Wolverton: LTE on Apple’s iPhone 5 a winner with a catch

iPhone fans will love the new iPhone 5. It has plenty to offer to others, as well, although Android fans may wonder what the fuss is all about.

Despite its name, the iPhone 5 is actually the sixth incarnation of Apple’s (AAPL) iconic smartphone. Released Friday, it is a marked improvement on last year’s model. It’s bigger, faster and lighter, while having about the same battery life.

The first thing you’ll notice about the iPhone 5 is its screen. It’s about a half-inch taller than the ones on previous iPhone models.

Apple uses the extra screen space to display an additional row of program icons in the iPhone 5’s homepage. It and other software developers have also started to use the extra space to redesign their apps and add more features to them. In the updated OpenTable app, for example, you’ll find a carousel of pictures featuring nearby restaurants, with buttons that allow you to quickly make reservations.

Like the last two iPhone models, the iPhone 5 is remarkably well designed. Despite the larger screen size, it has the same width as previous models and is nearly a full ounce lighter than the iPhone 4S.

It is also lighter than its rival, Samsung’s Galaxy S III. And unlike Samsung, Apple didn’t chintz on the materials used to build its phone. While the Galaxy S III has a cheap-feeling plastic case, the iPhone 5’s largely aluminum body feels solid.

The larger screen is the most noticeable new feature, but the one iPhone fans are likely to appreciate most is the device’s ability to connect to the wireless carriers’ fast new LTE networks. LTE radios have been standard fare on Android devices for more than a year now, but until the new model, iPhones have been stuck on the relatively slower and more congested 3G networks.

The new antenna makes a world of difference. On the iPhone 4S, I saw speeds as slow as half a megabit per second at my house while connected to AT&T’s 3G network. From the same location, I saw download speeds of up to 21 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 19 megabits per second on the iPhone 5. That’s comparable to the bandwidth I typically see on my landline connection from Comcast and about the same as what I experienced while using the AT&T version of Samsung’s Galaxy S III.

One note, though, about the new LTE radio. If you are on AT&T and attempt to talk on the phone while surfing the Web, the iPhone 5 will kick you back to the company’s slower 3G network. And if you are on Verizon or Sprint, you won’t be able to talk and surf at the same time at all — you’ll get kicked back to their 3G networks, which don’t support simultaneous talking and surfing.

The new device comes with iOS 6, the latest version of Apple’s operating system for handheld devices. As I mentioned in my review earlier this week, iOS 6 has some compelling new features but has some serious bugs as well.

The biggest bug is its new Maps application, an Apple-designed program that replaces the one from Google (GOOG) that had been included in all previous versions of iOS. The new app mislocates some notable points of interest and can’t find others at all. In a statement issued Friday, Apple noted that the Maps app is in its early days and should improve over time.

It is already improving in transit directions. When Apple released iOS 6 Wednesday, there were no transit apps compatible with its new Maps program. Now there are more than a dozen, including an app called vTransit. It’s not as seamless as having the feature built into the Maps app, but it works well enough.

With iOS 6, Apple has also updated Siri, its voice control feature that debuted on the iPhone 4S. Siri can now search for sports scores and standings, find movie listings, make restaurant reservations and launch applications. The new features work fairly well but they’re limited. While you can use it to look up movie showtimes, you can’t have it buy you tickets. And while it could tell me how the San Francisco Giants did in last night’s game, it couldn’t tell me what the team’s magic number is to get into the playoffs.

Apple made one other big design change with the iPhone 5: It has an all-new port for connecting to its power cord and to accessories. The small so-called Lightning port replaces the much larger 30-pin iPod connector that Apple has used in its handheld devices for the past nine years.

The Lightning port helped Apple as it tried to shrink the size and weight of the iPhone 5. And Apple representatives said the port was designed with the future — and future applications — in mind. But it has some serious drawbacks.

Lightning is incompatible with accessories that use the iPod connector. If you want to continue to use your older iPhone and iPod accessories with the iPhone 5, you’ll have to use a Lightning-to-iPod connector adapter from Apple. Unfortunately, Apple isn’t including one of the adapters with the new iPhone, which means you’ll have to buy one for $29 from the company. That’s an outrageous amount for a device that most likely costs Apple a pittance to make.

Android users have long been able to find phones with jumbo screens and LTE radios. Some of the latest Android devices have features that are similar to — and in some cases more sophisticated than — Siri. And they have a Maps app that’s not in need of major improvements. So for them, there may be little exciting about the iPhone 5.

But for iPhone fans, it’s a great upgrade — with a few flaws.

Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285 or twolverton@mercurynews.com. Follow him at www.mercurynews.com/troy-wolverton or Twitter.com/troywolv.