新款iPhone是大跨越还是小碎步

    上周五，我和一个朋友在旧金山一家常去的附近餐馆等点心时，我掏出了从苹果公司（Apple）借来的金色版iPhone 5S。我拿着它晃来晃去，就像一个刚订婚的人炫耀无名指上的戒指一样想引人注意。可这一招不管用，于是我只好提高嗓门，跟朋友秀秀这部手机的指纹扫描仪是怎么用的。

    就在这时，我们边上的一对情侣看见这情景来了兴致。他们盯着手机，然后一脸痛苦和妒忌地走到我身边。那女子嘟哝道：“今天早上我们在埃默里威尔那家店足足等了三个小时，”她是一心想和男朋友一起买一部金色版5S的，最后却发现：苹果店里这款手机根本就没有几台。

    结果，整个这顿饭期间，这一对就一直看着我们放在桌上的5S，对这台似乎和金子一样贵重的手机流露出无限向往。他们想要这台手机的原因当然纯属个人偏好，但不可否认的是，iPhone诞生六年来，它已经变成无数人梦寐以求的身份象征了：那些能买到新款的人在开始几星期里就能引领潮流，对那些必须等上几周、甚至几个月才能买到自己心仪手机的人而言，他们就是令人艳羡的对象。

    现在忠实的果粉们已经知道，如果新款iPhone的名字后加了S，那就意味着它和去年的老款样子相去无几。iPhone 5S也遵循着这个惯例，但它的问世过程确实平添了许多新的波折，以确保苹果所谓的“惊人的需求量”（十月份它就已经延迟交货了）。作为新加入银灰色iPhone 5S阵营的机型，金色版淡香槟金的色调足以提醒身边那些眼神够好的人：这位机主拿的正是苹果的最新款手机。除此之外，不管是4英寸的Retina屏幕还是双色玻璃，以及铝合金背壳，5S看起来都和去年那款轻盈修长的5几乎别无二致。就连重量也还是3.95盎司。

    不过手机内部却有大量的新变化。苹果在本月初举行的产品发布会上展示了全新的A7处理器，使iPhone 5成为第一款运行64位架构的智能手机之一。苹果称A7的处理速度是上一代的两倍，此外它还能同时处理更多数据。现在，这主要意味着在全新的iOS 7中，应用打开的速度更快，动画效果更平滑——这两点一开机就能感受到。iOS 7是对原来操作系统一次脱胎换骨的升级，它摒弃了以前那种拟物化的图标，代之以更简洁、更扁平化的外观（软件团队显然觉得这种剧变和动画效果乐趣多多：应用、屏幕和信息载入、缩放和挪移都更随心所欲了）。长期来看，A7将让开发者推出更复杂的应用，也会带来更好的用户体验。

    凭借Touch ID，5S也终于拥有了指纹识别的功能。这项时髦的技术是苹果去年斥资3.56亿美元收购AuthenTec公司的成果。Touch ID被嵌入了手机的home键，这个键现在被一个相配的金属环圈了起来。设置指纹扫描仪让它认出指纹需要花两分钟，但一次就能搞掂，同时也是个很有意思的过程。至于这项技术价值如何，Touch ID也证明了它是相当安全的：至少我接触的10个人无法打开我的手机，因为Touch ID认不出他们的指纹。当然，如果时间足够，有合适的工具和足够的钱，它也可能被破解，但这并不容易【安全技术专家布鲁斯•施奈尔对《财富》杂志（Fortune）表示：“这不过是你的手机而已——又不是要发射导弹。我们需要的只是有限的安全度，而我觉得Touch ID安全性足够了。”】  

    Last Friday, while waiting for dim sum with a friend at a neighborhood haunt in San Francisco, I whipped out the gold iPhone 5S I had on loan from Apple (AAPL). I waved it around, like someone who just got engaged might exaggeratedly wag their ring finger for attention. When that didn't work, I loudly demonstrated to my friend how the device's fingerprint scanner worked.

    That's when the couple next to us perked up. They stared at the phone, then back to me with looks of bitterness and jealousy. "We waited three hours this morning at the Emeryville store," griped the woman, who had hoped to buy a gold 5S with her boyfriend but struck out: the Apple store only had a few of them.

    Throughout dinner, the pair glanced at the 5S on our table, longing for a device seemingly as precious as gold itself. Why they wanted it, of course, is a matter of personal preference. But there's no denying that in the six years of the iPhone's life, the device has become a highly coveted status symbol: The owner with the newest model during those first few weeks becomes a kind of transient trendsetter, someone worth envying to those who must wait weeks or months until their own devices arrive.

    By now, the Apple faithful know that when the letter "S" trails the name of a new iPhone, it will look a lot like last year's model. The iPhone 5S doesn't buck that formula, but it does toss in enough new tweaks to warrant what Apple has called "incredible demand." (It's already backordered through October.) The subtle champagne-hued gold, a new addition that joins the iPhone 5S's space gray and silver, is enough to alert keen, nearby observers that the user possesses Apple's latest. Other than that, the 5S looks almost exactly like last year's light and svelte 5, from the size of that 4-inch Retina display to the two-tone glass and aluminum back. It also weighs the same 3.95 ounces.

    More has changed on the inside. At its product announcement earlier this month, Apple played up its new A7 processor, one of the first smartphones to run on 64-bit architecture. While Apple has said the A7 offers twice the speed as its predecessor, it also allows for more data to be crunched at once. For now, that mostly translates to faster app launches and smoother animation -- both were noticeable from the get-go -- inside the new iOS7, a radical revamp of the mobile operating system that ditches the previous skeuomorphic look for one that's flatter and cleaner. (Although the software team clearly had a lot of fun with sweeping transitions and animations: apps, screens, and messages swoop, zoom, and bounce quite liberally.) In the long run, the A7 will translate into more complex apps from developers and, ideally, better user experiences.

    Fingerprint scanning has also found its way into the 5S with Touch ID, a nifty piece of tech that's the result of the $356 million acquisition of AuthenTec last year. Touch ID is built right into the phone's home button, now surrounded by a matching metallic ring. Setting it up so the scanner recognizes your fingerprint is a one-time deal that takes two minutes, but it's actually a pretty entertaining process. And for what it's worth, Touch ID also appears pretty secure, too: at least 10 people I approached couldn't get into my phone because Touch ID didn't recognize their prints. With enough time, the right tools, and money, it's of course possible to hack, but it's not easy. ("It's your phone -- we're not launching missiles here," Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, told Fortune. "We're looking for a little bit of security, and I think Touch ID is a really great idea for that.")