Description

• Touch ID: your fingerprint, your iPhone

  You check your iPhone dozens and dozens of times a day, probably more. Entering a passcode each time just slows you down. But you do it because making sure no one else has access to your iPhone is important. With iPhone 5s, getting into your phone is faster, easier, and even a little futuristic. Touch ID is a fingerprint identity sensor. Put your finger on the Home button, and just like that your iPhone unlocks. It's a convenient and highly secure way to access your phone. Your fingerprint can also approve purchases from iTunes Store, the App Store, and the iBooks Store, so you don't have to enter your password. And Touch ID is capable of 360-degree readability. Which means no matter what its orientation - portrait, landscape, or anything in between - your iPhone reads your fingerprint and knows who you are. And because Touch ID lets you enroll multiple fingerprints, it knows the people you trust, too.

• A7 chip: the first 64-bit smartphone in the world

  There's fast. And then there's A7 fast. The A7 chip gives you CPU and graphics performance up to 2x faster than the A6 chip. Even more impressive, A7 makes iPhone 5s the first 64-bit smartphone in the world - that's desktop-class architecture in a superslim phone. And because iOS 7 was built specifically for 64-bit, it's uniquely designed to take advantage of the A7 chip. A7 supports OpenGL ES version 3.0 to deliver the kind of detailed graphics and complex visual effects once possible only on Mac computers, PCs, and gaming consoles. The difference is amazing. Take the imaginary worlds in games, for instance. Textures and shadows look more true to life. Sunlight reflects off the water. The whole experience feels much more realistic. iOS 7 and all the built-in apps are optimized for the A7 chip. The Camera app is a great example. It takes advantage of a new image signal processor built into A7 to give you up to 2x faster autofocus, faster photo capture, and higher video frame rates.

• M7 coprocessor

  The M7 coprocessor is like a sidekick to the A7 chip. It's designed specifically to measure motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass - a task that would normally fall to the A7 chip. But M7 is much more efficient at it. Now fitness apps that track physical activity can access that data from the M7 coprocessor without constantly engaging the A7 chip. So they require less battery power. M7 knows when you're walking, running, or even driving. For example, Maps switches from driving to walking turn-by-turn navigation if, say, you park and continue on foot. Since M7 can tell when you're in a moving vehicle, iPhone 5s won't ask you to join Wi-Fi networks you pass by. And if your phone hasn't moved for a while, like when you're asleep, M7 reduces network pinging to spare your battery.

• iSight camera

  iPhone 5s features advanced technologies custom designed for the iSight camera's hardware and software. So anyone anywhere can take an amazing photo at any time. It simply makes more sense to teach iPhone how to take a great picture rather than teach people how to be expert photographers.

• FaceTime HD camera

  When you can't be there in person, you can at least be there onscreen. Share some good news with your best friend or say "good night" to a traveling loved one with a FaceTime video call. The FaceTime HD camera on iPhone 5s features larger pixels and an improved backside illumination sensor, so your smile lights up the room in almost any light. And because you can make audio-only FaceTime calls in iOS 7, your tête-à-tête doesn't have to be face-to-face.

• Before you build to a higher standard, you have to set a few

  iPhone 5 set a precedent. Apple engineers and designers managed to compress first-of-their-kind technologies inside a space that's a mere 7.6 millimeters thin and 112 grams light. A feat like that required designing or redesigning multiple components. And it resulted in an incredibly thin, impressively light, extraordinarily powerful smartphone. After coming so far with iPhone 5, it was a perfect place to start with iPhone 5s. And while the engineering challenge was significant, Apple succeeded in adding more to it without making iPhone 5s bigger or heavier.

• Improve performance without sacrificing battery life

  Noticeably faster performance and graphics that feel more true to life. That's the perennial goal when creating a new mobile chip. But performance shouldn't come at the expense of efficiency. Poor battery life for the sake of speed is never an option with iPhone. Which is why Apple engineered an all-new chip and an all-new coprocessor for iPhone 5s: A7 and M7. The A7 chip is designed around 64-bit architecture - a first for any smartphone. The move to 64-bit has been years in the making. But Apple did it because they wanted to put desktop-class processing power in the palm of people's hands. Just imagining what people will do with that made the decision to invest in it an easy one. The A7 chip gives iPhone 5s the power it needs for all the capabilities it now possesses. It's up to 2x faster than the previous generation in both CPU and graphics performance. It has an all-new image signal processor. Yet with all these performance enhancements, A7 is still energy efficient. The M7 coprocessor is designed to make iPhone 5s even more efficient. It offloads work from the A7 chip by collecting motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass. Apps can then use this data without constantly engaging the A7 chip. Because M7 is engineered for this specific task, it uses significantly less power than A7 would require. So again, battery life is spared.

Specifications