Each successive Apple iPhone that rolls out is a nipped and tucked offshoot of the previous model – with modifications that keep getting more and more sophisticated. However, in its fifth installment, is the iPhone 5 merely a retouched version of its predecessor?

What’s New

At 7.6mm, Apple’s new baby is the world’s thinnest smartphone. And if you thought the 960×640 resolution of the iPhone 4 didn’t play up the subtleties in your photos and videos quite enough, the newcomer’s 4-inch screen features a 1136×640 resolution Retina display. Each pixel doubles as a touch-sensing electrode, a departure from the double-layered touch screens of old that feature touch sensors below the pixel display. It is this clever quirk that enables the iPhone 5 to weigh a wispy 112 grams.

The A6 chip and iOS 6 mobile operating system join forces to deliver “twice the CPU and graphics performance,” claims the press release. Always striving to be superlative, Apple has created the first smartphone with LTE wireless capabilities, which support speeds of up to 150Mbps – a godsend for those who enjoy streaming movies on the go.

Critics have marveled at the ‘Panorama’ feature of the gadget’s 8 megapixel iSight camera, which “stitches” sequences of shots together to form a 240 degree photograph by swiping the phone across a scene. Furthermore, the camera’s sapphire crystal lens is more scratch-resistant and dust-deflecting than the iPhone 4’s standard glass lens. The 1.2 megapixel front-facing FaceTime camera is supported by cellular wideband audio that cancels background noise for clearer video calls.

Apple has bumped off Google Maps, supplanting it for software of its own that features real-time traffic data and turn-by-turn navigation. 3D rendering of major cities and tourism hotbeds is, for the most part, reliable; however, picture quality tends to deviate as users navigate away from these sites.

What the World Says

Despite Apple’s uncanny ability to stretch the iPhone’s product life cycle, technology experts are divided between the impressed and the skeptical. As the first iPhone to feature a 4G network, the iPhone 5 is “playing catch-up with other smartphones on the market,” according to David Bottomley, Business Editor of TODAY. The Economist rates the iPhone 5 a “five out of ten,” dismissing its new advances as “incremental changes.”

The new ‘Lightning’ dock connector has also caused considerable contention, as it renders the charging cables, car adapters and docks of previous models incompatible – unless users purchase the cable or plug adapter for $39 and $29 respectively. “These adapters should not be a profit center for Apple; they should be a gesture of kindness to those of us who’ve bought accessories based on the old connector,” wrote David Pogue in The New York Times.

These minor grievances notwithstanding, analysts have predicted sales of 10-12 million units this September, with stocks for online preorders having depleted within the hour of its 12:01am opening on September 14.

Should users of the iPhone 4 switch to the iPhone 5?

Apple idolaters will no doubt trade their iPhone 4 for the newbie – by no means a shortchange – however, those who watched Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live may hesitate. ABC crew took to the streets to ask passersby to test the “new iPhone 5.” Subjects were handed the iPhone 4S, presumed to be the iPhone 5, and asked to compare. Not one person surmised the hoax. “Oh my God, it feels a lot lighter and more high quality!” one man enthused. Three others made remarks about its “superior” speed. One woman took out her iPhone 4, held it up next to the fake iPhone and nodded. “Yeah, that one’s definitely faster.”

While the spoof may have been a hilarious TV moment, audiences began to realize how media hype and trendsetting informs much of Apple’s brand loyalty. In a move that might seem self-effacing, Apple is enabling the iOS 6, the operating system which distinguishes the iPhone 5, to be downloaded for free onto previous models of the iPhone.

The iPhone 5 retails in the USA, UK and Canada on September 21.

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Tucker, Georgia, U.S.A. – With the launch of Gas Guru from YP, those on the go have a new companion when trying to find cheap gas and other necessities while on the road. Whether on a daily commute or summer road trip, the free mobile app can help users save money and sanity, by powering quick decisions about where to fuel up or make a pit stop for everything from coffee to a cash machine.

Rising gas prices are a pain at the pump, but finding fuel isn’t the only headache. Many apps for hitting the road are limited to information on gas prices and forget about all the stops in between. The time, gas and money wasted while circling around searching for cheap gas, a quick bite on the way home or an auto shop can add up. This is why Gas Guru is a must download.

App features make navigating everyday, on-the-go needs quick and easy:

The app can help find cheap gas nearby at a glance. Unlike other apps that simply list gas prices, Gas Guru calculates and highlights the best prices at stations nearby. Users can see prices by gas grade in either map or list view. No more filling the tank and discovering afterward that you could have saved a couple of bucks down the road.

The app will also compare gas prices at frequent locations. Gas Guru can be personalized to save locations like “home,” “work” or other favorite places, to easily compare the latest prices with a flick of the finger and quickly decide whether to fuel up now or later.

Daily detours are also quick and easy. Find restaurants, coffee, auto repair, roadside assistance, or ATMs nearby with a single tap. Search results are displayed alongside gas stations making it easy to lay out a plan for your stops. Call or get directions to your selected destinations.

“We developed Gas Guru to address a clear need for a mobile companion to make decisions about roadside necessities easier,” said David Williams, vice president of product management at YP. “Since we added a gas price feature to our flagship YP local search app last year, we’ve seen triple digit search growth for not only gas prices, but auto-related categories overall. This new purpose-based app expands our local search insights and technology platform to address the unique needs of those on the go.

