The iPhone 5 boasts LTE support and better Wi-Fi. While faster data speed is good for everyone, it plays an important role in some business situations, such as streaming media and displaying chunks of business data. For CIOs with media-rich mobile apps, iPhone LTE support has been a long time coming.
Unlike the glass backing on the iPhone 4, the iPhone 5 boasts an aluminum backing. Why is this good news for CIOs? The iPhone is fast-becoming a mission critical tool in the enterprise, and a broken iPhone can be devastating to worker productivity. The iPhone 4's glass backing was notorious for cracking, says Kyle Wiens of iFixit, a website serving up free repair manuals.
"The iPhone 5 should be more durable," he says.
Another iPhone 5 business benefit isn't a new feature at all. Road warriors know that access to power outlets to charge up the iPhone can be hard to come by. Battery life is business life, and there was a growing concern that the iPhone 5 would have a poor battery life. After all, the iPhone 5 has to power a bigger screen, faster chip and support LTE.
But the iPhone 5 has been engineered to exceed the battery life of the iPhone 4S, at least according to Apple. It supports eight hours of 3G talk time, eight hours of 3G browsing, and eight hours of LTE browsing.