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Apple announces the multicolor iPhone 5C, $99 for 16GB

The new iPhone 5C packs a 4-inch Retina display, ships on September 20.

Apple announces the multicolor iPhone 5C, $99 for 16GB

Apple has traditionally only released one phone at a time. That phone was always positioned as the company's new flagship, but that didn't mean the previous flagships went away. Rather, flagship iPhones from the last two years were discounted, given new software updates, and positioned as midrange or low-end offerings.

At today's media event in Cupertino, Apple changed that formula by introducing a brand-new iPhone created specifically for those price-sensitive buyers: the iPhone 5C, which will be available for preorder on September 13 and will ship on September 20 in the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the UK.

The iPhone 5C differs from the iPhone 5 primarily in materials—rather than an aluminum or glass back, the 5C uses plastic backs that come in five colors (green, white, blue, red, and yellow) that Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller said will match the color palette of iOS "out of the box." The result is a phone that looks a lot like the iPhone 5, just slightly lighter and thicker.

"You won't see joints or parts or lines," said Schiller. "The iPhone 5C comes with everything from the iPhone 5, and more."

The feature parity with the iPhone 5 means we can definitively list off most of its features. The new phone has a four-inch 1136×640 display like the one introduced in the iPhone 5, a Lightning connector, an Apple A6 system-on-a-chip, and 1GB of RAM, an eight-megapixel camera with a single-LED flash, 16GB and 32GB storage options, dual-band 802.11n, and LTE.

Apple also announced a set of silicone rubber cases for the iPhone 5C that are patterned with holes to create a contrast with the phone's casing, priced at $29.

The iPhone 5C will be priced at $99 for a 16GB version and $199 for a 32GB version.

Channel Ars Technica