real people.
In that regard, both the iPhone 4 and the iPad 3 bore the burden of being the first devices of their class to have to run Retina displays, and that drained performance away from the overall system. With that already "paid" for, the iPhone 4S flew, and the iPhone 5 flies even faster. It's so fast now, especially when combined with the new network connectivity (see below) that the mechanics really, truly disappear. Apple nailed the 1:1 multitouch tracking with the original iPhone, but some lag and stutter and delay has always lingered around the edges of the OS. Not any more, at least not that I encountered. With the iPhone 5, you're not waiting for pixels to push or on-device data to load or system processes to catch up. You're just doing. And you're doing it flawlessly enough that you don't even notice.
Apple sought to make the iPhone 5 twice as fast as the iPhone 4S and they've succeeded brilliantly. The Apple A6 is an absolute beast.
iPhone 5: LTE 4G and the radios
Apple has significantly upgraded wireless networking on the iPhone 5. Firstly, while 802.11n Wi-Fi has been an option for a while now, the iPhone was previously restricted to more the crowded 2.4GHz frequency. Thanks to a Murata Wi-Fi module, which includes the Broadcom BCM4334 chip, the iPhone 5 can use 802.11n on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Bluetooth 4.0 has been carried over from the iPhone 4S, and while its low-power, instant pairing holds the same promise today that it did last year, we're still waiting for the accessory industry to catch up and make good on that promise.
What there isn't is NFC (Near-field Communications), which is used for commercial transactions, rapid checkins, and other, similar, touch-and-go data exchanges. Apple doesn't seem to believe NFC is the solution to any current mainstream problem, at least not yet. There are other technologies Apple can and is using for similar purposes, like the mobile checkout option on the Apple Store app, but it'll likely be a while before Apple thinks the market is ready for a full-out Apple NFC or NFC-like solution. It's chicken-and-the-egg, of course, but Apple has traditionally been conservative when it comes to radios. They waited until the second generation iPhone to add GPS and 3G, after all, and until now to add LTE 4G.
LTE 4G (Long Term Evolution) provides for a theoretical maximum of 100Mbps, which is faster than many home-based ISP connections. The iPad got LTE 4G support back in March, and performed incredibly well with it. The iPhone 5 adds newer, more advanced radio chipsets -- the Qualcomm MDM9615 and RTR8600. It also keeps Apple's dynamic antenna design, so it can switch to provide the best connection possible
LTE 4G support is split over three models, two GSM and one CDMA, in order to meet the needs of different international carriers on different bands, and segments of those bands. According to Apple, current iPhone 5 LTE 4G supports:
Model A1428: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (AWS, 700b MHz) for AT&T, Rogers/Fido, Bell/Virgin, and TELUS/Koodo
Model A1429: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (2100, 1800, 850, 700c, 1900 MHz) for Verizon, Sprint, and KDDI
Model A1429*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (2100, 1800, 850 MHz) for Deutsche Telekom, EE, Optus/Virgin, Telstra, Softbank, SK Telecom, KT, SmarTone, M1, and SingTel.
LTE 4G is particularly important for Verizon and Sprint customers. While the iPhone 4S could reach a theoretical speed of 14.4Mbps on the HSPA networks used by AT&T and other GSM carriers, Verizon and Sprint iPhone 4S customers were stuck on EVDO rev A's meager 3.1Mbps. So, customers were forced to choose between fast (AT&T) and reliable (Verizon) or unlimited (Sprint). Verizon had the first and fastest LTE 4G roll out in the U.S., so not being able to take advantage of it, especially considering how slow EVDO is, was especially irksome. No longer. The iPhone 5 on Verizon is now a first class data speed citizen.
My tests of LTE 4G performance have been a little strange, however. Given current tower loads, I average 30Mbps on the iPad 3 on the Rogers network. I spike at 30Mbps with the iPhone 5, but average 15Mbps. Tethering my iPad or my Mac to my iPhone 5, however, averages 30Mbps, just as I would expect. I'm inclined to chalk this up to some aberration on my phone or my carrier, however. Our community iPhone 5 speed test results show a much more normal, much more expected pattern of LTE 4G results.
