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Software and consumer electronics giant Apple has revealed its eagerly-anticipated iPhone 5, much to the delight of its legion of fans.
The company’s CEO Tim Cook took the stage in San Francisco, saying ‘Apple has never been stronger’ as the new handset was unveiled.
The new ultra-slim device, which will be available in the kingdom early next month, has a larger 4-inch screen, along with a new dock connector and EarPod headphone design.
With a casing made from glass and aluminium, it is the thinnest iPhone ever made, at just 7.6mm thick and boasts an eight-megapixel camera which can take panoramic shots.
Phil Schiller, Apple’s vice president of marketing, said: “It is designed to fit in the hand, and all of our software is being updated to take advantage of this display.”
The handset also has a new chip, the zippy Apple A6, which is twice as fast as previous versions and 22 per cent smaller. It also has a controversial new connector called Lightning which will controversially make it no longer compatible with existing docks.
Its makers say the new handset, which runs on an iOS6 operating system, has eight hours of 3G talk time, and a 225-hour standby time.
The pre-installed YouTube app that had been part of the iPhone since it came out in 2007 is gone (you can now download a new application made by YouTube owner Google Inc. in Apple’s iTunes store). Even more noticeable is the absence of Google Maps. Apple has cast aside one of Google’s most popular services for its own mapping system.
Sir Jonathan Ive, the man who designed the new phone, said: “When you think about your iPhone, it is the product you have with you all the time - we take changing it really seriously.”
Not all are impressed, however. Less than flattering comments about the new device, via Twitter and tech sites, claim the lack of input from late Apple founder Steve Jobs resulted in a ‘boring’ product.
The price for the handset in Bahrain has not yet been announced but it is rumoured to cost around BD320, similar to some iPhone 4S devices.
It will begin shipping in the US and Canada on Friday.
