Apple iPhone 5S price & release date
As the year draws on there is an inevitably significant amount of debate and discussion surrounding the arrival of Apple’s next flagship handset. From the iPhone 5S price to the release date and the specs, so much speculation and conjecture is circulating that finding reliable facts can be difficult.
So will what the new iPhone 2013 has to offer be an iterative upgrade to the iPhone 5, or will we be getting a new iPhone 6 with a completely altered design and specification? At the moment only Apple and its manufacturing partners know the answers to these questions, but it is still possible to construct a decent assessment of what to expect from the seventh-gen iPhone.
Release date
Some media observers are convinced that Apple is going to launch the iPhone 5S during the World Wide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) this summer, although the more likely launch and release window will fall in the early autumn. Both the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5 arrived in the latter half of the year and it seems unlikely that Apple will break this cycle and announce the iPhone 5S at an early stage. To do so would be to render the iPhone 5 obsolete before it had enjoyed a full year, and although it did this with the iPad 3 this was probably an anomaly rather than a new trend for the company. Optimistic estimations put the launch for the iPhone 5S between August and September, although you might have to wait until October or November before it actually goes on sale.
Apple iPhone 5S price
As with the iPhone 5S release date, predicting the price is relatively tricky and requires quite a bit of guesswork, although you can use Apple’s previous activities as a guide.
The iPhone range has always been targeted at the top end of the mobile market, with prices to match.
Since the iPhone 5 costs a little over 500 for the base model, it is safe to assume that a similar price will be applied to its successor. There have been suggestions that Apple might be upping the price of the next iPhone based on the fact that new technologies will be found on board. However, until the manufacturer gives the final word on this topic, it is only possible to guess at its intentions.
Another factor depending upon the Apple iPhone 5S price may be the launch of a budget iPhone Mini. The release of a cheaper Apple smartphone would allow two tier pricing and the iPhone 5S flagship to remain at a premium cost.
Specs of the next iPhone
If the iPhone 5S is an incremental update to the iPhone 5, then it will probably stick with the same four inch Retina Display of its predecessor and perhaps include a faster processor and a little more RAM to help boost performance. It is expected that its designers will add a 13 megapixel camera to the latest Apple iPhone to usurp the eight megapixel snapper which has long since been superseded by rival devices. There are also rumours that the iPhone 5S will come with an NFC (near field communications) chip included, which will make it possible for users to carry out contactless payments when they are out and about. Some industry insiders have suggested that the iPhone 5S might even have twice the number of pixels packed into its screen to help it compete with the 1080p panels which are gracing phones like the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4. But this might be something that will be held back until the iPhone 6 lands in 2014. Apple still needs to convince fans that it is capable of really innovating in the smartphone market, because for the past few years it has increasingly looked like it is playing catch-up to its rivals rather than leading the field.
The iPhone 5S definitely has potential, but you could argue that the more exciting arrival anticipated this year will be that of recently announced iOS 7 at WWDC. Apple’s updated mobile platform, which is backwards compatible from the iPhone 5 onwards, could help to fight off the Android hordes. For those not comfortable with the new iPhone 5S price, iOS 7 will breathe fresh life into existing Apple smartphones.