Technical details aside, the iPhone 5 on LTE 4G is fast. It's so fast you may forget you aren't on Wi-Fi. For that reason, just as with iPad 3 LTE 4G, you're well advised to keep an eye on bandwidth caps, especially if you're streaming a lot of video or doing a lot of tethering. (The iPad 3 is still a better choice for tethering given that it's battery is much, much bigger, and if you drain it, you aren't without your phone.)
There are compromises here as well, however. Because Apple is prioritizing battery life, they're doing everything on a single radio with a single process, and because no carrier yet supports VOLTE (Voice Over LTE), the iPhone can't handle simultaneous voice and LTE data connections the way phones that use dual radio connections can. That means, if you're using LTE data and a voice call comes in, you'll drop down to HSPA data on AT&T and other GSM networks. And -- you guessed it! -- because Verizon and Sprint don't offer HSPA/GSM data, unless you're on Wi-Fi, you'll drop completely off of data while you talk, just like EVDO rev. A on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.
The good news is, in addition to LTE 4G, the iPhone 5 supports speedy DC-HSPA (Dual Carrier HSPA) and HSPA+ data, with a theoretical maximum speed of 42Mbps. Also, unlike early LTE 4G phones, the iPhone 5 seems to handle the drop down to HSPA and return to LTE 4G with incredible speed and grace. It works well enough in my tests that I doubt most GSM users will even notice the change.
Because of LTE 4G, every iPhone now has a SIM card slot and tray, even on Verizon and Sprint. And just like the iPhone 4 switched from mini-SIM to micro-SIM, the iPhone 5 switches to nano-SIM. It's the same chip, just absent almost all the plastic surrounding it. You'll need one to use the iPhone 5, and most carriers are supplying them now. If you buy an unlocked iPhone 5 with the intention of traveling and using local SIM cards to save on roaming, you might have trouble finding them, especially on pre-paid/pay-as-you-go plans. At least for now. (Buying a mini- or micro-SIM and cutting it down is an option.)
In addition to telephone service, with iOS 6, Apple and the carriers have mostly gotten FaceTime enabled over 3G/4G. Mostly. Some carriers -- like AT&T -- are only allowing it on certain plans, which is a move composed of utter cattle refuse. Be that as it may, it's not a feature specific to the iPhone 5 but it is a feature made better by the iPhone 5's LTE 4G networking.
As far as I know, Apple still hasn't lived up to their promise to release the open-standards based FaceTime protocol as an open standard, so other platforms beyond iOS and OS X can implement it and make it truly, universally useful. If you are all in on Apple's ecosystem, however, it works incredibly well of LTE 4G. Again, well enough that you don't even realize you're not on Wi-Fi.
And when it comes to LTE 4G, that's exactly what you want.
iPhone 5: The iSight and FaceTime cameras
On paper, it doesn't seem like the iPhone 5's rear-facing iSight camera got much of a boost this year. It reads as the same 8 megapixels, backside illuminated, hybrid IR filtered, 5-element, f/2.4 aperture lens as last year's iPhone 4S. And, even though the iPhone 5 now has a 16:9 screen, still photos remain 3:2 at 3264x2448px. Likewise, the LED flash seems to look and work the same as last year.
Apple does list some improvements to the iPhone 5 iSight, however. There's a new, dynamic low-light mode that combines pixels together for what Apple claims is up to 2 f-stops better performance. Apple also claims the 5-element lens has been aligned with even greater precision for even greater sharpness. Also, the surface of the iSight is now made out of sapphire crystal to make it more scratch resistant.
The Apple A6 chipset lends a hand here as well, with a new image signal processor (ISP) that allows for spatial noise reduction by looking at surrounding pixels to better detect and remove noise, especially in low-light conditions, while at the same time preserving large areas of contiguous color. It also makes getting to the camera, both through the fast camera swipe on the Lock screen and the Camera app itself, much quicker, and increases the shutter speed to make taking a photo faster as well. Apple says 40% faster, but regardless of the exact number, it's a perceptible increase.
