People were expecting too much from the iPhone 5. When you make the best-selling phone on the market, you don't reinvent the wheel with new versions. You tweak things here and there and keep doing what made you successful in the first place. I'd love to see a dynamic interface on the iPhone (and I think Apple will get there someday) but I completely understand why they're sticking to the grid format that made iOS successful in the first place.

Stuff like wireless charging and NFC are fluff. Kinda neat features but not useful on a large enough scale (in the case of NFC, "not large enough yet", it will get there in time) to sway peoples' purchasing decisions in large enough numbers to matter. I don't entirely agree with the decision but I see why Apple went with weight and thinness optimization in the new iPhone. Personally, I thought the iPhone 4S was plenty thin enough and I would have preferred a thicker, longer-lasting battery in the iPhone 5 over making the thing even thinner than its predecessor. And with the new Lightning port, I don't see much to be gained by wireless charging. You still have to plug something into the wall. Whether it's a wire leading into the phone or a wireless charger, I don't much care.

Somebody let me know when wireless charging works over short distances. That's when the tech will truly matter to customers. Being able to set your phone on a desk and automatically charge it without setting it on a receiver is tech I'd fully support and want in my phone. Setting it on a "wireless" cradle isn't different enough from a traditional cradle to matter.

It would be nice, if they did radically change the iphone though, apple are really capable of great things, they should try out new ideas i think.

I don't care about NFC or wireless charging, although it would be nice if a micro solar panel was put in the back of the phone to charge it, along with a very good battery life, at least make it last a couple days, rather than a day!

the lumia 920 caught my attention because of the impressive camera on it, and the screen technology that let's you use a touch screen with gloves on (i wish every phone worked with gloves), which is great for those cold winter days. Windows phone 8 and the stuff nokia added like unlimited free music streaming are a bonus. 

This is a low light camera test between the lumia 920 and iphone 4s http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/47361/nokia-lumia-920-vs-iphone-4s-cameras You decide!

I'd be seriously considering the Lumia 920 if not for Microsoft. It's a gorgeous phone and Nokia seems to be the only company capable of going toe-to-toe with Apple on the hardware front. I think WP8 looks fantastic but after watching Microsoft blunder through almost every facet of the mobile space for more than a decade, I'm not going to give them a chance until they can give me a full two years of consistent mobile computing without changing their framework again.

it seems there is nothing that apple can do to make the android fan base love them. The first claim was "the iphone4 does not have flash" ,now flash is dead and steve jobs was right all along. The Second claim was "the iphone 4s is outdated we want bigger screen" now the iphone5 has bigger screen but the hate continues... and they call the apple fan base fanboys... lamao

Bigger screen? That's not what is important.  The important thing is that you have the biggest screen and the biggest numbers.  The rest is irrelevent.

People don't like them because of the closed OS. They can make the screen 6 inches for all I care.

People can still use flash on mobile. I am using it on Android 4.1. People used Flash for nearly 4 years and they are still using it.  So you think it is good that you don't have the option. 

It looks to me that Steve Jobs was wrong. He said that 3.5 inches is enough. I guess it wasn't.

If Apple had introduced wireless charging and NFC, would they still be fluff?

Firstly, Apple has a lot of sway and influence in the smartphone and general tech market. If they introduced NFC and Wireless charging, they'd likely take off. Retailers would be happy to put more NFC payment options and you'd get a small explosion in rival NFC devices. We'd likely also see more apps that make use of NFC; the fragmentation of Android means that it's not necessarily in developers best interest as only a small percentage of devices actually use it.

The same with wireless charging. If Apple had actually decided to put it in their phone you'd likely see a lot of wireless charging docks everywhere (you table in coffee shops, resturants, airports etc.)... and Apple would get heaped with praise for this. I'm not sure why you think the wireless charger is useless thanks to the Lightning connector, you could say the same about micro usb. The point is you should have these hubs everywhere and you'll be able to charge it without having to carry a charger around or without necessarily having to go to a locker/charging unit. Whether that actually happens considering Nokia are the ones introducing the tech is anybody's guess.

Secondly, Apple have introduced tech that could be considered fluff before anyway. Siri for instance (especially in the UK) is little more than a gimmick, yet spawned numerous alternative iterations from rival app makers (on Android at least... more of that Apple influence). Siri is now considered are fairly useful feature and is being improved upon. Had another company introduced Siri, would it have taken off in the same way? I doubt it.

Basically, Apple in many ways can decide how popular a piece of tech becomes. I personally think wireless charging and NFC will gradually grow, yet when/if Apple decide to jump in, it'll take off in a huge way. You'll probably also get a whole load of people praising Apple for popularising them too.

Agreed 100% on Apple adoption of tech. If they push hard at a tech in the mobile space, that tech is almost surely going to succeed because of the unified platform of the iPhone. On the other hand, Apple may not feel the market is ready for some of that tech and they may not feel like they're ready to exploit it. Either way, the tech is marginal right now and will remain so for the next few years. There is no reason for Apple to jump on board unless they feel they're ready to embrace it whole-heartedly.

The key difference between Lightning and USB is reversibility. Who here has almost broken their Micro USB port trying to jam the plug in backwards? (most of the room raises their hand). Okay, now the rest of you are lying. When the USB consortium made the micro port and I found out it wasn't reversible, I just shook my head. There's. No. Fucking. Reason. For. It. They easily could have developed something like Lightning for Micro USB and I consider it a failure that they didn't do it. I hate proprietary ports like Lightning as much as the next guy but in this case, Apple is providing a clearly superior solution to a stupid problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. That's the difference.

And if you have an easy to plug in reversible port, it negates some of the need for wireless charging, particularly if that wireless charging unit adds bulk to the phone. Does anyone know the speed of inductive charging? I haven't read up enough on the tech to know if it's slower (but I do know it adds a little bulk to the device, just like everything else). Maybe if the tech improves, Apple will jump on board. We know they're not scared of experimenting with new tech (after all, they did things like poke around until Corning dusted off 50 year old tech to give us Gorilla Glass, something they couldn't find a use for in fifty fucking years) but they generally do it only after they've found a solid implementation for said tech. Given their track record over the past decade, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait to see what the future brings.

The tech is slow way slow to charge the battery. The USB charging is a lot fast and the default charging is almost twice fast than USB.

There are other issues like the phone gets very hot and you can't move it.

There are no advantage with inductive charging... in the futebe maybe when you can move at least some meter from the station.

Yep, did more research on it. Inductive charging still has a long way to go before it's ready for mainstream use. I'm glad Apple left it off the iPhone.