iPhone 5C hands-on: $99 price on contract, 5 colors, small spec upgrade- http://techsmashit.com/iphone-5c-hands-on-99-price-on-contrac/

iPhone 5C hands-on: $99 price on contract, 5 colors, small spec upgrade
http://techsmashit.com/iphone-5c-hands-on-99-price-on-contrac/

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iPhone 5S hands-on: September 20 release date, 3 colors, new specs »

iPhone 5C hands-on: $99 price on contract, 5 colors, small spec upgrade

  

Apple today officially unveiled the long-rumored iPhone 5C, a stepdown, less-expensive model to the flagship iPhone 5S,
which was also announced. The iPhone 5C will be available in five
colors — white, green, blue, pink, and yellow — with the 16GB model
priced at $99 and the 32GB version costing $199 (with two-year
contract). Sadly, yes, there is no supercheap contract-free version.

Design and feel
As expected, the phone has a polycarbonate (plastic) back. Jony Ive,
Apple’s senior vice president of design, described the iPhone 5C as
“beautifully, unapologetically plastic. Multiple parts have been reduced
to a single polycarbonate component whose service is continuous and
seamless.”
How does it feel in the hand? Remarkably solid and
dense, more like a candy-lacquered metal phone than a “plastic phone.”
The 5C has a steel frame under the polycarbonate, and the smooth finish
feels very hand-friendly. Hopefully it’ll stay scratch-resistant.
The
curved edges are a bit of a return to the older plastic iPhones, but
the phone’s squarer design still comes through: it has a flat back. It’s
a shinier, smoother, thicker device than last year’s fifth-gen iPod
Touch.

Specs: iPhone 5-esque

If you’re wondering what makes a 5C different from the now-discontinued
iPhone 5, it’s basically this: new colors and feel, better front-facing
FaceTime HD camera, and a slightly larger battery. Oh, and there’s no
64GB version: you’ll have to get an iPhone 5S for that.

Some of the specs Apple is highlighting include an A6 processor,
an 8-megapixel camera with a 3x video zoom in-camera app, an improved
front-facing HD camera, and 802.11 a/b/g/n dual band Wi-Fi, as well as
“more LTE bands for world coverage.”

The iPhone 5C weighs slightly more than the iPhone 5 but seems to offer slightly better battery life.

From a specs standpoint, the iPhone 5C appears to be a slight upgrade
over the existing iPhone 5. However, at 4.65 ounces, the iPhone 5C
weighs slightly more than the 3.95-ounce iPhone 5.

A first look at the colorful iPhone 5C (pictures)

            

         

         

            

         

         

         

The iPhone 5, which also runs on an A6 processor, will be discontinued,
but the iPhone 4S will stick around in an 8GB version that will be free
with a two-year contract.

Apple also introduced a new line of $29.99 cases
for the 5C, with multiple six color options available. The cases have a
“soft, matte” finish to contrast the glossy finish of the 5C’s back.

Apple said the 5C has “impressive battery life” and from a first glance
at the numbers, it appears to offer better battery life than the iPhone
5, particularly for Internet browsing on LTE (10 hours vs. 8 hours on
the iPhone 5). Standby time is rated at 250 hours compared to the iPhone
5’s 225 hours.

In all, this is pretty much what we were expecting the iPhone 5C to be
— a cheaper-to-produce version of the iPhone 5 that’s been jazzed up
with an all-new, colorful and shiny look. Those colored backs should
appeal to younger consumers, though it’ll be interesting to see whether
iPhone 5C owners choose to protect their phones with cases — made by
Apple or other accessory makers — or leave them exposed.

All businessmen are not the same

There are assumptions about businesses in India. That they are only run by rich people. That everything they are doing at some level must be unethical. That all of them must have some secret deal with the party in power. Being businessmen, they must also be automatically profiteers, hoarders and polluters of the environment. Plus, have an apartment in London paid for with black money from a Swiss account.

Our notion of businessmen naturally comes from the media. We see magazine covers with a photo of some guy in a regal suit and it says ‘Telecom Tycoon’ or ‘Media Moghul’ and we think, wow, what a fun royal life. And inside, there are photos of their society spouse (“I plan every party meticulously”), their handsome Ivy Leagueeducated kids who have some random title (VP of Company Relations) but basically “being groomed for the top job”. They are those Forbes lists where their worth is listed — a bazillion dollars, still ranked 37th. They photograph the businessman sitting at an angle, surrounded by their family bathed in jewels and Nehru jackets under a chandelier in a really elegant drawing room.

The reality is, sure, some Indian businessmen have jumped in on an opportunity and done well. But the vast amount of their time is not spent smiling in elegant rooms under chandeliers for Forbes. It is spent in gruelling negotiations for bank loan extensions, or understanding some new convoluted technology regulation in a Delhi regulatory office where the fan doesn’t work.

When any sort of shouting happens against businessmen — whether an environmental agitation or random public protests — the narrative is always: well, they are businessmen. We are common people. They have loads of money, power and privilege. Naturally, we are on the side of those protesting to shut down the business.

Judging all Indian businessmen by the top 15 billionaires is like judging every website as if it were Facebook. The bulk of India’s businessmen and entrepreneurs are people you’ve never heard of, are not politically connected, and no one puts them on any magazine cover. They struggle daily just to keep their enterprise open, make about the same as a middle-class employee of a corporation, and often fail. After bank loans, overheads, legal costs and employee salaries, they are often more common than the common man protesting outside his or her office.

Doing business in India is insane. Ask any entrepreneur and they’ll tell you it’s like fighting a small war every day. And that’s just to manage things nothing to do with the business: flip-flopping regulations, needling competitors, litigations, some infrastructure collapse. And then, at some point in the day, maybe the evening, they get to the actual business with its own crises: absent employees, irate customers, some online review with false accusations, stolen money, stolen inventory.

At midnight perhaps, they can put their mind to how to actually run the business.

You wonder why they do it. Why not settle into some nice corporate job where as long as you dress nicely, speak reasonably well with the apropos references, people assume business acumen. Corporate jobs have their own problems: internal politics, power dynamics with colleagues, but the buck never stops with the employee. It travels up into the ether somewhere and is lost. The employee can have one good presentation and spend the rest of the day writing a Chetan Bhagat-esque novel, consider it a good day at business and get promoted to VP the next day.

Entrepreneurs are a different animal. They have no hours, no outfits, no fancy jargons and are comfortable equally with Goldman Sachs and Maharashtra Truck Union meetings. Internationally, the real skill of businessmen is to pinpoint a need, a problem, a gap in the market, and address it. In India, businessmen realise that is only the starting point. The real skill is to be able to endure the feeling of bungee-jumping off a different cliff every day. And enjoying it.

A small businessman who runs three restaurants explained to me, “Forget a Swiss bank account. I can’t even open an HDFC Bank account. I don’t know who the media thinks we are when they say businessmen are making millions and looting the country. Just today, I had to pay three bribes, solve three internal fights, two cooks resigned, deal with a Neft issue that blocked delivery from our supplier. And it’s just 7:00 am.”

“Why do you go on?” I asked.

“I don’t know any other way to live,” he replied. “A 9-to-5 would kill me.”