Apple launches two new iPhones
The iconic smartphone maker has failed to impress pundits with its latest offerings.
Apple launched two new iPhones this week. The 5S, which updates last year's iPhone 5, boasts a faster processor, a better camera, and a fingerprint scanner so that users can identify themselves and unlock their phones without having to put a password in. Apple has also launched the 5C, essentially a cheaper version of the iPhone5 that comes with a plastic case in five different colours.
What the commentators said
Apple is only going downmarket with the 5C, agreed Miriam Gottfried in The Wall Street Journal, "if your definition of downmarket is shopping at Bloomingdale's instead of Barneys". This doesn't seem "bold enough" to crack emerging markets.
Technology-wise, there isn't anything "to goggle at either", reckoned Andrew Leonard on Salon.com. Incremental changes to iPhones are all very well, but in the past two years "we've been waiting for something really new, something that will shake up the status quo" something reflecting the vision and innovation the company showed under Steve Jobs. But multi-coloured plastic iPhones "are not the ticket". "We're still waiting." Steve Jobs "is still dead".