This is a long-lost historical review series on this site. This time we are going to review how Apple has changed the way of life of human beings with smartphones in the past 15 years from the release of the first generation of iPhone in 2007 to today, and how Apple has changed the way of life of human beings and influenced the whole world. The development process of one of the companies.
← Back to the previous article “History of iPhone Development (4): Debut of Self-developed Chip Architecture (2012)”
Inheriting the past and ushering in the future (2012 – 2013)
For Apple itself and its products, 2012 and 2013 are two years of “inheriting the past and ushering in the future” in a large sense. Both software and hardware have undergone significant changes during this year. Let’s start with the software first. .
Before 2011, Apple’s two major software platforms, Mac OS X and iOS, were respectively managed by Bertrand Serlet, senior vice president of software engineering (succeeded from Avie Tevanian in July 2003) and Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software (since 2007). , and with Bertrand Serlet leaving Apple in March 2011 and a series of events that will be triggered by iOS 6, Apple’s software development team will usher in considerable changes in the next two years.
In terms of Mac OS X, before Bertrand Serlet left, he had already arranged a successor, that is, Craig Federighi, who we are all quite familiar with now. Although he was not promoted to senior vice president at the same time, he was the vice president of Mac software He also reported directly under CEO Tim Cook like other senior vice presidents, and was finally promoted to the SVP rank on August 27, 2012 with the new senior vice president of hardware engineering Dan Ricco.
As for the iOS part, it continues to be led by Scott Forstall. On the WWDC 2012 Keynote, he announced iOS 6, which brought a greatly improved Siri (including more language support, iPad support and more available commands, etc.), Facebook Deep integration, Do Not Disturb mode, FaceTime video calls via mobile network, FaceTime supports phone number mapping, a more complete Safari browser, PassBook (the predecessor of the Wallet App, mainly used to store tickets), the first time to add Apple’s own map Functions such as the application program Apple Maps are actually an update with a lot of improvements and content, but with the official launch of iOS 6, the performance of Apple Maps has received rave reviews.
Later, amid complaints from users, Apple issued a public apology statement on October 1, 2012, and it was reported that Steve Forstall refused to sign the public apology statement and strongly advocated that there was no need for an apology (this public apology statement Later, the name of CEO Tim Cook was signed), and then at the end of the month, Scott Forstall and John Browett, then the senior vice president of retail, were both fired by Tim Cook.
Later, in an exclusive interview, Tim Cook hinted at the reasons for his dismissal of Scott Forstall by saying that the necessary capabilities of Apple’s senior executives include strong collaboration capabilities, and that we do not play tricks in the team. In fact, Scott Forstall took over at Tim Cook. Apple’s chief executive has previously been known for being Steve Jobs-like and difficult to work with (he’s rumored to have gotten along with Jony Ive and Bob Mansfield, who was senior vice president of hardware engineering), yet ambitious and a power play. In fact, it is considered to be able to rank among the senior vice presidents mainly because of Steve Jobs’ appreciation for it (it was even considered the most likely candidate to take over as Apple’s CEO), and after the death of Steve Jobs, it is used to protect His own reliance also ceased to exist. In fact, his departure is more like a doomed result. The unsatisfactory Apple Maps may only be the last fuse.
After the dismissal of Scott Forstall, Apple’s leadership team underwent a considerable reshuffle. Its original iOS software business was handed over to Craig Federighi (since renamed Senior Vice President of Software Engineering), and Siri and the App Store were handed over. For Eddy Cue, Bob Mansfield, who had previously announced his retirement a few months ago, was brought back as senior vice president of technology, and Jony Ive, who was originally in charge of industrial design, expanded his scope of work to the design of software interfaces.
Under such a large-scale adjustment, iOS 7 will naturally usher in a drastic change. After WWDC 2013, which is obviously different from the previous style of the main visual map and venue layout, has been exposed one after another, the interface design of Apple will be in the hands of Jony Ive. Under the dominance of the development towards the flat style and bid farewell to the skeuomorphic style that has been used for many years, speculations have been raging, and it was confirmed when the new design of iOS 7 was revealed at this conference. Since then, it has been the most significant update, and the graphic design style it adopts has been passed down to the latest iOS 16 since then.