Most impressively, Apple has done all this in a camera that's 25% smaller than the one in iPhone 4S. Camera lenses dislike thinness, but humans like thinner phones. While some other manufacturers have resorted to adding crude bumps to allow large cameras on the backs of their otherwise thin phones, Apple's compromise here was to keep the same quality camera, enhance it slightly, but engineer it into the 18% thinner iPhone 5 body. That's a remarkable feat of engineering.
So, boiling it all down, photos are much faster to take on the iPhone 5. Standard photos look great, though about as great as you'd get on the iPhone 4S. They do seem much, much better on screen, however, but only because the iPhone 5's display is so much better. HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos show marked improvements, and so much so that if you're taking landscapes you'll want to turn it on and leave it on. Sadly, while low-light has also improved and noise has been reduced, it's not by much and blur will still occur if and when your subject moves. Happily, Apple seems to have fixed the problem with focus that plagued macro shots on the iPhone 4S. You can now get really close without worrying that your subject will elude capture.
If you're looking for the highest end glass you can hang off a phone, however, Apple's not on that particular bleeding edge. Nokia recently grafted a 41 megapixel lens on a Symbian camera just to show they could. Sure, it looks like it's face-hugging the body, but it shoots amazing pictures. Likewise, the upcoming Nokia Lumia 920 will use a much less pornographic version of the same PureView system, including an optical image stabilization system that actually floats the lens hardware, allowing the shutter to stay open longer and capture a better photo. Both Nokia and HTC are fielding f/2.0 lenses now as well. But the Nokia Lumia 920 is 10.7mm thick compared to the iPhone 5's 7.6 mm. That's the tradeoff for someone who values a light, thin phone that can also shoot really good photos.
While not unique to the iPhone 5, iOS 6 also has a new panoramic photography mode built-in. It uses the iSight in standard mode, so you don't get many of the benefits of the iPhone 5's specific iSight camera, but it still lets you make remarkably good looking panoramas at up to 240 degrees and 28 megapixels (~10800x2332px), with remarkably little effort.
The front-facing FaceTime camera is still meant more for videos than stills, but since it's been upgraded from 0.3 to 1.2 megapixels and given backlight illumination and face detection, if you need a new avatar or profile pic, you'll get a much better one with the iPhone 5 than you would have with any previous model. For anything else, you'll still want to use the iSight on the back.
Video likewise remains 1080p and 30 FPS on the iPhone 5 iSight -- there likely won't be, nor will there need to be, a 4K camera on a mobile device any time soon. Unlike still photography, however, video recording benefits greatly from the 16:9 aspect ratio. Apple drops away the menu bar when in video mode, switching to a translucent interface that really lets you see the full frame
Previously, if you wanted to capture a photo while recording video, you had to press Home and the On/Off button at the same time to grab a screenshot, either while you were filming, or later, while you were playing it back. Now you simply tap the Camera button and a photo gets taken while video continues to record. And with excellent shutter speed too.
There is a compromise, however. Photos captured while recording video are only 1920x1080px resolution. That's significantly smaller than the still camera's 3264x2448px. For most situations, however, the convenience eclipses the pixel cost.
Like with stills, lowlight performance has been nominally improved for iPhone 5 video, though it varies from slightly to unnoticeably depending on the specifics of any scene. Either way, there'll still be grain. Video stabilization, however, has been more noticeably improved, though it can still shimmer at times when motion is minimal. Face detection for up to 10 faces, previously available on the iPhone 4S for still photography only, is now also available for video as well on the iPhone 5.
The front-facing camera has had a more significant update, with Apple finally bringing the same 720p FaceTime HD capability to iOS that they brought to the Mac over a year ago. It works great, especially compared to the profoundly lackluster VGA camera that preceded it, and is now more than good enough for a video call or a YouTube-style chat-at-the-world video.
