iPhone 5s: Touch to Unlock

The iPhone 5s makes cutting-edge fingerprint technology easy to use, while the 5c is just a colourful upgrade.

Smartphones are getting bigger. But Apple, the company that pioneered the age of smartphones, has steadfastly stuck to its guns with the 4-inch iPhone 5s. Apple has made changes to the phone’s body every two years. The iPhone 3GS’s plastic case gave way to the metal iPhone 4 and 4s. These were followed by the iPhone 5, which increased screen size from 3.5 to 4 inches. The latest iteration is supposed to be about ref

inement, hence the latest iPhone bears the ‘S’ tag instead of a numerical increment. It may be a near-identical twin of the iPhone 5, but the 5s is a major upgrade. The reason — a fingerprint sensor and double the power.

Design
The iPhone 5s is as elegant as its discontinued predecessor (iPhone 5). There are two noticeable changes on the body. The home button is now convex and is encircled by a silver ring, measures taken to accommodate the fingerprint sensor dubbed Touch ID. The flash has two LEDs instead of one.
All four buttons (lock, home, volume and ringer) feel solid and are responsive. Available in three colours (space grey, silver and gold), and weighing 112 grams, the 5S is one of the lightest smartphones in the market. The metal casing lends it a premium feel. The good thing about the screen size is that the iPhone feels good to hold and will easily fit in small palms. However, a little more width would greatly improve typing experience. Those who have typed long emails on bigger smartphones will have some trouble adapting to the 5s.

Touch ID
Fingerprint scanners have been around for a few years. Many laptops have had these, although most of them were difficult to configure and did not work well. Those days are now gone. Apple’s implementation of the fingerprint is almost perfect. It takes less than a minute to let the device store the print of each finger, up to a total of five. Touch ID recognises the fingerprint almost instantly and once I got used to