On September 10 this year Apple announced the death of its flagship iPhone 5.
The previous year the iPhone 5 had become the best selling smartphone on the planet. It had sold 27.4 million units during the last three months of 2012 alone – more than the entire population of Australia.
However all good things must come to an end and Apple had decided that it was to be an early grave for the iPhone 5.
In its place are two new phones, the iPhone 5C and the top-of-the-range iPhone 5S.
The 5C model is the reason that the existing iPhone 5 had to go…this is virtually exactly the same phone but with a plastic back and with plastic comes colours – lots of colours.
So, as the image at the top of this post shows, it is very apt that the 5C seems to come in its own little plastic coffin, rather than the traditional cardboard iPhone box.
The phone itself comes in a choice of five colours – pink, blue, green, white and yellow – with a range of equally colourful silicone cases to create 30 colour combinations of case and phone.
We have already written about the initial popularity of the different colours in this post: “every other iPhone sold is a pink one”, but basically pink and blue are the most popular colours and yellow is the least popular. Obviously that may change over time.
When the idea of Apple producing a plastic phone was first rumoured there were people all over the world throwing their hands into the air and saying:
“Noooo, never. This cannot be true. Apple would never cheapen their product like that. It must not be true. Please don’t let it be true.”
Next the perceived wisdom said:
“Hey it doesn’t really matter about these plastic phones because they are only going to be sold in the emerging markets where people can’t really afford to spend a lot on smartphones.”
In the end both views were wrong and Apple went in a direction that surprised most industry analysts and armchair Apple pundits.
Let’s be clear about one thing, there is nothing cheap about the iPhone 5C in terms of build quality, hardware or, indeed, the price being charged.
The 16GB model comes unlocked and contract free for $549 (£469) and at $649 (£549) for the 32GB version so nobody can argue that these are cheap phones.
In fact they are pretty expensive devices and one criticism that keeps cropping up is that the price point is far too close to that of the flagship 5S with all its new bells and whistles.
This is the iPhone 5 with a colourful, plastic back and you are not getting new features or faster processors to swoon over. If you want the new stuff then you will have to buy the iPhone 5S.
But back to the plastic iPhone. When it was launched Apple’s design guru Sir Jonathan Ive made a huge point of the part that plastic played on this device.
They have taken plastic and given it the Apple treatment. If when you think of plastic on a smartphone you think of that flimsy dust cover that Samsung insists on putting on its high end products then you need to think again.
Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President Design, speaks about the iPhone 5C in the promotional video for the new phone, much as a grandfather would tell anyone who cares to listen about the sporting or academic successes of a favorite grandchild.
He talks about “hardware and software working harmoniously together” and he has a point. The colours of the icons on the iOS 7 operating system do go very well indeed with the colours of these phones.
Ive takes the honours for coming up with the defining soundbite of the entire keynote presentation when the two new phones were unveiled to the world and he did so when speaking about the 5C.
He said: “The iPhone 5C is beautifully, unapologetically plastic” and went on to say that “multiple parts have been reduced to a single polycarbonate component whose surface is continuous and seamless.”
Ive even went on to say that the choice of plastic gave a feel in the owner’s hand of “the sense of quality and integrity that’s synonymous with the iPhone.”
In other words Ive is saying: “Our choice of plastic makes this a real quality product and if you don’t believe me then just hold one in your hand and you will understand what I mean.”
And do you know what? The moment you hold the 5C in your hand you really can feel the quality of this product. It feels exactly like the type of premium product that it is. In fact referring to it as a “plastic phone” does not do it justice at all. Apple have made plastic sexy and I never thought I would find myself writing that sentence.
There is no sense whatsoever that Apple have cut corners with this product…except, perhaps, in one area. Not only has the phone got a new look but so has the sim card ejector tool.
I am sure I am not alone in having in the past used a paper clip to eject the sim card from my phone but the new tool looks just like a paper clip.
The iPhone 5C sim card ejector tool is the one on the right but it wouldn’t take too much work to fashion one from the paperclip on the left.
These days people get bored with technology faster than ever before. It is not enough to be simply functional any more. There has to be a combination of functionality, coolness and, increasingly, a range of colour options for those who want their phone to double as a style item.
Apple may have killed off its best selling iPhone 5 but the only thing stopping Apple fanboys and girls from immediately snapping up this colourful little phone in a plastic coffin is the iPhone 5S.
