Apple iPhone 5S officially announced

Apple has officially announced the Apple iPhone 5S proving that all things that glitter don't necessarily have to be in gold. No pun intended as we are referring to the third color option Apple has chosen to use on their flagship smartphone. Last year's iPhone 5 has been repacked into brighter colors and presented as the Apple iPhone 5C, which aims to make affordability its selling factor.

Improvements to the iPhone 5S include a faster A7 processor, an improved camera, a better battery and a fingerprint scanner built into its home button. Lets take a closer look at these features in detail

The Apple A7 64-bit mobile processor 

The iPhone 5S is powered by a brand new Apple A7 processor, which is the first 64-bit chip on a smartphone. Apple has had to re-engineer iOS 7.0 to a 64 bit platform to support the new chip, but it will still support all the 32 bit application in the store. The A7 chip on the iPhone 5S promises to deliver double the performance in CPU and GPU performance over its predecessor.

In the graphics department Apple has introduced OpenGL ES 3.0 support to the platform, which is great news for gaming. The Infinity Blade III demonstration at today's iPhone event, showed the mind blowing graphics which will be available on your new iPhone.

Along with the Apple A7, the new iPhone 5S features an M7 co-processor that always tracks the motion sensors - accelerometer, gyro, compass. This will enable more precise tracking and a new generation of health and fitness apps.

An improved camera with dual-LED flash

Apple has improved the camera on the iPhone 5S, which now comes with a larger 1.5 µm pixel sensor with an aperture of f/2.2 and a five-element lens. This results in a more sensitive camera, which should capture noticeably better low light photos.

The iPhone 5S also has a ‘True Tone’ flash made up of two separate LEDs. They’re white and amber, which Apple says can be combined to reduce clashes in color temperature.

The camera app has gotten new features too. Apple highlighted a new burst mode which captures 10 frames per second, and automatically selects the best picture for you. It is also capable of automatically setting white balance, exposure, and it creates what Apple calls a "dynamic local tone map" 15 zones auto-focus metering.  In video mode, the handset can spit out 720p slow motion video files at 120 frames per second.

A better battery with improved battery life

The new iPhone 5S has also gotten a longer lasting battery. 10 hours of talk time on 3G, 10 hours of browsing on a 4G LTE network, and 10 hours of continuous video playback.

Fingerprint scanner security

One of the biggest rumors turned out to be true as Apple unveiled a fingerprint scanner with their new iPhone 5S. The scanner is built right into the home button and serves primarily to unlock your device. The new home key is covered in sapphire, a tougher and more scratch-proof material than usual protected glass.

The scanner is also used to authentication and will protect your device from unauthorised iTunes purchases.

iPhone 5S release date and pricing

Apple will take pre-orders for the Apple iPhone 5S starting September 13th, with the device being available a week later on September 20th.The new iPhone will arrive to 100 countries and 270 carriers by the end of the year.

Pricing remains comparable to previous generation, when purchased with a two-year contract with your carrier.

• iPhone 5S 16GB price: $199
• iPhone 5S 32GB price: $299
• iPhone 5S 64GB price: $399

Apple has event included a selection of premium leather cases to protect your investment. You can select from the six available colors (including red) to add to the uniqueness of your device.