Citius, Altius, Fortius

Faster, Higher, Stronger. I am not a sports fan and I never really understood why is it important that some guys can run faster or jump higher than last year's guys. It is not like they will pull whole human race to a new level. When that motto is applied to mobile phones, I am equally puzzled. It makes iPhone 5 an awful phone. Everyday I am bombarded with comparison between phone X and iPhone 5. It has only two cores where everybody has four, it has only 4" screen where everybody closes or surpasses 5", and it doesn't have NFC.

What's the deal with the screen size? For people like me, who prefer to use phone with one hand, it is fine size. For anything above 4.3" you will need two hands, and that is a no-go for me. Just two cores? Really? What is the purpose of adding more cores if everything runs fast anyway?

Lack of NFC is disappointment. I would really love to leave my wallet at home and carry just the phone around. I thought, if Apple adds NFC to the iPhone, that will finally form critical mass of phones supporting it, and we will all live in happy walletless world. NFC is still useful even without Apple's support, but its acceptance will be much slower.

What is really wrong with iPhone? One thing is subjective; people expected from Apple to amaze them, and they presented just plain excellent phone. Other reasons are objective. One size fits all approach to screen. Whichever screen size your pick, it will be to small for some people, too big for other, and fine for the rest. But worry not - if Apple don't want to adapt to you, you can always find somebody who will.

Main disappointment is iOS 6. It seems to me that people do not get that smartphone is not refrigerator: most of its value comes from software, not hardware. Instead of being happy because new iPhone will be released, people should be happy because new iOS will be released. It will make their life better even without the new phone. This is where iPhone 5 really fails: new iOS does not offer any innovative feature except Passbook. It is just catching up with Android.

The final question is: would I rather get iPhone 5 over my almost outdated Nexus S? That is tough question. I am not at all attracted by aluminum unibodies, for me it is a function over form (although much better function than glass). I would really like better camera, snappier OS, and longer battery runtime. Free turn by turn navigation is another great feature, as Google currently does not provide it in Croatia, but that might change. On the negative side, I dislike iOS. I also like to fiddle with the phone; Android gives me more opportunity there. If I get it as present, I would definitely keep it. With my own money, I would think twice.