September 20, 2013

iPhone 5S released

Apple released the iPhoneApple's smartphone line — touch-first mobile computing and the App Store ecosystem since 2007. 5S on September 20, 2013 — debuting Touch ID fingerprint authentication and the 64-bit A7 chip.

What it was for

IPhone 5sTouch ID enabled secure app login and Apple PayApple's contactless payment system — tokenized card data on iPhone and the web. foundations; the A7 made 64-bit ARMA CPU architecture family known for energy efficiency — dominates smartphones and growing in servers and laptops. mainstream and pushed AndroidGoogle's open mobile operating system — the dominant platform for smartphones worldwide. OEMs to match. Developers gained LocalAuthentication APIs and a performance ceiling for ARAugmented reality — overlaying digital graphics on the real world through a camera view. and graphics-heavy apps years earlier than expected.

Companies

  • Apple

Why it's here

The 5S made biometrics and 64-bit mobile CPUs standard expectations.

Why it mattered

Fingerprint auth and 64-bit chips changed security and performance baselines for mobile dev.

What it solved

Phone unlock and payment auth relied on PINs; mobile CPUs were still treated as 32-bit platforms.

Media

  • IPhone 5s
    ImageIPhone 5s

    Rafael Fernandez, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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