As for hardware, 2013 was also a year of succession. At the iPhone conference on September 10, 2013, Apple released two mobile phones at the same time for the first time: iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, and at the same time released the latest member of the A-series SoC family, the Apple A7 chip, and the Apple A7 chip is exactly The world‘s first smartphone SoC with 64-bit architecture.
The birth of the Apple A7 chip marks that Apple is about to shift the entire iOS platform to a 64-bit environment. Thanks to Apple’s strict requirements for the App Store and third-party apps, the process of transferring the Apple iOS platform to a 64-bit environment can be said to be It is one of the best in terms of stability and speed (after all, when Apple has mastered all the basic tools, operating systems, terminal devices, and even App listing specifications for the entire platform, once Apple decides on a new development direction, all developers must follow in order to survive down).
In terms of specifications, the Apple A7 uses Samsung’s 28nm HKMG manufacturing process, which contains two Cyclone cores based on Apple’s self-developed architecture (operating at 1.3 GHz), and is Apple’s first chip compatible with the ARMv8 architecture. SoC, and for the first time integrates a 4MB L3 cache in the computing core, the memory specification is adjusted from the previous generation of dual 32-bit width channels to a single 64-bit width channel, and uses LPDDR3-1600 memory (Theoretical bandwidth is 12.8 GB/s), and the graphics part uses the quad-core PowerVR G6430 (new OpenGL|ES 3.0 support), according to Apple’s official statement, compared with the previous generation Apple A6, the computing performance is comparable to Graphics performance both doubled again.
In addition to the Apple A7 itself, Apple also released the coprocessor Apple M7 used with the Apple A7 for the first time this time. This coprocessor is an ultra-low power processor outside the SoC (actually just a The controller LPC18A1) customized by Apple to NXP is mainly used to continuously collect data from the iPhone’s built-in sensors (such as acceleration, gyroscope, electronic compass, etc.) Provide continuous sensor data measurement and recording with extremely low power consumption, and this is also the basis for a series of health-related applications and Apple’s own health app to be realized.
iPhone 5S (2013)
| release date | September 10, 2013 |
| Model ID | iPhone6,1 (N51AP)、iPhone6,2 (N53AP) |
| Dimensions | 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm |
| body weight | 112g |
| chip | Apple A7 (APL0698) 2x Cyclone Core + PowerVR G6430 (Quad-core GPU) |
| Memory | 1GB LPDDR3-1600 |
| support system | iOS 7.0 (11A466) to iOS 12.5.6 (16H71) |
| storage space | 16GB、32GB、64GB |
| main camera | 8.0 MP (supports auto zoom, back-illuminated sensor, 1080p 30fps video, five lenses, Auto HDR) |
| front camera | 1.2 MP (720p 30fps video) |
| monitor | 4.0″ IPS Retina Display，1136×640，326 PPI，sRGB |
| suggested price | Starting from USD$ 199 (bundle for about two years) |
At the iPhone launch event in 2013, Apple released two iPhones in total. They are the iPhone 5S, which is a direct iteration of the iPhone 5 and uses almost the same design, and the iPhone 5C, which is slightly cheaper and has similar specifications to the iPhone 5 but uses a plastic body. Let’s start with the iPhone 5S.
Among the previous generations of iPhones, the iPhone 5S is considered to be the generation with relatively few improvements. The main improvements are distributed in three parts: chip, camera and Touch ID. In terms of chips, the iPhone 5S uses the Apple A7 chip and Apple M7 protocol we talked about earlier. Processor, the former not only doubles the performance of the previous generation, but also officially brings Apple Silicon and smartphones into the era of 64-bit architecture, while the latter is an ultra-low power consumption dedicated to collecting sensors The information processor makes it possible to continuously detect and record various sensor data in the background. This is also an important key to the realization of various health record functions such as pedometers and step records (as for the base frequency part, the iPhone The 5S uses the same baseband chip as the iPhone 5).
The second major improvement of the iPhone 5S is the camera. Although the parameters seem to be unchanged, the main camera uses a photosensitive element with a 15% larger area and upgrades to f/2.2 aperture, and the front lens also adopts a larger area. Larger and improved performance of the back-illuminated photosensitive element, in addition, the flash has also been upgraded to a True Tone flash (composed of two LEDs with different color temperatures) to improve image quality, low-light environment photo performance, and color when taking pictures in different weather conditions of naturalness.
