Apple introduced a new iPhone on Wednesday, Sept. 12, with a larger screen, faster wireless Internet speeds and a more powerful chip, as the company again seeks to demonstrate the staying power of one of the technology industry's great franchises.


"IPhone 5 is the best phone we've ever made," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president for worldwide marketing, at an event in San Francisco where the device was introduced.



Apple said it was making the change because the new connector is more durable and frees up space for other technologies inside the iPhone. The company said many of the functions of traditional iPhone cables, other than charging, were now handled by wireless connections like Bluetooth.


The bigger screen in the iPhone 5 marks the first time Apple has altered the dimensions of the iPhone's display, which has measured 3.5 inches diagonally since the original iPhone Apple released in 2007. Apple said the new display offered a bigger canvas for activities like reading a book, browsing websites and watching movies.

The iPhone 5 is a more significant overhaul of the design of Apple's smartphone than the iPhone 4S, criticized by some for mostly incremental improvements inside a device that looked nearly identical to the iPhone that came before it. Apple seemed to denote that product's more modest changes by reserving the iPhone 5 name for the product it introduced on Wednesday.
