Product innovation and the rest of us...

By Atim Nkese Nkpubre

Last Tuesday, 10th September, 2013 to be precise, Apple did it again - lifted the curtains off two new iPhones: The high-end iPhone 5S, and the plastic-bodied iPhone 5C. Apple is trying to play it both ways this time around. Here are the key takeaways from Apple’s big reveal, according to Chris Gayomali .

 1. The iPhone 5S has a fingerprint sensor
Apple calls the feature Touch ID. In addition to unlocking your homescreen, you can use your prints to quickly greenlight purchases of apps or stuff on iTunes. It also accepts multiple fingers, should you be in the unfortunate position of having to share a phone. Naturally, conspiracy theories are already being floated:
2. It comes in three colors
They are: Slate (black), silver (white), and gold (more champagne-ish).
3. You can shoot slow motion video on it
At 120 frames per second. Some people are apparently very excited about this.
4. The rest of the upgrades are kind of boring
The iPhone 5S received a much faster A7 processor (making it five times speedier than the iPhone 5, claims Apple). And its camera stole a page out of the HTC One's book, adopting a "big pixel" sensor that allows it to take better low-light photos.
In addition to a built-in stabilizer, the new iPhone also comes with something called True Tone Flash, which uses two LED lights — one is white, the other amber — to correct the color balance whenever you take a flash photo. The phone's battery life is more or less the same as the iPhone 5's.
5. The iPhone 5C is basically the iPhone 5, but plastic
The home button, display, and internal guts are all the same. The biggest change is the polycarbonate (read: Plastic) back enclosure. Apple lead designer Jony Ive says it is "beautifully, unapologetically plastic," which is hilarious because that is such a ridiculous thing to say. You can get it in green, blue, yellow, pink, and white.
6. They both go on sale on Friday, Sept. 20
The iPhone 5S won't be available for pre-order, but you can place your online order for the iPhone 5C starting Sept. 13. iOS 7 will be available to download for everyone on Sept. 18”.
Expectedly, Apple’s new generation smart phones are already generating a lot of buzz in the market place. Techies believe it doesn’t really look any different from the iPhone 5 and hope that next year’s update would likely be a huge overhaul on the current iPhones.
A keen observer also noted that, since introducing the original iPhone six years ago, Apple has gone through round after round of upgrades in which each one was a little sleeker, a little faster, a little better than the one that came before it.
My take is that Apple’s latest stunt is pretty cool and quite colourful, but product innovation in the phone business, especially, should go beyond colours and images, really.
Let me share a personal story. September is my birth month, you know, and I was planning to get myself the famous iPhone5. In actual fact only two weeks ago, I withdrew the money and drove to a Slot showroom in my neighbourhood to get the phone, but then, I thought to cool off and get it on my birth date so it would have the warm and tender feeling of a proper birthday present. I should thank my stars, really, that my instincts compelled me to hold on. Who would want to shelve out that crazy amount of money on a smart phone only to have a newer model take the shine off it a few days down the line?  Who wants that sort of liability, anyway?
Quite frankly, people, and I’m writing from my heart, the way these adult toys are being churned out is getting quite dizzying. Do you remember when Honda launched a brand of car and dubbed it “End of Discussion” only to reverse itself with “Discussion Continues” the very following year? And come to think of it, what do these people take us for anyway?  A bunch of crazy wannabes who derive their sense of worth from parading the latest products or some money-miss-road who exist to make them happy or what? Sometimes, I really don’t care about such cheap thrills. No, not with all the crazy summer spend and reality staring us in the face with school resumption next week. I will go ahead and have fun on my birthday but without the iPhone. I’m quite okay with my Blackberry Torch, which, by the way was about the coolest phone of its era, and my cool Nokia. E don do!
Regardless of my ranting, however, I, honestly, think that Apple’s latest stunts are pretty cool, especially the high-end iPhone 5S and even iPhone 5C – it’s cost effective variant. But, rather than have a variant of iphone5, I’m prepared to wait for the iPhone6 proper which I understand would be a phablet (much like the Galaxy Note, Xperia Z Ultra to name two), with bigger displays, better spec, a new design, and more connectivity. It would be in the market sometime next year and next year is just a few months from now.
So, for now, I’m happy just admiring every smart phone from a distance. And should I have some Appley feeling on my big day, I’d gladly turn the corner and grab some red and green apples from the fruit shed. They are a healthy alternatives and pocket friendly, too. You can join my apple fun too without going broke. Have a great week, everyone, and please feel free to share your apple story in the comment section.