iPhone 5s: Worth The Wait
Phone: check. Credit card: check. Caffeine reinforcements: check. And so goes my 4 a.m. checklist as I prepare to stand in line at AT&T for the 8 a.m. launch of the iPhone 5S. I’ve never stood in line for Apple before, but this time I saved my upgrade—in anticipation of the newest model and didn’t want to wait another day. Salesmen advised me a couple of days ago that the line would start at about midnight, so I better be early. No way was I going to spend 8 hours on the concrete, but I needn’t have worried. The weather cooperated, and a thunderstorm kept most people at home. But I still found a series of lawn chairs and even a tent outside the AT&T doors. Fortunately, a well-placed awning allows me to work as I wait, and the company of fellow tech geeks was pleasant.
At 8 a.m. sharp the doors opened, and thank goodness the store was fully staffed, because by that point the line of anxious customers wrapped around the building. Within minutes I was in and out, new iPhone in hand. And was it ever worth it. Not only is the 8mp camera incredible—complete with a fully-functional and impressive panoramic function—the Touch ID component is an exceptional example of technology with which Apple has become synonymous. The tedious task of entering a passcode to unlock the phone and make purchases on iTunes is now a thing of the past.
Most impressive, however, is the sheer speed of the operating system. iOS 7 is incredible in its own right, but the A7 chip in the 5s is remarkably faster—Apple claims twice as fast—as previous models. Who ever thought we’d get a 64-bit smartphone in such a slim design. Well, the late Steve Jobs probably did.
The sound is also more genuine. The Magic Piano app—one of my staples—sounds much more like an actual piano with its clarity and tone. And when music is played through the phones’ internal speaker… you can actually feel the bass.
It’s still too early on in my new iPhone’s life cycle to make a lot of other conclusions, but the new gadget was certainly worth waiting in the dark and rain for a few hours.