Smartphone users, download the free location-based app from Google Play or iTunes.

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Apple has officially announced its latest iPhone and it’s not an iPhone 5. The latest upgrade to the iPhone family has been dubbed the iPhone4S. The highly anticipated announcement came on October 4^th from Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California in front of a packed auditorium full of high level executives and members of the press.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, was the first of several Apple executives to address the eager crowd.  Cook’s portion of the presentation was a bit lackluster it focused mainly on the history of Apple since introducing the iPod 10 years ago, public reaction to the launch of Lion OS X, and the integration of iPads in educational and workplace settings.

It was a testament to how far Apple has come in such a brief time span; while truly extraordinary this was not the  story people were interested in. Cook’s presentation was oddly void of anything iPhone related, with the exception of an off the cuff hint that iPhone news would come later in the presentation.

The logical guess would be that Cook in his first keynote address as CEO would deliver news of a new iPhone. However Cook threw a curve ball and deferred to Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of worldwide product marketing, to usher in the iPhone 4S. Schiller, a regular presenter at Apple keynote addresses, very subtly broke into the new iPhone news after reeling off some updates about the iPod Nano and iPod Touch.

There were several new but otherwise bland features introduced for iPhone 4S they included an 8 megapixel camera, 1080p filming capability, and inclusion of the A5 processing iPad2 chip into the iPhone. Each new feature is a technological step in the right direction, but none are close to being “blow-away”, the term used by Apple presenters several times during the presentation.

There were some more impressive upgrades as well, including a new antenna system which intelligently switches between two built-in transmitters to optimize call quality and data transfer speeds, boasting faster download and upload speeds on par with 4G, and the inclusion of CDMA and GSM chips which allows the 4S to be compatible on all networks across the globe making it a “world” phone.

Even these failed to possesses that familiar Apple wow factor that leaves you wondering how in the world did they do that. With the iPhone 4s presentation coming to a close, Apple had one last chance to blow our collective minds. The job of showstopper was left up to the highly rumored voice recognition feature, Siri.

Siri is being marketed as having your very own interactive intelligent personal assistant in the palm of your hand. Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iOS Software, demoed the new feature by saying, “What’s the weather like today?” and Siri spoke the current forecast in Cupertino; this garnered a huge applause from the crowd.

Even more impressive than being able to tell you the weather Siri can compose and dictate email, set timers, look up contacts, create notes, search the web, and search Wikipedia. Siri is definitely an impressive feature, but at the same time it’s not Apple jaw dropping impressive.

It’s destined to be a feature that it is cool for a while, but not one that makes scores of people camp outside of Apple stores the week before launch. The iPhone 4S will be available for pre-order on October 7^th and hit retail stores on October 14^th. It will be available in black and white, 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. It will also be available on AT&T, Verizon, and for the first time Sprint.

This puts some validation in reports made by the Wall Street Journal that Sprint purchased 30 million iPhones over the next four years. It is interesting to note that Cook shied away from former Apple CEO’s Steve Jobs trademark “One More Thing” statement, a move that is being preemptively being dubbed the “Cook-tease”.

Who knows, maybe this keynote was one big Cook-tease for what we really want, an iPhone 5.

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Apple may finally reveal the much talked about iPhone 5 to the world on October 4^th. Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple, has sent out cryptic invites for members of the press to join him at the Cupertino campus for an iPhone event.  The simple message showed four iPhone app icons one with the date set for October 4^th, one with the time 10:00 A.M. PST, one with a pin on a map hovering over the Apple campus, and the phone icon, with the red number one.

The widespread belief among the tech world is that the conference will be the arena for the announcement of the iPhone 5 due to compiling evidence.  Apple has a steady track record of announcing new iPhones at conferences held in their Cupertino campus. A few weeks ago former Vice President Al Gore, a board member for Apple, let slip that Apple would be releasing iPhones in October.

Some stake has been put into Gore’s comments because it was dropped on stage during a plan speech followed by the line, “…that was a plug.” An internal document from Best Buy was leaked on to the net in early September and revealed, “iPhone 5 product introduction expected, pre-sales begin for expected October week 1 launch.”

The October 4^th announcement date would coincide with October 14^th predictions form the tech world; Apple has consistently had a launch date “a few weeks from now” when revealing an iPhone. The last bit of evidence is that sources from inside Apple report that employee vacation time has been blacked out from October 9-12 and October 14-15.

This insinuates that something big is happening at Apple and needs all hands on deck. However there is speculation that this invite could not be about the crown jewel the iPhone 5, and more to do with presenting new speech-based features for the iPhone.

Apple acquired voice-based personal assistant service, Siri, about 18 months ago, and hasn’t developed anything with that acquisition that the public has access to yet. Also the tag-line that came with the invite “Let’s talk iphone” could be a play on words. Instead of meaning let’s talk about iPhones, it could translate into having a conversation with your iPhone to access several features.

If the iPhone 5 is announced at the upcoming conference, Cook needs to have an ace up his sleeve if wants to wow the crowd like his predecessor Steve Jobs. A lot of upgrades and changes have already been predicted and seem expected such as a higher resolution 8 megapixel camera, the installation of the faster processing A5 chip, a thinner and tapered body, and the ability to access 4G networks.

Whatever is eventually launched at this event, one thing is certain: the whole world will be watching. If only our current iPhones could predict the future and tell us. Unfortunately there’s no app for that, yet.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub/

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