At a major press event on Tuesday, Apple Inc. unveiled the iPhone 5S and the long-rumored iPhone 5C, the low-cost cousin to the flagship line of smartphones. The device sports many of the same specifications as the iPhone 5 but will be sold for a lower-price tag. In fact, the company has such high hopes for the iPhone 5C that it is discontinuing the iPhone 5 immediately and focusing all of its time and efforts into marketing the iPhone 5C on the low-end market.
"In the past, when we've launched a new iPhone, we lowered the cost of the old iPhone, making it more accessible to new people. But this year, we're not going to do that," said Apple's chief executive officer Tim Cook when he took the stage at the Cupertino California headquarters of the company. "The business has become so large that this year we're going to replace the iPhone 5, and we're going to replace it with not one but two new designs."
The two designs in question were the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C. Apple's Phil Schiller took the stage from Cook in order to lay out the phone's specs a bit better.
"The iPhone 5C is made with all the incredible technology that customers have loved with the iPhone 5, but there's more, too. It has an incredible new design. One that's more fun, and more colorful than anything we've made before," he said.
The device comes in blue, green, grey, peach and yellow. The physical buttons on the side share the same color as whatever option one chooses to buy. The device will cost $99 for a 16GB options and $199 for a 32GB option, each with a two-year contract from a mobile provider of course.
The device's plastic backing replaces the iPhone 5's metallic frame with a hard-coated polycarbonate back. Other than that, the device will sport the same 4-inch display, A6 chip and 8 megapixel iSight camera with 3x zoom, five-element lens and IR filter seen on the iPhone 5. The battery life, however, will be improved along with the front-facing FaceTime HD camera.
The iPhone 5C replaces the iPhone 5 when it is released on Sept. 20. Pre-orders for the device go on sale Sept. 13.
