With The iPhone 5S, Apple Reveals A Laser Focus On Revolutionizing The Most Lucrative Mobile Categories
BIIWith the new iPhone 5S smartphone, Apple has doubled down on the areas of mobile with proven revenue-generation potential, for itself and app developers: payments, commerce, games, and photography.
As part of our quarterly update of major mobile industry trends, BI Intelligence took a first look at how the 5S and its new camera and fingerprint scanner might revolutionize several of the most lucrative mobile categories.
The iPhone 5S will be a bellwether for the mobile industry's future.
Here's why Apple's new fingerprint scan technology called "Touch ID," could be a boon for mobile commerce and mobile payments:
- Currently, Touch ID will allow a user to authorize iTunes purchases with a quick scan of their thumb, instead of having to type in their password. It will also unlock the home screen.
- Mobile commerce: But retailers want much more. The hope is for Apple to open up the fingerprint scan technology so that it can be used for smoothing in-app purchases and e-commerce transactions.
- Mobile payments: The same technology can power the use of mobile devices for "walletless" payments at bricks-and-mortar offline retail outlets. Add this to the industry-leading 435 million user credit cards Apple has on file (as well as its Passbook digital wallet app), and the 5S could act as a bridge for taking mobile payments mainstream.
The 5S will be twice as fast as the old iPhone 5 and 40 times faster than the original iPhone, according to Apple. The 64-bit A7 chip will be accompanied by a new motion-sensing coprocessor. This hardware combination will benefit certain application categories:
- Fitness and health tracking apps, as well as gesture-controlled mobile games (games are top app store money-makers).
- Photography. Improved lens and sensors are paired to Apple's updated camera software on the 5S, creating an enhanced camera experience, including a stabilization feature, automatic editing of multiple rapid-fire exposures for a few great photos, and "dynamic tone mapping," which can adjust picture quality (i.e., brightness, exposure) on individual parts of the image.
- Let's not forget that photography drives some of the most popular social networking and messaging apps (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.). Photography is at the heart of the mobile consumer's experience, and where they put a great deal of their time, money, and care.
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In full, our mobile industry update:
- Looks At How The Tablet Market Has Also Ceded To Hardware Commoditization
- Reviews The Latest Mobile Data: There's One Billion Active Android Devices And 700 Million iOS Devices, But Growth Is No Longer Blistering
- Why The Galaxy Gear Will Not Be The Breakthrough Device In The Wearables Market
- Explains How Advertising Companies And Social Networks Are Consolidating As They Reach For Audience Scale
- Digs Into The Data Behind Mobile's Growth Engines: Android, Samsung, Large-Screen Phones, China