iPhone 5 announced

iPhone 5 (photo courtesy of engadget)

So Apple have finally unveiled the iPhone 5. Colour me unimpressed.
Undoubtedly, it is a great feat of engineering. The fact that it is a whopping 20% lighter and nearly 20% thinner than its predecessor is great. It now offers a bigger screen at 4" (up from 3.75") which allows for an extra row of icons on the home screen. It sports a new A6 processor that allows from some incredible graphics from games as well as being faster on the ball when opening applications and browsing the web. It also manages to do this whilst increasing battery life.
Those who love to blog and instagram it will enjoy the additional functionality of the camera, which is another step up from the iPhone 4s (adding in the ability to take panoramic shots). Also new is the connector. Gone is the old 30 pin and in its place, a more svelte charging cable.
But so what?
This kind of thing we expect from Apple. We get that every new product we make is sexier, lighter and faster than the now ugly, over weight, bloated previous model. Apple had settled into a nice tic toc model (used by Intel) where one new iPhone would be a complete overhaul and add in loads of functionality that made you wonder how you coped in life before. The next one would be a slight tarting up of it, slightly faster, slightly tweaked.
The iPhone 5 was meant to be the next big thing. It should have been the second coming of the Jesus phone, blasting aside all pretenders. Instead it is merely playing catch up, slightly increasing screen size, bragging about an extra row of icons (really???!!) and, whilst being a really nice piece of kit, not offering that old Apple "Oh my God!!" moment.
This is what is really worrying. Since Tim Cook has taken over, we haven't really had any of those. He has steered the good ship Apple well over this past year. But we haven't seen anything fresh, new or exciting. Just a few tweaks on the formula. Still, this is an enviable position to be in; coming out with desirable products that are worshipped the world over, making these products even better year on year. That would be incredible for any other company. For Apple, it is merely standard, we expect more. They can't afford to rest on their laurels, they need to innovate and push us into the future again.