Back when Apple introduced the iPhone 4, they added a second mic to the top. With the iPhone 5 they've added a third mic, nestled between the iSight camera and the LED flash on the top back. Along with the traditional mic at the bottom, all three are multifunctional, now in recognition of the multifunctional ways we now use our phones. Having all three spread out the way they are means that whether you're using your iPhone as a phone, as a speaker phone, for a FaceTime call, to record a video, or to use Siri or Dictation, there's a greater likelihood you'll be heard. It also means there's a greater chance one of the mics will be well-positioned for noise-cancellation. Having three mics also means Apple can do beamforming, allowing Siri and Dictation to better discern words from the noise around them.
Apple has also -- finally -- paid some attention to the main speaker at the bottom of the iPhone. With the iPhone 5, it now has a five magnet transducer, up from the two magnet transducer in previous models. Apple says that gives a better frequency response, even though the speaker itself is now 20% smaller. In our tests, the speaker did sound louder and slightly clearer, but not blow-your-hair-back better. While I certainly wouldn't want gimmicks, it would be nice for Apple to continue do everything they can to improve external speaker quality -- they are the company that brought us iTunes + iPod, after all. For everything from conferencing to hands-free to FaceTime calls, when you don't have a headset handy, the main speaker simply has to deliver.
The iPhone 5 earpiece speaker has gotten noise cancellation now as well, which aids in removing ambient sounds and makes conversation cleaner and clearer. Apple has also added support for wideband audio (HD Voice being a popular brand thereof), which uses a compression method that better fills out the frequency spectrum to make voices sound more natural, and pulls them out from surrounding audio to make them more distinct. (Would that Music.app could apply it to undo the effects of AutoTune...) However, wideband audio requires carrier support and compatibility, and not all carriers support it yet, and of those that do, not all are compatible with the iPhone. Apple did say they had 20 carriers ready with wideband audio at launch, including Deutsche Telekom and Orange, but that's few enough that it should still be considered more of a bonus at this point than a standard feature. In other words, it's a big mess, and we'll probably have several more generations of iPhone released before most of us see the benefit of it.
Anecdotally, however, calls I've made with the iPhone 5 do sound much better and sometimes much more human than any cellular phone I've used before.
The 3.5 mm headset jack on the iPhone 5 has been moved to the bottom of the device, similar to where it's always been on the iPod touch. This isn't great news for people who liked to put their iPhone in a dock while listening to music or making calls using a headset, but it'll be welcomed by those who frequently pocket their iPhones while doing just that. Apple isn't even selling a dock for the iPhone 5, so their numbers probably tell them the latter group is more common than the former.
Included in the box with the iPhone 5 is a pair of Apple's brand new EarPods. (They're also available separately for $29.) 3 years in development, they're Apple's attempt to improve upon the ubiquitous but not well loved little white earbuds that previously shipped with iOS devices. The EarPods come in a proper package, similar to the one Apple's offered with their higher-end in-ear headsets for years, which is a great way to prevent tangles or damage in pockets, purses, and bags.
The shape of the EarPods is a significant divergence from the original earbuds. Instead of being uniformly round, the EarPods are asymmetrically shaped and, according to Apple, ergonomically designed to better fit a wider range of ears. No one product could ever truly fit every shape and size of ear, however. The original earbuds wouldn't stay in my ears for more than a few moments, and I've even found high end in-ear headsets challenging to keep in. The EarPods are much better than the earbuds ever were in that regard, though still not perfect, at least not for me.
Sound is noticeably improved with the EarPods, however, especially clarity and bass. A large part of that is due to their new, multi-port design. The main EarPod speaker directs sound into your ear. The port on the back is tuned to mid-range frequencies and is intended to improve consistency of experience. Ports in the stem are meant to improve bass. Air channels reduce pressure on the speaker so it can concentrate on providing greater low-frequency sound.
The remote and mic functions the same with the EarPods as it did with previous iPhone earbuds, allowing you to control both music and phone calls. The in-line remote is larger now, though, making it much easier to fumble for and use in real-world situations.
