Here is the iPhone 5

As soon as I got the official news up about the iPhone 5, traffic on all news be it tech or none tech spiked as everyone tried to report on this hyped new phone from Apple. Well unlike many other blogs I have not been a big iPhone fun and I am always apprehensive when it comes to reporting about the phones since I have not had much experience with apple products. Not that I cannot get my hand on one but the practicality of using the phone here and the overly expensive gadget.

 Now, it's easy to assume this is just a vocal minority of Apple hater. The renegade of the tech world. Just like many people who have left their negative message about iPhone 5. But if you look past all the spelling errors and vitriol, there are some intelligent nuggets buried in there. 

Most notably, a lot of people took Apple to task for including hardware upgrades that already feel outdated because Android phones have had them for years now. Plus, there's all the stuff Apple didn't include. This is not the end for major competitors like Samsung and Nokia will or rather are already putting up ads that discredit the new phone from Apple and boy oh boy it is just about to get bloody!

Here's the breakdown:

The iPhone 5's two biggest hardware updates are its larger 4-inch screen and 4G LTE radio. It's extremely rare to find a new Android phone nowadays with anything smaller than a 4-inch screen. In fact, Android manufacturers continue to make their phones bigger, sometimes absurdly so. With the iPhone 5, it's clear Apple finally broke down and realized consumers love large screens. It's also clear those who have defended Apple's decision to stick with a smaller screen were dead wrong. Apple finally realizes that it is true what they say about the customer being the king.  So, good point. Four-inch displays are nothing new in smartphones.

Then there's LTE, the fastest wireless data standard available. LTE has been around for over a year, starting with HTC's Thunderbolt Android phone that launched in spring 2011. Since then, nearly every premium non-iPhone device that's launched ran on LTE networks. It took a year and a half for the iPhone to achieve that. So, good point. LTE has been around for an eternity by tech standards. It's a bummer Apple didn't include it in the iPhone 4S last year.

As for what Apple left out of the iPhone 5, there's Near Field Communication (NFC) and wireless charging. 
NFC chips let you make mobile payments with your phone and swap content with other devices just by tapping them together as well as a host of other features by customization just as seen on the Xperia NXT phones and smart tags. Wireless charging lets you charge your phone by resting it on a power pad. (We saw wireless charging with Nokia's new Windows Phone, the Lumia 920.) Both of these features are increasingly becoming standard in smartphones, but Apple didn't include them in the iPhone 5.

Bad point. I still don't think NFC is ready for widespread use. Mobile payments are a big thing especially in Kenya where a simple SMS service developed by the market leader has been replicated the world over, yes M-Pesa. The NFC infrastructure at point of sale isn't there yet. Maybe in the rest of the world where innovation has got to be complex like the USA, they might not be ready to ditch cash and credit cards for a phone. In the developing world, NFC will have to battle with the simple technologies like M-pesa if it is to be integrated in mobile money payment arena. There still room it the technology is to be found on a wider range of phones and not just flagships. Sony mobile seems to be leading the way in this with its 2012 NXT range. And I'm on the fence about wireless charging. It seems cool in theory, but charging is much slower using one of those wireless pads. I'd rather have my phone get to 100% in several minutes, not several hours. As history shows us, Apple isn't going to put features like these in the iPhone just because it can. It's going to wait until they've perfected them.

At the end of the day, the criticism doesn't matter. Apple leapfrogged everyone by several years when it introduced the first iPhone. Today, its mobile ecosystem is the best there is. Its mobile operating system is the best there is. And that's what really grabs people's attention. Software. Not hardware tricks and specs. We all should hope for the rest of the software platforms to mature and be at par with the IOS.