iPhone 5

HTC one vs iPhone 5. A Comparison.

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http://www.knowyourmobile.com/comparisons/1817486/htc_one_vs_iphone_5.html

Why Apple Made Three iPhone 5 Models and What That Means For You.

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Apple has finally made its latest iPhone compatible with LTE networks. But it’s not all good news for the company’s customers. Due to 4G LTE fragmentation, Apple has had to make three different models of the iPhone 5. Where the iPhone 4S was a dual GSM/CDMA device, meaning one model for all carriers, the LTE-enabled iPhone 5 comes in two separate GSM models and one CDMA model. This means that consumers will have fewer choices when switching carriers, and that LTE access will be limited when traveling abroad.

Since carriers utilize different radio frequencies (also known as frequency bands) for LTE service, Apple has had to diversify its iPhone 5 portfolio. This largely has to do with the fact that 4G LTE is still in the early stages of development, compared to more mature networks like 2G and 3G. It’s a messy situation that Android handset makers like Samsung and HTC have been dealing with when it comes to their 4G LTE devices. For example, the Samsung Galaxy SIII comes in nine model variants, five of which are specific to North American carriers.

The three iPhone 5 models include: GSM model A1428 that supports LTE Bands 4 and 17; GSM model A1429 that supports LTE Bands 1, 3, and 5; and CDMA model A1429 that supports LTE Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, and 25.

In layman’s terms, this means an iPhone 5 user who wanted to jump from, say, AT&T to Verizon or vice versa, would have to buy a new handset, since AT&T runs a GSM network and Verizon is CDMA. And where owners of GSM handsets previously enjoyed wide compatibility with foreign networks, LTE fragmentation means that AT&T customers using an iPhone 5 in Europe, for example, won’t be able to take advantage of LTE speeds while abroad and will instead get kicked down to the 3G network.

“With 2G, pretty much everything has matured to use four main frequency bands,” IHS analyst Francis Sideco told Wired. “And the components have matured enough so there are a lot of multiband components out there. 3G is in a similar state, where the bands are known and components are becoming more integrated with multiband capability…. When we get to LTE, neither one of those things is true. The bands that are being selected by operators globally have not coalesced, nor are the components mature enough where they are integrating to the same degree as far as multiband capability.”

The GSM A1428 model appears to be made specifically for AT&T, which is the only carrier that uses both LTE Bands 4 and 17. It will also support T-Mobile’s U.S. LTE network as well as several Canadian networks. But don’t expect any LTE service outside of North America — currently no carriers in other countries use Bands 4 or 17. Even though GSM networks are more common worldwide, this particular iPhone 5 model is not a global phone when it comes to LTE support. Instead, Apple has opted to make a second GSM model for other countries. Model A1429 supports the three more common LTE Bands in places like Asia and Europe, but none for North America use.

The CDMA phone, however, is more of a global device. It supports the same three LTE bands as the non-U.S. GSM phone, as well as the two main bands used by U.S. carriers Verizon and Sprint. Another benefit to the CDMA phone is that it supports GSM/EDGE radio frequencies, while the GSM phones do not support CDMA frequencies. Unfortunately, that GSM support is limited to international use for stateside customers. What is oddly missing from all three phones is LTE support for a large portion of Western Europe, which uses LTE Band 7.

When asked why Apple chose to make two GSM phones, instead of one that could work globally with LTE networks, Sideco pointed to the bands each of the phones supports. It could be that there are no multiband components for AT&T frequencies (Bands 4 and 17), while there were for Verizon and Sprint’s LTE networks. We won’t, however, know for sure until we get a peek inside the iPhone 5 models.

“After we’ve done a teardown and know exactly which companies have been used for the different models, we’ll actually be able to provide more insight to what might have driven these decisions,” Sideco said. “It could come from many different factors.”

Source: wired.com

The iPhone 5 Is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring.

