Pretty much every single rumor spot-on. The only real eye-opener was the move to a 64-bit processor in the A7 and the addition of the M7 “motion co-processor” – other than that, the rumor blogosphere pretty much hit it out of the park. The days of surprise and “one more thing” have gone by the boards, not least because of a supply chain to China that leaks like an incontinent Fox News viewer.
Thoughts:
* Apple will get slaughtered in the press, because the things I mentioned above are the only things nobody knew. Hell, we could extrapolate price points and ship dates from the moment the announcement was made. People want amazing new magical surprises and are taxing Apple for not pulling a rabbit out of a hat (or more likely, a big-screen TV or smart watch or Google Glass competitor).
* The fingerprint thing could easily be dismissed as a gimmick, but if it actually works, it will be very attractive to businesses who want to enforce handset security on users who would rather die than put a passcode on their phones. I’m willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt on being able to take a gimmick and make it non-gimmicky.
* The iPhone 5C is plainly meant to shore up some of that lower-end market where Android has gotten fat and sassy, whether abroad or in the prepaid space. It’s an attractive enough phone, but the story will be whether the unsubsidized price is $400 or below. If it’s not, it’s the same sort of pricing decision as the Moto X, which I have my doubts about.
* Speaking of, Apple now joins the Moto X and Microkia/Nokiasoft on the “colorful polycarbonate” bandwagon. Nokia had a snarky tweet about this, which might have a little more cut to it if there were ever going to be another Nokia-branded smartphone, but garish plastic is apparently the new brushed metal. The premium space is shrinking, as Android turns the consumer smartphone into a commodity product, and it’ll be interesting to see whether Apple can carve a midrange niche instead of relying on the “affordable luxury” market.
* Also speaking of the Moto X, Apple’s A7 processor includes the M7 “motion coprocessor” – in short, a Fitbit in your phone. Two makes a trend: the next big thing in phones is apparently highly-specialized hardware to do one specific thing while consuming as little power as possible. In a world where phone battery technology hasn’t progressed beyond “cram a bigger battery in there” for about eight years, this may be the only way to significantly stretch battery life while still allowing always-on sensors to function.
As always, if you have last year’s new iPhone, there’s probably not enough here to justify upgrading. If you have a phone more than one version behind, you need to run right out and place your order. The jump from the 4S to the 5S is phenomenal, and I’m positive ‘er indoors will be placing an upgrade order on September 13.