After a year full of rumors and speculation, the next iPhone is finally here.
iPhone mania is that majestic time of year when giddy Apple fans, young and old, join together to stand outside of a store just to be the first to hold one of Apple’s coveted flagship devices. The idea of sacrificing your well-earned sleep to participate in one of these ridiculous events is reserved only for those who have terrible priorities and basically no life…
So there I was standing outside of the Apple store at 7 a.m. last Friday waiting to get my hands on the new iPhone 5s. It has become a bit of a tradition of my friends and I to do this every two years once our cell phone contracts are up. Sure, we could just preorder our phones, go to a local AT&T store or even go later on in the day since Apple keeps a decent stock of phones on launch day, but what’s the fun in that?
This year, Apple threw consumers a curveball by releasing two iPhones instead of one. The iPhone 5c is the first model of its kind, using basically the same hardware as the iPhone 5, only with a new colorful plastic back instead of glass. This review, however, is not about the 5c-which is still a great phone (but hey, I’m not made of money).
Two years of saving up gave me a wallet big enough to get my hands on the new big daddy of iPhones, a 32-gigabyte, space gray iPhone 5s and the subject of this Nicholls Worth-exclusive hands-on review.

Design

At first glance, the 5s looks almost identical to its predecessor with only a slightly lighter aluminum accent. Coming from a 4s, which uses glass on the front and back panels, this phone feels abnormally lightweight even with a case on it. While a lighter phone is certainly good for carrying and protecting from fall damage, I can’t help but see myself forgetting it in the pocket of my jeans and well-you know what I’m getting at. I personally love this design, and I hope that the iPhone 6, which will come out a year from now, does not stray too far away from it. iPhone 5 users that made the switch may be disappointed that the phone does not look much different, but trust me when I say the lack of physical design changes is more than made up for by the new features and performance improvements of this model.

Performance

Apple set the bar in cellular processing power when it introduced the new A7 chip, the first smartphone processor with 64-bit support. Apple claims that this doubles the CPU and GPU performance from the iPhone 5. The phone also includes a second processor called the M7, which processes all gyroscopic and motion data separately from the main processor, in theory, saving battery and shortening lag times. As a whole, the iPhone 5s is very smooth and fast with little to no lag. Granted, I upgraded from a 4s, so it didn’t take much to make me feel this phone was fast, but I’m sure the new chipset on the 5s will be fresh even for iPhone 5 upgraders.
Also in the performance category is cellular signal. One of the most underrated improvements that went almost unnoticed in this generation of iPhones is the 5s’ global LTE support. This gives the 5s access to high-speed cellular networks across the globe, even for us Nicholls Students here in South Louisiana. So far, I have had no issues with service on my new phone. If I don’t have Wi-Fi, I have LTE, and if I don’t have LTE, I have 4G. What more can you ask for in a smart phone?
The Fingerprint Scanner & Touch ID

The iPhone 3G had application support, the 3Gs had a video camera, the 4 had retina display, the 4S had Siri, the 5 had a larger screen and now the 5s has a fingerprint scanner. This was Apple’s latest gimmick in the new line of iPhones and the main reason most people wanted the 5s over the 5C. I’ll admit I was worried about the fingerprint scanner being inaccurate, unreliable and overall annoying, but it is actually quite the opposite.
Using the scanner is literally as easy as resting your finger or thumb on the home button. Within a fraction of a second, your finger is scanned, and your phone is unlocked. It is also very accurate with only an occasional mishap from poor finger placement. Other than that, the scanner works fast and relatively unnoticed, which is great.
The 5s allows you to record up to five fingers to unlock your phone. Once you set up Touch ID, you can use your fingerprint to unlock your phone from the lock screen or even to make purchases through the App Store and iTunes. At the same time, if for some reason you ever can’t unlock your phone with Touch ID, you can always go the old-fashioned way and swipe your phone and type your passcode to unlock it.
Now for those of you with your tin-foil caps on, worried that your fingerprint will be stored on some CIA server, the fingerprint scanner is far more complex than a simple picture of your finger or thumb. The image taken from the scanner is then converted to a digital signature (aka numbers) and stored in one specific section of the A7 chip. Apple assures users that fingerprint data will never be moved or shared anywhere other than on the phone.

The Camera

This year, Apple began running an ad on TV about the iPhone’s camera and the phrase “more people take pictures on the iPhone than any other smartphone.” Apple has always made sure to use good but simple cameras without overdoing it. Compared to its Windows and Android counterparts, the eight-megapixel iSight camera falls short in power, but it still remains a very sufficient camera for both casual and serious photographers on the go.
The camera has several new features both in iOS 7 and as 5s-exclusives-the first of which is the new burst mode. Burst mode allows the camera to take up to 10 images per second and then stores those photos in one stack on the camera roll. Users can then choose their favorite photos from that stack. As a sufferer from shaky-hand-syndrome, I love this feature because it allows me to take all of my many retakes at once rather than separately.
Another 5s-exclusive camera feature is the Slo-Mo setting. This setting shoots video in 120 frames-per-second, allowing for crystal-clear actions shots. The first thing I think of when I see the viewfinder on this setting is one
of those new 3D TVs.
One of the only cosmetic changes to the 5s, is the addition of a dual-LED flash called True Tone. The new setup uses a white and amber flash that the phone uses to determine the ambient color temperature and choose the intensity in which to shoot both flashes. This gives images more natural colors, regardless of the subject.
Finally, the FaceTime HD front-facing camera received an upgrade for the iPhone 5s. This camera is still a 1.2-megapixel shooter capable of 720p video, but the new version has an updated sensor designed to capture light better than before.

Conclusion

The iPhone 5s has had a lot of build-up over the past year. Rumors ran wild and amateur concept art flooded the web with speculation on how this phone would look and function. We now have that phone, and it is exactly what I hoped it would be. The iPhone 5s is a breath of fresh air both cosmetically for 4s users and internally for iPhone 5 users who dealt with the few quirks and hiccups of the last phone. All I can say is Apple has made a buyer out of me once again with this new phone, and you bet I’ll be back hanging out outside the store at the crack of dawn two years from now.