iPhone 5S review

Faster, new camera and a clever fingerprint reader. But is it enough of an upgrade?

iPhone 5S review
A phone that's so much more than a iterative update

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The gallery app on the iPhone 5S is something that stays very true to Apple's ethos, one of displaying all your photos in one place but organising them in easy to find places.

For instance, when you open up the redesigned Photos app, you're taken through a few options. You can view your album, your Photostream through iCloud or the myriad videos you'll have nabbed during your time with the device.

However, once into your camera roll, you can organise by moments in time, location or just general collections, with only a couple of taps being needed to make it easier to share the content with a social network.

Obviously from this app you're able to do more, such as create a shared photostream for the family to enjoy, or you can open Apple maps to see properly where the photos were taken. And if you want to zoom out a bit then all you need to do is tap the top left-hand icon, taking you from 'Collections' to 'Years' which means that if you've got millions of snaps then you can see them grouped properly together.

If you're not happy with the photos you have you can always tap the "edit" button when viewing a particular picture to take you into a basic editor.

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From there you have various options including crop, rotate, red eye removal, eight filters and auto-enhance.

It's certainly not as detailed as Apple's iPhoto app - which can be downloaded for free from the App Store - but for the occasional photography this simple editor will suffice

Airdrop

If you're interested in sharing these photos with others, the Airdrop is your friend here. Apple's new proprietary connection is one that's pretty darn good and beats the pants of the likes of S Beam on a Galaxy phone or the general need to pull ones hair out when setting up Wi-Fi direct.

iPhone 5S review

In this option you simply tap the photo you want to share, make sure the person you're looking to share it with has a compatible Apple device (and is visible) then tap on the icon of the person that comes up at the bottom in the Control Centre - this works really well and the photo sharing times between the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C were very impressive indeed, using Apple's implementation of the Wi-Fi ad-hoc technology.

It's startling how fast photos beam across, and it's more simple than competitor methods, providing you've made yourself available or accepted other users.

Bluetooth - your days as a data transmission option are starting to draw to a close, unless a newer version of the technology pushes the envelope again.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.