Much fuss has been made about the technological advances that made the iPhone 5 possible. I'm neither qualified to write in-depth on that subject, nor inclined to bore you with it. Instead, let's talk about the design.
Up until the unveiling of the iPhone 5, I was pretty sure the 4 / 4S design was smartphone perfection. I was wrong. I also though the 3.5 inch diagonal screen was ideal. I was wrong about that, too.
Everything about the excellent iPhone 4S design has been made better with the iPhone 5. Much like Porsche refines the 911 slightly with each generation, so, too, does Apple with the iPhone.
The Screen
Oh, the screen. Four inches of gorgeous Retina density pixels. The screen absolutely dominates the front of the phone — even more so than previous generations. The screen has gotten larger, and both the chin and forehead have gotten smaller.
Screen Size
Four inches. It doesn't sound much larger than 3.5 inches. It's only an extra 176 pixels taller than the 4S. But that half inch, those 176 pixels take it from outstanding to absolutely stunning.
Reading on the screen is better than ever. Dan Frommer even called it the Instapaper Phone.
@marcoarment Dude, Instapaper looks great. This is the Instapaper phone. Nice work.
That's spot on, of course. When you're reading an article stored in Instapaper, the status bar and toolbar disappear. You're left with gorgeous text from top to bottom, edge to edge. I want to read everything on this screen.
The increased screen size is not all rainbows and puppy dogs, though. When I'm holding the phone in my right hand, I can't reach navigation elements without changing my grip on the phone and stretching my thumb. That's hardly ideal, though the advantages of the larger screen make this less of an issue than I expected.
The colors
Again, I won't bore you with technical jargon that I don't really understand. The colors on the new screen just seem, I don't know, better. Photos look incredible.
The Home Button
The rounded square icon on the home button is changed from medium gray on the 4S to a very light silvery-gray. It's much more subtle, and definitely an improvement.
Que mas?
The pixels on the iPhone 4S seemed impossible close to the screen. Through some sort of scientific wizardry, Apple made them closer. If you've ever used an older smartphone with pixels seemingly a quarter-inch below the screen, you know why this is important.
The proximity sensor and front camera have switched places. The proximity sensor has gotten smaller, too. Now it's just a round black dot, smaller than the camera lens.
The speaker, camera, and proximity sensor all stand out on the white iPhone. They don't bother me, but they are much more noticeable than on the black model.
The Back
The return of aluminum. I didn't own the first iPhone — the one with the aluminum back. The silvery, lightweight metal is back, though. Nearly the entire back is a solid sheet of aluminum. Since this is a unibody design, the aluminum extends to form the side edges as well.
There are small glass windows both above and below the aluminum back. On the white iPhone, the two materials blend together from certain angles. Other angles create a gorgeous contrast between the two.
There's a slightly tacky feel to the metal back. Not grippy in the sense that rubber is grippy. But if you slide your finger from the slippery glass window up to the aluminum, you'll instantly feel the difference. As someone who once dropped an iPhone 4, I appreciate the slight grip.
In the top glass window resides the camera gear. The lens, flash, and mic. The usual Apple logo, iPhone label, and bit about California are on the aluminum.
The Top
The top edge has a single button — the power button. Gone is the headphone jack — relegated to the bottom of the device. I suspect the very clean look is part of the reason Apple moved the jack in the first place.
The Bottom
The bottom edge is much changed. Gone is the huge dock connector. In its place is a tiny, reversible Lightning connector. It's much smaller than you would think from the pictures. On either side of the connector is a tiny, barely visible Torx screw. On the right is the main speaker. On the left lies the microphone, and the relocated headphone jack. The bottom packs in a lot of important things without feeling cluttered.
Perhaps the neatest thing about the bottom of the iPhone is the speaker and mic. No longer are they little mesh grilles. Now the holes are drilled directly into the aluminum casing.
The Sides
From the side, the iPhone 5 is impossibly thin. That was my first impression, and still my strongest. Second, I noticed the shiny chamfered edges that soften the transition from side to front / back.
On the iPhone 4S, there was a rather severe transition from the stainless steel band to the front and rear glass. That's mostly gone now. The rear chamfered edge transitions directly to the rear of the phone — no increased width. The front glass extends above the edge, but only slightly. It's a much cleaner transition.
The volume buttons and mute switch are as firm and well-engineered as ever. The mute switch, especially, has an extremely high precision feel to it.
The right edge has only a single slot for the nano SIM card. SIM cards have become less and less useful as they keep shrinking. I can't switch cards between devices if they're all different sizes. Such is the price of progress.
White lines
Perhaps my very favorite little touch of the new design is the tiny white lines.
Around the side, there are four points of separation. They separate the unibody housing from the antennas. On the iPhone 4S, these lines were black, which made them stand out on the white iPhone. Now they're white, and look incredible.
These tiny white lines create the illusion that the front glass panel and the back glass windows are connected. It's almost as if the phone is one solid piece of aluminum and one solid piece of glass fused together. Little details like this truly make me appreciate the design.