The new Apple EarPods won't replace your $100+ in-ears or cans, much less your high-end custom jobs, but they're a fantastic replacement for the generally poor earbuds that came before.
iPhone 5: The Lightning connector
After almost 10 years and who knows how many cables, Apple has officially retired the fat, thick, unidirectional, 30-pin Dock connector and introduced a new, small, thin, ambi-copular interconnect for the next decade. Branded Lightning, it's 80% smaller and offers 8-signals that are all digital.
Apple couldn't use their new desktop connector, ThunderBolt, because iOS devices don't have the required PCI architecture to support it. That means, yes, Lightning is not as fast as ThunderBolt. It also means that, while Lightning is all new on one side, it's still stuck on chunky, unidirectional USB 2 on the other. (It's possible Lightning may support USB 3, though the read/write speeds of current NAND Flash memory will at some point become a bottleneck.)
With the advent of technologies like AirPlay, which wirelessly streams video and audio, Wi-Fi Sync which wirelessly exchanges data with iTunes, AirPrint, which wirelessly sends jobs to printers, Bluetooth 4.0 which will -- eventually -- enable a new generation of wireless accessories, and iCloud which cut the cord to the PC, why not just eliminate the Dock connector entirely?
Because wired connectors still remain useful for more quickly moving large files around and, critically, for charging. Unlike Palm, Samsung, and Nokia, Apple doesn't yet see wireless charging as viable mainstream feature, and even if they did, it would be years before it could replace wired charging completely. So, the cable has to stick around and, instead of eliminating it, Apple's making it smarter.
Because it's digital, Lightning can be adaptive and provide the right signal for the accessory you're plugging in. (The old 30-pin Dock wasn't, and so needed those 30-pins for everything from USB to HDMI to serial to line-in to component and composite video to... you get the idea.)
For legacy accessories, Apple is currently offering 30-pin Dock to Lightning adapters, both with and without a short extension cord. To comply with European Union regulations, Apple is also offering a micro-USB to Lightning adapter. These don't support video-out, unfortunately, though Apple has said HDMI and VGA adapters will be available at some point.
Analog video and serial breakouts for older TVs and scientific instruments probably aren't on the agenda, though, and while it's possible they may appear in some form in the future, changes to Apple's licensing that coincides with Lightning might make it more difficult for small suppliers to manufacture niche cables and accessories, "encouraging" the move to modern video standards and Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity.
I only ever plug my iPhone in to charge any more, and Lightning really makes no difference for that, at least not yet. It requires new cables or adapters that cost money, however, which is annoying. Inarguably, Lightning is better and more modern than 30-pin as an interconnect, but there's no compelling new accessories to "sell" that yet.
That might make it sound like all Lightning gives us is pain and turbulence right now, but there is one killer new feature that Lightning did immediately enable -- a thinner iPhone.
iPhone 5: The battery life
Like all recent iOS devices, the iPhone 5 has a lithium-ion battery that can be charged via USB connected to a AC adapter or computer. Talk time on 3G is rated the same 8 hours as the iPhone 4S, though standby time has increased by 25 hours to 225 hours. (There's no voice over LTE yet.) Internet use time is also up, increasing 2 hours on 3G and 1 hour on Wi-Fi to 8 and 10 hours respectively. The iPhone 5 is also rated for 8 hours on LTE. Audio and video playback remain 10 and 40 hours respectively.
In our tests, these numbers have proven roughly accurate. Leaving an iPhone 5 for extended periods of time, for example overnight, has resulted in minimal battery drain, and with moderate use the iPhone 5 has easily lasted a day. With heavy use, like a day on the road or at a conference, you'll need to re-charge, perhaps more than once. Until battery packs and battery cases are updated for Lightning and the new design, you'll need adapters and maybe some McGyver skills.
Because of all the push, location, and iCloud services in iOS, and the speed of LTE data, you can hit the iPhone 5 really hard if you try. If you restored from a previous iPhone, you could also have problems at the system level that reduces battery life. If you set up as a new iPhone and are still having issues, check with Apple. On an iPhone 5 that was set up as new, and running a decent amount of push, location, iCloud, and other services, my battery life has been excellent.
