Apple on Tuesday launched two new versions of the iPhone; the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c.
While the event in itself was underwhelming, stepping back these are our key takeaways from the launch.
Price front: Where the iPhone 5c launch is concerned, the biggest factor that everyone was discussing was the price. The hope was that Apple would finally, finally launch an iPhone that would be around the $200 price point. However in the end the price of the unlocked version of the iPhone 5c was revealed to be $549. Convert that to rupees and it's a cool Rs 35,000.The China price is around $700 for the iPhone 5c, again much, much higher than what many had hoped.
Many users and tech critics rightly point out that the iPhone 5c is nothing more than a revamped iPhone 5 with a plastic polycarbonate body and that Apple hasn't really lowered the margins it would make on the phone. Colourful is great but the unlocked price seems too high for many users right now.
Apple's new iPhone 5c is at best going to be a mid-range phone. It's clear that Apple is definitely not catering to the sub $100 price-point which many analysts believe is going to be the key in growing markets like India and China.
Conversely, Apple's strategy makes sense given that even when the company had one new phone to offer that is the iPhone 5, it was selling well over 31.2 million phones. For Apple, the iPhone 4S continues to be its biggest success.In short, Apple isn't pandering to the masses and it has numbers to support its strategy.
Innovation:Apple is synonymous with innovation. You can't deny that the original iPhone was a revolutionary product which completely changed the smartphone form and experience factor when it was launched in 2007.
Suddenly smartphones were about more than just the ability to send emails as Apple made it all about the apps. Let's not forget that the Android army followed the iPhones and that a lot of the initial.
But with the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c launch, you can't help but ask where is that innovation. Other than a fingerprint scanner, the only thing new the iPhone 5s has to offer is a better camera (thanks to a bigger sensor) and a slightly bumped up processor.
Also as this post points out the 64-bit architecture only works when you have the apps to support it. For a company that launched a voice assistant Siri in 2011, the iPhone 5s doesn't really offer anything new.
The fingerprint scanner of course allows users to scan their fingerprint unlock the phone, make app purchases via the Touch ID as Apple is calling it. Apple has also said that third-party apps will not have access to the new Touch ID API. It's great that Apple is offering a new mode of security for users and that is an important concern, given that people are relying more and more on their mobiles for banking, email, social interaction, etc.
Incidentally, it needs to be highlighted, Apple is not the first company to launch a smartphone with a fingerprint scanner. Motorola's Atrix 4G had this feature two years ago.
The question remains has Apple offered something really new with the iPhone 5s on the innovation front. The answer is still no. The expectations from Apple are too high, and then of course, there's the general feeling that the smartphone innovation front has stagnated.
iPhone 5c is really iPhone 5:Apple might not say it out loud but everyone is thinking this. The iPhone 5 has been discontinued which is surprising given that last September Apple was claiming that "it's the best thing to have happened to the iPhone since the iPhone."
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