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Apple’s new flagship iPhone 5s is about to have much more detailed information about how much its users are moving, thanks to a new M7 “Motion co-processor.” Unveiled during today’s live event, it works along with the new 64-bit A7 CPU to measure motion data continuously from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass without draining the battery as heavily. It looks like the iPhone 5s will be ready to take over for hardware extras like the FitBit or Nike Fuel wristband, but with a new CoreMotion API, devs for those companies and others can pull the information into their apps. The CoreMotion API specifically works to identify user movement, and offers “optimizations based on contextual awareness.” Overall, it’s very similar to what we’d heard would be in the Moto X, although we haven’t seen all of these extra sensors used for activity tracking quite in this way. Nike was on hand with a new Nike+ Move app that used the M7 and GPS to track users’ activities, and we wouldn’t be surprised if others follow closely behind. Nike called the Move app an “introductory experience” to Nike Fuel in a tweet, so maybe it’s planning to upsell customers on (potentially?) more detailed tracking with its hardware add-ons afterward.

Check out all the coverage at our iPhone ‘Special Event‘ 2013 event hub!

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After much anticipation for the device that’ll one-up the iPhone 5, Apple has revealed the iPhone 5S in full. This device takes on a shape that’s rather similar to the previous iPhone, appearing here as an incremental update to the smartphone line rather than a full reboot. This device works with a 4-inch touchscreen display […]

Apple has just laid claim to a world first: 64-bit processing inside a real, ready-for-sale smartphone. The new A7 processor will power the iPhone 5s with a “desktop-class architecture” consisting of over 1 billion transistors. That’s twice as many transistors as were squeezed into the A6 and, for the sake of context, it’s not a million miles away from the 1.4 billion transistors found in a current Intel Ivy Bridge desktop-class PC chip. In other words, while ARM’s own 64-bit mobile chip design, the Cortex-A57, is still being developed by chip- and phone-makers, Apple’s in-house team has pipped them all to the post.

Largely as a result of the extra transistors and 64-bit architecture, the A7 is claimed to be twice as fast as its predecessor, both in terms of CPU and graphics performance. Speaking of graphics, Apple also promises that its newly added support for the OpenGL ES 3.0 standard will enable “breakthroughs in performance” for visually intensive games such as Infinity Blade III. And it won’t just be games that benefit — iOS 7 will be 64-bit too, naturally, and Apple’s own built-in apps will be “re-engineered” to exploit this next-gen processing capability. (The A7 and iPhone 5s will also be backwards compatible with existing 32-bit apps.)

Finally, it’s interesting note that the iPhone 5s has a secondary processor, the Apple M7, which is tailored for processing motion and other sensory inputs and is presumably designed for unburdening the main chip and allowing the iPhone 5s to work as a fitness tracker and accomplish other sensory-based tasks without excessive battery drain.

Check out all the coverage at our iPhone ‘Special Event‘ 2013 event hub!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Ladies and gentleman, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. As expected, this afternoon’s day-brightening news (or part of it, at least) arrived in Cupertino in the form of a brand-new handset. CEO Tim Cook took to the stage at Apple HQ to introduce the world to the iPhone 5s (lowercase “s,” mind), the second of two handsets announced today. The new phone follows the number- / letter-naming scheme set in place way back in twenty ‘o nine with the introduction of the 3GS and carried on with 2011’s 4S. As with those handsets, the new device’s name implies that this round is something of an iterative update to last year’s iPhone 5. According to Phil Schiller, the handset is “the most forward-thinking phone we’ve ever created.” As expected, it’s set to arrive in three colors: black, silver and gold. The 5s is crafted in high-grade aluminum with chamfered edges.

What the the “s” stand for? Well, inside, you’ll find a 64-bit A7 processor that features twice the number of transistors as its predecessor, clocking in at more than 1 billion, according to Schiller — the CPU and GPU, meanwhile, promise speeds twice as fast. There’s OpenGL ES 3.0 on board, but the next-gen handset still promises, thankfully, to remain compatible with the 32-bit apps of yesteryear. The 5s also rocks the new M7, which monitors motion data in real-time, with help from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass — a feature that’ll work nicely with fitness apps like the new Nike+ Move.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Live on stage Apple is set to announce their new iPhone 5S as well as launch iOS 7 to the world. While we’re still waiting for the exciting news, Tim Cook is quickly talking about iWork. Which just so happens to be one of the most popular and best-selling mobile productivity apps to date. Focusing […]