The iPhone 5 ships with iOS 6, which boats over 200 new, customer-facing features including an all new Maps app, new Siri functionality, deep Facebook integration, shared Photo Streams, Passbook, new capabilities for Phone, Mail, and Safari, FaceTime over cellular, enhanced Accessibility, and improved support for China.
Unlike previous years, where video recording, FaceTime, and Siri were all exclusive to the new hardware, almost none of the new features in iOS 6 are exclusive to the iPhone 5. Make of that what you will.
For a complete look at iOS 6, including all of the features mentioned above, see our definitive guide:
The major difference for iOS 6 on the iPhone 5 is the change in aspect ration from 2:3 to 16:9, and in pixel count from 960x640 to 1136x640. That means everyone from Apple to App Store developers have an extra 176x640 pixels to play with.
For Apple, 16:9 allows for an extra row of icons on the Home screen and in folders, an extra list item in Mail or in Music, and a bigger display area in Maps and FaceTime. Since, unlike the iPad, the iPhone is based on a single-column interface, the lack of additional width is seldom if ever an issue in portrait mode.
In landscape mode, 16:9 allows for most HD video content to fill the screen with nary a letterbox in sight, and Camera's translucent video recording interface makes excellent use of the aspect ratio (see screen shots in the display and camera sections, above). Calendar can now show 5 full days in week view rather than just 3.3 and Apple has enhanced Safari with a full-screen mode which, like the new, icon-based Share Sheets minimize the perceptive loss of vertical height and, frankly, the ridiculously long horizontal interface elements. (Except for the landscape keyboard, that's wider and thicker, but not much better.)
What Apple hasn't done, however, is take any advantage of the bigger screen on the system level. Banners still overlap and obscure menu bar buttons instead of elegantly pushing them down, and notifications still don't present any actionable interface for quickly replying to a text or adjusting an alarm. And there's no bonus number row on the portrait keyboard. Apple has used those extra 176x640 pixels merely to add more content, not add more functionality.
Hopefully it's early days still, and future versions of iOS will do something more interesting with the space.
For third party App Store apps, developers have to add support for the 16:9 display and signal it by including a special PNG file in their build. Many developers have already updated their apps. Most of these are list-based (UITableView) or grid-based (UICollectView) or use new, flexible methods (AutoLayout) that allow for relative positioning regardless of screen size. That's important, because they still have to support 3:2 on older devices still on the market and still being sold. Likewise, games that use OpenGL can go 16:9 but could still have interface elements that require work to get right.
Apps or games with a ton of custom graphics will have to be redone, and redone in a way that lets them properly fill the screen, regardless of which screen they have to fill. That'll take time. Until then, Apple will letter-box them (or pillar-box them in landscape mode), centering them on the screen and filling the empty space with black. On the new black and slate iPhone, it's almost invisible. On the white and silver, it's more visible.
A bigger problem is system overlays. On letter-boxed apps, the status bar and the keyboard still render relative to the app, not the the phone. So the status bar is lower than you'd expect at a glance, and the keyboard, higher. It's awkward and takes some getting used to. It might have looked funny if Apple bound them to the absolute top and bottom of the screen, but it might also have worked better.
Unlike Apple, some App Store apps are offering different interfaces on 16:9 displays. Given the fat status of binaries already, what with universal apps that support iPhone and iPod touch interfaces and separate iPad interfaces, in standard and Retina (@2x) densities, one of the last things download sizes need is another interface to cram in there. Other apps are simply revealing extra content areas -- opening on 16:9 what is closed on 3:2, or adding something in wide screen that's not there in standard.
No doubt we'll be seeing a lot more from developers and designers when they've had a chance to really work on the new hardware.
This might seems like a strange combination for a review section, but if you've ever had a problem with your iPhone, it'll make perfect sense. When you buy an iPhone 5 at Apple Retail, they'll help you choose it, set it up, and teach you how to use it. And if you have a problem with it, they'll often go out of their way to fix it for you.
