The next iPhones are finally upon us, and Gizmodo Australia was be up bright and early to bring you all the news as it broke from Cupertino. By early, I mean freaking 3am AEST. Meet the colourful iPhone 5C and the futuristic iPhone 5S!
More
Apple iPhone 5S And iPhone 5C: Australian Prices And Release Dates
The iPhone 5S: Everything You Need To Know
This event plays out chronologically as you scroll. To make browsing easier, we have added sub-headings so you can jump to the news you want. Enjoy!
Welcome!
4:48pm, Tuesday 10 September
What do you want to see at tomorrow’s event?
5:05
Check out our full rumour wrap-up of everything we think we know right here.
2:58am, Wednesday 11 September
Morning, readers! It’s on!
People have started to file into their seats for what is shaping up to be a very intimate time at Cupertino.
2:59
Because the event is being hosted at its top secret HQ, Apple hasn’t provided a live stream for today which is bumming us out.
Don’t worry, images are coming to you from our friends at WIRED.
3:01
Tim Cook is out!
3:02
“We want to show you something we’re really proud of…”
Retail, iTunes Festival
3:03
But first, some updates: Tim is now talking about the success of the iTunes Festival in London. Oh how I’d love to be at that, too!
3:04
The concerts are streamed live to over 100 countries, and 20 million people applied for tickets (which are free).
We’re now watching a video of a Lady GaGa concert at the iTunes Festival.
3:05
Tim Cook is back after the video, moving onto retail updates.
3:06
Apple is always really proud of its retail stores and takes an opportunity to highlight one at almost every event.
The store at Stanford Shopping Centre is 1100 square feet and serves 2000 people per day. It’s now getting a hella-shiny update. It’ll be glass on all sides and will now sit eight-times larger than the old store.
Broken up into two rooms: one for retail and one for hands-on demos.
iOS 7
3:08
Tim moves on to iOS 7. “We’ve been hard at work completing it this month.”
Next month, Apple will ship its 700 millionth iOS device. Whoa…
3:09
Craig Federighi, SVP of software engineering is here! He’s going into iOS 7 and showing us a few things we haven’t seen yet, like the depth on the lock screen, animations and an edge-to-edge design philosophy.
3:12
A lot of this we’ve already heard before, but a lot of the Siri stuff we’re hearing is new: two new high-quality voices are coming, and the software can now draw on Wikipedia as well as give access to in-line web search and photo search, too.
Interestingly, all the old message sounds from the iPhone have been “remastered”. Here’s hoping we get more ethereal sounds to go along with our fluro, floaty OS.
The camera will also now group stuff into Moments and similar experiences rather than dump everything in your Camera Roll.
3:15
We’re also talking about iTunes Radio (which we don’t get yet), and the funky new Music app.
3:16
Craig is outed as a RUSH fan from his iTunes Radio images.
3:17
iOS 7 packs over 200 new features. “Downloading iOS 7 is like getting a brand new device.”
iOS 7 will land on iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPad mini and iPod Touch (5th Gen) and later on 18 September. That’s usually always a few days before the new iPhone release! Exciting.
3:18
Tim Cook is back!
iWork, iLife
3:18
“Time to switch gears to other software.” Talking about iWork, iLife.
3:20
Apple will now include iWork apps for FREE to anyone who purchases a new iOS device. Aw, thanks guys!
3:22
Here it comes!
“Now, we’d like to talk about iPhone…”
“In the past, when we’ve introduced a new iPhone, we lowered the price of the old iPhone. This year, we’re not doing that. This year, we’re going to replace the iPhone 5 with not one, but two new designs!”
3:23
Two iPhones! 5S and 5C perhaps? Or just skip a generation and go straight to 6?
3:23
Phil Schiller is up.
iPhone 5C
3:23
The first new phone is the iPhone 5C!
3:24
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
“You may have seen some shots on the web, but you haven’t seen it like this,” Phil jokes as a video plays.
He’s promising the power of an iPhone 5 in this thing.
“More fun and more colourful than any iPhone yet.”
3:25
The colours are all muted, but especially pretty. You get green, white, blue, red and yellow.
3:26
The front of the 5C is glass for multi-touch, whole the sides and back are made from a single piece of plastic.
There are also new cases for the 5C. The new cases are also soft silicon rubber. The new cases also include cutouts so your colour can come through and create a contrast. Nice one!
3:26
These phones will match iOS 7 out of the box.
3:27
Now for some specs:
3-inch Retina display, Apple’s A6 processor, “console-level graphics”, “high-capacity battery”, 4G-compatibility, BLuetooth 4.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, 8-megapixel iSight camera, backside illumination, hybrid IR filter, five-element lens, new front-facing Facetime HD camera with HD audio.
Basically the same as the iPhone 5, but in a new plastic, colourful case.
3:28
US pricing is as follows: $99 for a 16GB model and $199 for the 32GB. Those are on-contract prices with AT&T, so don’t go complaining that we get them more expensive later on. UPDATE: You can find the Australian pricing here.
Those fancy cases are also $29 each.
3:29
A Jony Ive video plays.
iPhone 5S
3:34
Video over, now it’s time for Phil to show off the iPhone 5S!
3:35
It’s gold!
3:36
It comes in three colours: gold, white (silver) and black (slate).
Phil says it’s the new “gold standard”. See what he did there!
3:37
It pretty much looks the same as the last iPhone, but the guts are brand new.
There’s the new 64-bit Apple A7 SoC (System on a Chip). Apple says it’s the only phone that can boast 64-bit on mobile.
3:38
I’m predicting we’ll get this thing in Australia September 22. Anyone want to bet me?
