In a bid to compete with lower cost Android devices, Apple has officially announced its much-rumored, lower-cost iPhone. The iPhone 5C will sell for $99 with a two year cell phone contract.
During the September 10 event, Apple also unveiled its top-of-the-line iPhone 5S, which will be offer much more powerful computing power, being the first cell phone with 64-bit processor, Apple said. The 16GB version will sell for $199 with a two year contract.
The 5S will have a much improved camera, which will be important for news organizations that widely use the phone. It will have a 15% larger sensor and offer improved low light capabilities, with a F2.2 aperture.
The 5S will also come in more colors--black, silver and gold—and have finger print 'touch ID' so users don’t have to enter a pass code to unlock the phone.
The lower cost iPhone 5C will have a hard plastic case, a 4-inch retina, 8MP camera and a A6 processor. Apple says it supports “more LTE brands than any other smart phone in the world” and it will come in multiple colors--white, yellow, lime green, light blue, and pink.
Apple will start taking pre-orders on September 13 and the devices will go on sale on September 20.
The company also showed off the new iOS 7, which featured improvements to Siri, the Safari browser and other features.
Despite speculation ahead of Tuesday's product unveiling, Apple did not use it to announce updates and enhancements to the Apple TV box, which has recently added support for a handful of authenticated TV Everywhere apps from Disney, ESPN and HBO, among others.
-Multichannel News technology editor Jeff Baumgartner contributed to this report.