Contrast this with non-Apple devices, where your problems are left to the mercy of big box or carrier customer service reps who, even if they're inclined to help you, typically need to mail your device away, a process that can take days or more. And when you get the replacement, while some information can be resynchronized over-the-air or via cable, it's often not an easy or complete process.
On launch day, my original iPhone 5 had a chip in the bezel. I returned to the Apple Store, was greeted, explained the problem, and immediately received a replacement iPhone. Then I entered my iCloud ID, and walked out with everything setting, app, piece of content, and bit of data exactly the same as I'd walked in with. A brand new phone, but exactly my phone.
No matter how you want to parse it, that's a feature of a phone, one Apple gets right, and one few if any competitors can or will match.
iPhone 5: App and accessory compatibility
The iPhone 5 is compatible with all of the hundreds of thousands of iPhone apps in the App Store, though not all of them have yet been updated to support the new 16:9 display (see Interface, above).
The iPhone is not compatible with most previous iPhone 5 cases due to differences in physical dimensions (see Design, above). Some large pouch or bag cases might fit. The iPhone 5 may be compatible with some accessories that require a Dock connection, including cradles and stereos, provided the current 30-pin to Lightning connector adapters provide the right signals and can be properly attached. Anything that uses composite or component video out is not currently compatible, though Apple says HDMI and VGA adapters are in the works. (See Lightning connector, above.)
Headsets are compatible and Bluetooth accessories should be compatible, though we've gotten reports of bugs with some systems which may require a software updates from the vendor or Apple to rectify.
iPhone 5 pricing remains the same this year as last:
$199/16GB, $299/32GB, $399/64GB on contract
$649/16GB, $749/32GB, $849/64GB off contract
The iPhone 5 is available now in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and the U.K. and will launch on September 28 in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
iPhone 5: The bottom line
The danger of being overly focused is that you lose sight of the periphery. The key is to be fixed but not fixated. It can be a razor-fine line, and one Apple often seems to cascade down with reckless abandon. On one hand, some may say Apple is trapped by designs and ideas of the past, obsessed with aesthetics and compromised by self-interest, at war with one-time partners, and oblivious to user pain and competitive pressures.
On the other hand, some may say Apple is better than any other company in the world at determining what exactly the market really wants, at pushing the boundaries of manufacturing and technology to make the future manifest in the present, at taking calculated risks, going all in on them, and concentrating on years rather than months, and at following well-timed revolution with indefatigable evolution, even if it costs them parters, and sometimes customers, over the short term.
Elements of both are likely true. When you swing for the home run every time, sometimes you strike out. When you make one phone a year, you risk a dud that will totally derail you. So is the iPhone 5 another home run, or did Apple finally strike out?
Not surprisingly, it's a home run. Apple's major problem now is that they're not the only one hitting them anymore. It's become a game of home runs, with several platforms and manufacturers knocking them out the park, and having one among many makes it harder than ever to stand out.
If you don't happen to like iOS or the iPhone at all, however, then there's nothing in the iPhone 5 to change your mind. Get something else. There are several good options. If you've previously been interested in iOS and the iPhone but the lack of a bigger screen or LTE made you hold off, then go check it out. Chances are you'll like, if not love what you see. If you currently have an iPhone 4 or earlier, the iPhone 5 is an excellent upgrade. It's everything you love about your current iPhone, only better. Much better. If you currently have an iPhone 4S, unless you really want the bigger screen and the LTE networking, there's little reason to upgrade. The iPhone 4S is still a great device, and iOS 6 does pretty much everything on it that it does on iPhone 5.
Taller, thinner, faster, lighter; the iPhone 5 represents nothing more nor less than the latest, relentless iteration on the Platonic ideal Apple has been striving towards for almost a decade. Redesigned in every way but shape, compromised but true to its purpose, the iPhone 5 is once again the best iPhone Apple has ever made, and one of the best phones ever made. Period.
Reuters
We've had a chest freezer for around two years now?it's a great way to take advantage of grocery store sales, farmer market finds, and garden bounty. But once your freezer starts to fill it can be easy to forget exactly what you have in there which is why it's a good idea to keep a freezer inventory. 