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The iPhone 5 is the greatest phone in the world. It has top-notch hardware with a zippy new A6 processor and amazing four-inch display. Its new operating system, iOS 6, is slicker than slugs on ice. And its ultra-slim body, an all-glass and aluminum enclosure, is a triumph of industrial design. There is nothing not to like about the phone. It’s aces. Just aces.

And yet it is also so, so cruelly boring.

Yes, it’s better than the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 4 or just about any other phone you can buy. It’s faster with a bigger screen and an LTE antenna so you can suck up data from your carrier like Michael Phelps at a table full of pizza. But mostly it is the Toyota Prius of phone updates. It is an amazing triumph of technology that gets better and better, year after year, and yet somehow is every bit as exciting as a 25 mph drive through a sensible neighborhood at a reasonable time of day. It’s not going to change your life. It’s not even going to offer a radically different experience.

It’s a weird paradox. The iPhone 5 can simultaneously be the best phone on the market and really, really boring. And that has almost nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with our expectations.

Apple slapped us in the face with the original versions of the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air. Hell, even the iMac was mind-blowing when it came out in 1998. No cables to connect! You just plugged it in! And it was blue! BLUUUUUUUUUUEEE!

And for some time, there was a real sense that Apple was always going to blow our minds. When Steve Jobs premiered the iPhone in 2007, it was like tasting chocolate for the very first time. The iPad — enormous iPhone though it may have been — was another epic adventure. And within a few short years, Apple became the Simon Bolivar of technology companies, rolling out revolution after revolution after revolution, leaving the public sticking out our arms for more. Just. One. More. Thing. Please!

But the thing is, Apple never just casually moves on to the next thing. It doesn’t Sony-up and release new products for the sake of releasing them. Instead, it keeps its product line focused, and meticulously refines it year after year, making everything a little bit better. Which means by four or five generations in, especially when it comes to industrial design, Apple’s products tend to hit a sweet spot, where changing them isn’t going to improve them. It might even make them worse. (Hello, third-generation iPod shuffle.)

Without emergent inexpensive technologies to force or enable industrial design changes (think: the way cheap flash memory changed the iPod’s design or SSD made possible the MacBook Air) Apple has little reason to shake things up once it has a product really nailed down. With the iPhone, in its sixth iteration, things have gotten so good that Apple does not change very much anymore. And so you get the iPhone 5 — which basically looks like a longer, thinner version of the iPhone 4.

And, for that matter, it looks a lot like other phones from other manufacturers too.

To a large extent, Apple design fatigue can also be blamed on Apple’s competitors. Everyone copies Apple. MacBook Air knockoffs are so commonplace that they have become an entire product category in the ultrabook. I mean, Christ, have you seen the new HP Spectre One? It’s possible that you have but just didn’t realize it because it looks exactly like an iMac. And for that matter, basically every phone and tablet in Samsung’s lineup, and a whole heck of a lot of HTC models, bear a, er, striking resemblance.

And then there’s this: Maybe smartphones themselves are becoming boring. We’ve seen the future, and it’s glass and watches and augmented reality and all manner of other devices. The most purely exciting phone right now is the new Nokia Lumia 920 (in yellow!), both because it’s such a departure from the iPhone and (let’s be honest here) because Nokia is in disastrous trouble (next stop RIM-ville), and Windows Phone is its last best bet–other than going back to pulping paper and making tires.

But at least Nokia’s Windows Phone has a narrative and an identity. The iPhone no longer really has either, other than being the best.

Apple is going to shake things up again. It’s likely going to do something amazing in the home entertainment space. It would be great to see it getting into car dashboards or connected home devices–the Internet of iThings would probably be pretty rad.

But the iPhone? It’s boring. And it’s probably going to remain that way for the foreseeable future. It’s not bad, it’s just the march of time and technology. Revolution becomes evolution. And that phone in your pocket–or more to the point, in the store window–becomes just a part of your life. It’s something you use, something you rely on. And then completely forget about. And in its own way, that’s actually kind of mind-blowing.

Source: wired.com