3:38
It has over 1 billion transisters, a 102mm die size 2x general purpose and floating point registers for all you hardware geeks. It has a 64-bit kernel, libraries and drivers.
It’s all completely backwards compatible too.
This means that iOS 7 will now run both 32-bit and 64-bit apps, and all the built-in apps have been re-engineered.
3:39
The A7 chip is up to twice as fast at CPU tasks, the graphics are up to two times faster, also. Against the original iPhone, it’s a 56x increase on original performance.
3:40
To show off this performance, Donald Mustard from Epic Games — of Infinity Blade-fame — is up to show it off.
Here’s some news: Infinity Blade 3 is official!
You can play up to two characters, one of them is a thief.
Curiously, the home button on the iPhone 5S is big and glowy. Is there a fingerprint scanner in there?
3:43
The 5S has support for OpenGL ES 3.0, which means everything is prettier. Right now, Donald is showing off live footage from the 5S rather than a render with “lens flares that would make JJ Abrams proud”. Zing!
3:44
Dragon slain, moving on.
3:45
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
Phil is back, talking about a new part of the processor called the M7: a motion co-processor.
It measures data coming in from the sensors without waking up the A7 processor, so you get better battery life.
That also unlocks a huge amount of potential for health and fitness apps, as it’s continually measuring motion data with the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass. Is this the prelude to Apple’s-own wearable?
3:46
Phil shows off the new Nike+ move app which takes advantage of this, and it looks great.
3:47
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
Battery life is being promised as “equal or better” to the iPhone 5. 10 hours 3G talk time, 10 hours Wi-Fi borwsing, 10-hours LTE browsing, 250 hours of standby.
3:48
Moving onto the camera now.
There’s a new camera system with a 5-element lens, constant f/2.2 aperture and a 15 per cent larger active sensor area for better photos. That should certainly help in low light.
Looks like Apple is also going down the HTC Ultrapixel route: bigger pixels on the sensor rather than more of them. There are now 1.5u-sized pixels.
Apple is also promising DSLR-level focus, and an app in iOS 7 that can take advantage of the new enhancements.
The new Camera app is going to take multiple photos at once and then choose the best for you.
3:50
There’s also a new dual-LED flash on the iPhone 5S. One is cooler while the other is warmer. The camera examines a scene and then matches the flash to choose between over 1000 different colours for better tone and white balance. It’s called True Tone flash.
3:51
Auto-image stabilisation is also coming, too. Great for when you’re smashed and need a good night shot.
Back to that burst mode, quickly: if you hold the shutter down, it takes photos continuously at 10 frames per second. The A7 chip looks at the shots and tells you which one it thinks is best.
3:53
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
Oooh. The new camera can also do 120 frames per second slow-motion video. Bam!
It captures slow-motion 720p video at 120fps, while normal video is 1080p at 30fps according to Schiller.
3:55
Apple now showing off more iPhone 5S images, including one of a squirrel.
SQUIRREL.
Ahem.
3:56
Panorama Shots are now being promised as 28-megapixels, and you can adjust the exposure on it as you go now. Handy!
There’s also a new iSight camera.
3:57
Time to talk security.
“The most common way to set up a phone is with a passcode, but about half of smartphone customers don’t set it up.”
Introducing, TouchID: a fingerprint sensor!
3:59
It’s 170-microns thin and can scan sub-dermal skin layers at a 550 ppi resolution. Whoa. All of it is built into the home button.
It can read in any orientation, and the pronounced ring under the surface button is laser-cut steel so it detects your finger rather than you having to press. Nifty.
4:00am
The new fingerprint sensor — TouchID — will also work with your iTunes account so you can make purchases with it. Make sure you don’t let your kids lop off your finger.
4:01
Jony Ive is back!
4:03
I’m actually pretty excited about that fingerprint thing. So much easier than buying stuff with a password or unlocking with a passcode. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
4:03
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
Phil is back, summing up what we’ve seen.
Pricing
4:04
Now for some pricing. This is US, mind you.
32GB starts at $299, 64GB starts at $399 on two-year contracts with AT&T. That’s subsidised on-contract pricing. We’ll get you more on Australian prices as they come through. UPDATE: You can get the Australian pricing here.
4:05
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
There are also new leather cases in some pretty fluro colours. Those ones are $US39 each.
4:06
The iPhone 4S (8GB) is the legacy device, $US0 on contract.
4:05
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
Pre-order for the iPhone 5C starts September 13, and Australia will get it in stores on September 20.
4:07
No pre-order date for the iPhone 5S? Nope. Doesn’t look like it. We’ll chase that.
4:08
Tim Cook is recapping everything we’ve seen so far. Now they’ve got a few ads to show off.
4:12
Image: Alex Washburn / WIRED
Apple has invited Elvis-freaking-Costello out to play them off! Awesome.
4:19
Ok, we now have Australian pricing and pre-order dates for both the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C.
The iPhone 5S will start at $869 outright for the 16GB model, and move up to $999 for the 32GB model, followed by a whopping $1129 for the 64GB model. Phew.
The 5S will be available for pre-order from 20 September. The Apple Store currently won’t say when these orders will be fulfilled, however, which is normally a clue to retail availability.
The iPhone 5C, however, comes in two models: a 16GB version for $739 and a 32GB version for $869. Those are available for pre-order on 13 September, and as we heard earlier, retail availability should be around 20 September.
4:31
That’s it for our iPhone event coverage! Glad you could join us.
4:32
What are you most excited about? Could you care less, perhaps? Tell us your reaction in the comments.
Refresh this page periodically for the latest updates…