In addition to the lens and photosensitive elements, the new-generation image signal processor (ISP) integrated in the Apple A7 chip also improves the performance of functions such as automatic white balance and automatic exposure. In addition, the iPhone 5S also has a lot of camera-related software. Improvements, such as adding a new square photo mode, built-in shooting filters, continuous shooting mode (ten frames per second), 120fps slow motion photography, digital image stabilization, 3x digital zoom during video recording, Auto HDR, etc. The function and video digital anti-shake function have been strengthened again.
The third major improvement is the addition of the Touch ID fingerprint recognition function for the first time, which is also one of the main features of the iPhone 5S. Fingerprint recognition through the fingerprint sensor hidden under the home screen button has been a long time since then. The unlocking, transaction verification method used by iPhones and iPads.
In terms of series composition, the iPhone 5S is basically the same as the iPhone 5, but there are some adjustments in the color matching. The original black version was lightened to “space gray” in order to reduce the chance of paint peeling problems, and it will be released in the next few generations. It has been continuously used in the iPhone, and the gold version has been added for the first time, while the starting price of the iPhone 5S continues to maintain the previous price of $199 with a two-year contract. Discontinued (after all, with the iPhone 5C), while the iPhone 4S continues to be sold.
Finally, the packaging of the iPhone 5S uses a white color box with a photo of the phone body printed on it, and the contents still include the phone body, USB transmission cable, USB adapter, earphones, some documents, stickers, and a combination of SIM card slot eject pins.
iPhone 5C (2013)
| release date | September 10, 2013 |
| Model ID | iPhone5,3 (N48AP)、iPhone5,4 (N49AP) |
| Dimensions | 124.4 x 50.2 x 9.0 mm |
| body weight | 132g |
| chip | Apple A6 (APL0598) 2x Swift Core + PowerVR SGX543MP3 |
| Memory | 1GB LPDDR2-1066 |
| support system | iOS 7.0 (11A466) to iOS 10.3.3 (14G60) |
| storage space | 16GB、32GB |
| main camera | 8.0 MP (supports auto-zoom, back-illuminated sensor, 1080p 30fps video, five lenses) |
| front camera | 1.2 MP (720p 30fps video) |
| monitor | 4.0″ IPS Retina Display，1136×640，326 PPI，sRGB |
| suggested price | Starting from USD$ 99 (bundled for about two years) |
Next, let’s turn our attention to the iPhone 5C. There are many “firsts” of Apple on this iPhone, such as the first launch of so many colors of the fuselage, the first use of the old SoC chip, the first “Low-price version” iPhone, etc.
In terms of specifications, except for the new front-facing camera on the iPhone 5S, most of the iPhone 5C is consistent with the iPhone 5. It uses the same Apple A6 chip and the same camera specifications. The main difference is in the appearance and body material. The difference is that the iPhone 5C uses a polycarbonate plastic case instead of the aluminum metal body used in the iPhone 5. In addition, although many people speculate that the “C” in the iPhone 5C name stands for “Cheap”, according to Apple’s official This “C” refers to “Color”, which echoes the appearance of five colors of white, pink, yellow, pink blue, and green.
In terms of series compilation, the iPhone 5C offers 16GB and 32GB versions, and the starting price of the two-year contract is only slightly lower than that of the iPhone 5S by one hundred dollars. Considering that the iPhone 5C is essentially just a replacement iPhone 5, and Most users even think that the polycarbonate plastic casing is a big downgrade compared to the original aluminum metal casing used in the iPhone 5 (even if the general public perception is aside, the iPhone 5S is only a higher-end model and continues to use aluminum metal casings. The plastic casing of the iPhone 5C itself is actually hard to justify), such a small price gap later became a major reason for the failure of the iPhone 5C (in fact, even Apple’s own sales vice president Greg Joswiak also admitted that the launch of the iPhone 5C A bad decision commercially).
As for the packaging, the packaging of the iPhone 5C is the most special among the previous generations of iPhones. Instead of a paper color box, it uses a transparent plastic packaging similar to that used by the iPod touch. The contents include the standard mobile phone body, USB transmission line, and USB transformer. , earphones, some documents, stickers and SIM card slot ejection pins, and an additional microUSB to Lightning adapter (the meaning of wanting to seize the Android user market is quite strong, but later it was obviously not because of factors such as high prices) did not succeed).
