iPhone 5s review: Apple shows its touch

Apple did it differently this time: it released two phones, not just one. In a world where Samsung seems to release that many each week, and Chinese makers of low-cost Android phones are scrambling over each other for scraps of market share, Apple takes what you could call a stately approach to this "release" stuff.

Even so, notice what it hasn't done. The screens aren't bigger. There's little concession to cost. And, in fact, there are plenty of people in line for upgrades, or who are still using phones of all sorts whose screens are smaller than the 4in of the iPhone 5, 5c and 5s - just look around. For them, Apple has something to lure them: fast connections, a simple interface, and really great usability.

iPhone 5s

Apple calls this its "most forward-looking" phone. What's it got to offer? A 64-bit dual-core chip, a fingerprint reader that really works, a much better camera (and dual flash) and an intriguing coprocessor - apparently for motion detection.

Unlike the iPhone 5c, the 5s (the "s" for sensors, apparently) is the same template as the iPhone 5: metal, chamfered edges. It's not on sale in black - possibly because that colour shows up every little ding - but instead in "gold", silver and "space grey". There are pricey leather cases, though I don't think they add anything useful.

As with the 5c, the 5s does all the LTE bands. Depending what you do with it, you can get even better battery life than the 5c - the M7 coprocessor can take over from the A7 CPU if it's sitting motionless with no wireless networks in sight. (Which usually means it's in, say, a metal locker or similar Faraday cage.)

Charging is rapid - I've been very impressed by this aspect of the iPhone. Given that its normal battery life, if you use it intensively for a few hours a day, is 16 hours at best, being able to pick up quick charges makes a big difference. And to those who say "replaceable batteries!" I say "external power packs", such as the Mophie Juice range.

My finger is on the button

It's the fingerprints, isn't it? You wanted to know if the fingerprints work, and whether they're beamed back to the NSA.

First of all: training the phone to accept a fingerprint is a doddle. It takes about 30 seconds of pressing your digit onto the home button in various orientations before you're declared a signed-up user. You can enrol up to five prints, and delete them as you like.

If like me you've got a long passcode protecting your phone (a four-digit passcode isn't really enough; every extra digit makes cracking it ten times slower), then unlocking it quickly becomes tedious - moreso when you hurry and miss a digit. (Though iOS 7's use of the whole screen for the unlock buttons, compared to iOS 6's half-screen, makes miscues less common.)

The fingerprint unlock? It just works. Again and again. Wake the phone up with a press of the home button, then rest your finger on it, wait a second - and you're in. I've tried fingerprint scanners on desktop computers (see my review of the Eikon "Digital Privacy Manager" review from May 2008). They were frustrating - always in the way. Apple has the advantage of faster processors, but even so the simplicity of this feature is remarkable. And Touch ID is just a brief obstacle.

Now, to address our post-Snowden paranoia, is the NSA able to reach in and grab your fingerprints? A first question might be "why would it want to, when you leave your fingerprints all over the place, and gave them to US border control if you visited it in the past decade?" But on the basis that it just might, what's stored is an encrypted hash of a mathematical representation of your prints; it's retained in what Apple calls a "Secure Enclave" of the chip. Apple says that isn't backed up or sent off the device. As a colleague remarked, if Apple had introduced this six months ago, everyone would have been cooing; now, everyone cooks up conspiracy theories.

It's notable how none of those have attached to Android's own biometric system, Face Unlock, which apparently can be fooled with a picture from Facebook. "That's because nobody uses it," came a suggestion from Twitter. By contrast, people will use Touch ID. A lot. Some have indicated that that's why they're getting the 5s over the 5c.

It's supremely convenient, and I suspect that once Apple feels that people have regained confidence in these systems, it will become available to more payment methods than just its own App Store. (You can buy iTunes and App Store content, though I wasn't able to do this; Apple said it was a bug in a pre-production product.)

I do expect that we'll see companies trying to imitate this in the near future (LG put out a phone with a fingerprint reader recently; not much has been heard). Then we'll realise just how well Apple has set this up.

64-bit?

This question has been dealt with elsewhere. Clearly, Apple sees a need to move in that direction, rather than to more cores (the A7 is dual-core; Samsung is offering eight-core 32-bit phones).

Camera: a big step forward

The Camera app is designed for the Instagram generation (there are filters galore), but also adds two extra elements. Last year gave us Panorama (now available throughout Android). Now there's "Burst mode" for stills, where you hold the shutter button and get 10 frames per second. Let go, and you're presented with the phone's choice of the best picture. (Though the other shots are still there in its library, and can be retrieved for selection.) It's good at this. Compare it to other smartphone cameras, where you have to wade through a gigantic menu of never-used options, and you can see Apple has this right. (Motorola's MotoX also has this feature - which is laudable.)

There's also a dual LED flash, offering two colours, which are mixed to balance against the prevailing lighting - so if you're under fluorescent light, it will add more yellow to give a better white balance.

Here's the 5c photo (no dual flash):

And here's the 5s photo (with dual flash)

No other top-end smartphone has this, though Samsung's new Galaxy Note 3 phablet does.

On the video camera, you can swipe to a setting where you shoot slo-mo video at 120 frames per second: the editing process is simple (you drag some sliders around the point you want to be slowed). Again, it's not the first to offer slo-mo; but it is to make it simple to enable and edit. This, and the Burst mode, are where those who complain that Apple offers "limited" functionality miss the point. There's no use having every function under the sky available if it takes you valuable time to find it. Slo-mo, Burst mode, Panorama, square shots (for Instagram) - they're all located within a swipe of each other. No menus; no stabbing at a faraway button. It's the difference between enjoying using the device, and being frustrated by it.

M7, secret agent?

The introduction of the M7 coprocessor, which is able to monitor the phone's movements (so that it can do health monitoring, for example, or tell when you're in a car and where you're heading) seems like Apple offering us a little peek into its future plans. Movement? Low-demand processors? What can it be about? If the 5s is forward-looking, this might be something that it's looking to make more in the shorter term. I wouldn't be surprised if the M7 turns up in another Apple product soon.

Summary

The 5s is typical Apple: it's got top-end characteristics, at a top-end price. But with that you get really good implementation of complex problems. Fingerprint unlocking has seemed like a great idea for ages, but nobody could make it work well (Motorola tried it on the Atrix in 2011; it frustrated users). Apple has it nailed. Different camera modes are an obvious feature which smartphone makers have added with abandon (HTC's One has 13 camera options before you get to the "Camera options" tab, which has another six options). Apple has added useful ones, but kept the clutter away.

If the 5s is forward-thinking, it's clearly looking at a world where we use fingerprints to buy stuff, and our phones serve us simply rather than entangling us in useless choices. I liked the iPhone 5 last year; the iPhone 5s just shows that you can improve on it.