The iPhone 5 is absolutely drool-worthy. The phone itself is 20% lighter and 18% thinner, and a screen with 44% better color saturation, representing the full color gamut. The screen is taller, too, with enough room for an extra row of app icons. Fitting all that into something even someone with small hands can use one-handed is a trick bit of engineering.
And the camera? They somehow got the same five-element, f/2.4 camera into that thinner body. I’m not certain there wasn’t a pact with Satan involved in that.
Other improvements are under the hood, like a faster and more efficient processor, and longer battery life. Plus iOS 6, which I can’t wait to install play with next week. Yes, there’s LTE.
The head-scratcher for me was the new, fifth-generation iPod Touch.
The old Touch is still available, with double last year’s starting memory (16GB) but the same price: $199. The fifth-gen model starts at $299. It has the same processor — but a much smaller screen — as the iPad 2, which sells for $399.
So where does the much-rumored iPad Mini fit in, price wise?
To make any sense at all up against iPod Touch prices, Apple would have to sell a 7.85-inch iPad mini for $350. But how much sense does that make, when an extra fifty bucks will get you a full-sized iPad 2, presumably with the exact same internals. Or if you’re just dying for a smaller tablet, for about half the price, you can say “Screw it, I’m getting a Kindle Fire.”
Today’s announcement makes the iPad Mini seem much, much less likely.
ONE MORE THING: I’m happy to report that a quick visit to the online Apple Store confirms that Tim Cook did not euthanize the ancient iPod Classic. Most people don’t need one, but we few, we happy few, we band of hoarders — nothing else will do.
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