Applause Then A Shrug: World Reacts To Apple's iPhone 5

The moment finally dawned yesterday when Apple announced the iPhone 5, a taller, thinner, faster iteration described as more "evolution" than innovation. There were no tantalizing surprises, thanks partly to being one of the "leakiest" launches in Apple's mobile history. What was the general reaction? Some applause, then a shrug.

Several writers compared the phone to a reliable, but boring car, with references made to the Mercedes, Toyota Corolla and Toyota Prius. Bloggers and web commenters were the most scathing, while mainstream press and analysts agreed Apple would reign over the Christmas period, and play catch-up with Android handsets made by Samsung and HTC afterwards. A reminder of the phone's main specs: a glass and aluminum casing, 4-inch Retina display, a better camera, 4G LTE capability, iOS 6, and a fast new A6 chip. It's also thinner, and lighter than the iPhone 4S.

Here's a roundup of some of the media and expert reaction to Apple's latest iPhone:

Media

- Mat Honan's commentary in Wired was cited by several other outlets because his headline summed up others' reaction so well: "The iPhone 5 is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring." It's a weird paradox, he wrote. "The iPhone 5 can simultaneously be the best phone on the market and really, really boring." But that's not necessarily bad - it's just the march of technology. "Revolution becomes evolution," says Honan, who added that Apple will shake things up in other ways like home entertainment.

- Kyle McInnes at BlackBerryCool.com said Apple's management had tried its hardest to maintain Steve Jobs' reality distortion field -- perhaps a little to hard. Among his amusing list of five questionable quotes made by Apple CEO Tim Cook and Phil Schiller during the keynote address, were Cook saying, "Today we're taking it to the next level. Making a huge leap," and "It's the world's thinnest smartphone."

- Forbes contributor Erik Kain said Apple was playing it safe. "The general consensus after today’s iPhone 5 event can be best summed up by the word 'meh,'" he wrote. "However classy looking the iPhone 5 may be, it won’t turn heads like it once did."

- Roger Cheng of CNET said the iPhone 5 would be "king" for the holidays but whether consumers would be talking about the phone in a few months time was "still up in the air." Times have changed, he added. When Apple debuted the iPhone 4 in 2010, Android was a whisper and Nokia and Research in Motion were beginning their declines. Today "Android is pervasive, and Samsung now has a significant lead in the smartphone business with a franchise… Rivals have caught up."

- MarketWatch agreed there were no new surprises, and that the new iPhone "now almost matches some of the latest Android phones, with a larger 4-inch screen, which had been widely expected… Almost every detail had been whispered about in the weeks leading up to the launch, leaving few surprises, or any kind of a 'one more thing' that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, known for his penchant for secrecy, would occasionally produce."

- BloombergBusinessweek was more forgiving, pointing out that "while other manufacturers enumerate the sheer number of features their phones have, Apple exercised restraint." The outlet also got an interview with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who said he hoped the new phone would take better photos than those he captures with his Samsung Galaxy S3. People "always say the Galaxy S3, or even the Motorola Razr, pictures look better," he said.

Analysts and Experts

- Carl Howe, an analyst at Boston-based Yankee Group, was quoted by BloombergBusinessweek as saying that the iPhone 5 would be the "best-selling consumer electronics device of all time, bar none.”

- IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said by email that Apple "does not need to launch disruptive devices every single year," and knows it doesn't have to pack "the handset with features that consumers don't use or don't understand." Still, this iPhone "does not come with any unique service or hardware features that are not available on the high-end Android devices" and it "will not be able to surpass Android volumes."

As for investors, Apple's shares closed up by a modest 1.4% to $669.79 in New York yesterday, and they're up another $5, or 0.8%, in pre-market trading this morning.

See Also:

The iPhone Debut: Who Are The Winners And Losers?

The Real Cost Of An iPhone5

Apple iPhone Forecast To Drive Second Half 2012 Smartphone Shipments To $346.5M

Is Apple on the Defensive with the iPhone 5?

Apple Plays Catch-Up With 'iPhone 5' But Still Comes Up Short