Maps and navigation

Maps is a contentious area of the Apple ecosystem since its rather embarrassing launch which saw the whole of the internet go about spotting the myriad of errors in the software. It lead to an Apple climb down and CEO Tim Cook recommending users try alternative solutions until a fix in place.

A year on and we're still waiting for the major overhaul to take place - Maps is still determined when we type "Luton" that we mean a tiny village in Devon rather and the large Bedfordshire based town.

Some things have been fixed, Doncaster for example is now spelt correctly, but there's still quite some way for Apple Maps to go before it can seriously challenge Google Maps, with elements like public transport integration not on offer.

Of course it's not always bad news and for the most part Maps works pretty well, and it's able to comprehend where we are and where we want to go.

The colour palette is pleasing to the eye and everything is very easy to read with various points of interest marked on the map including restaurants, hospitals and train stations.

Maps load very quickly on the iPhone 5S, be it over Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G, so there's no awkward waiting around when you fire up the app, and unlike the 5C, the 5S was very fast at locating us. We're surprised about this, as the location chips inside should be the same, but clearly the A7 chip is playing a part here.

Turn Wi-Fi off and try and locate yourself when indoors and the 5S struggles to really nail down your location, placing a large blue halo round the location dot, which is usually in the right vicinity.

As well as the stock map view you can also view the world in a series of satellite images or choice a hybrid option which sees roads laid on top of the satellite snaps.

However unlike Google Maps, the TomTom powered Apple maps doesn't have the StreetView option, nor does it sport any public transport information, so if you want to know which bus or train to get you'll have to go else where.

The 3D Flyover option which Apple lauded at the launch of Maps last year is nice to view when you're over a city which has actually supports it, but for the majority of the world there are no 3D renders present and thus the mode is merely there for aesthetic value.

While there are some gremlins on the navigation side of things, in general Apple Maps is a very capable turn-by-turn sat nav alternative - and you'd hope so considering TomTom is behind the technology.

Tap in your destination and pin pops up with a little blue square next to the address details with an estimated drive time - tap this and Maps will load the route from your current location, plus provide two alternatives.

Select the route you want and hit "Drive" and you'll be launched into the navigation screen, where the blue route stands out well on the grey roads making it really clear where you need to go - especially useful at tricky junctions.

There's an extra clever little feature on offer here too: with the M7 co-processor on board, the iPhone 5S was able to work out when we had stopped driving and began walking, showing that the phone's internal motion sensors are up to snuff.

We did note once during our testing that the GPS signal caused the phone to freeze when jumping out to the email app, but this was a singular instance which we've not been able to replicate since. We'll update this part of the review if we encounter such a thing again.

We did find the text display the time and distance left on our journey and our estimated time of arrival were a bit small at the top of the screen and we found ourselves squinting at the screen to read them - not particularly safe when you're driving.

The stereo speakers on the base of the iPhone 5S allow for loud, clear spoken instructions from a robotic male voice, and the volume really impressed us as we've found many phones struggle to be heard over the noise of the car.

Battery life, connectivity and iTunes

Battery life

Battery life on the iPhone 5S is something that a lot of people will be checking out for a number of reasons, and mostly because they'll be curious as to how the uprated processor and iOS 7 combine to improve the life of your power pack.

While the iPhone 5 was an improvement in battery life for the iPhone range, there was still room for more, and that's partly come on the iPhone 5S.

The main thing that's been fixed is the fact that leaving the iPhone 5S on standby, perhaps overnight, sees very little drain on the battery. One night we noticed around 15% drop, but after that it was merely 4-5% on average which we can put down to iOS 7 keeping its apps in order a little better.

So that's a big problem of the iPhone battery solved: if its in your pocket, it won't inexplicably run out of juice.

However, there's still a rather large issue we need to address with the battery: and that's the problem of actually using the phone. We test a large number of devices here at TechRadar, and in our more intensive tests it's always interesting to see which phone fare better.

A little photography, web browsing, video watching and flicking through apps not only warmed up the 5S quite considerably but also saw a rather rapid drain in the battery. For instance: streaming BBC iPlayer on the train home for half an hour saw a 20% drop in the battery life. The likes of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One can do nearly half that, and the LG G2's Snapdragon 800 processor can go even lower.

We can't see how the claims of 8 hours' browsing on 3G holds any water, as that was one area that really hurt the battery and caused the phone to heat up. Talking also drained the power pack, and Apple's quoting up to 10 hours on 3G. Again, we can't see it.

It's not horrendous, and if you're an iPhone user you'll be used to a faster battery drain, but there's definitely a wistful air that hangs over us every time we check out the battery percentage in the top-right corner.

However, here's a great little update that will cheer you up: the iPhone 5S charges phenomenally quickly. REALLY quickly. We timed a charge in just a little over two hours from nearly dead - that's great if you just need a slug of juice on the run.

Connectivity

Unsurprisingly the iPhone 5S comes will all manner of connectivity options, but NFC is still the high-profile absentee at the Apple party. Not even the plastic clad iPhone 5C could tempt the firm to give us a bit of contactless tech, and it clearly paints a picture of where the brand stands in this area.

It's worth mentioning again that the iPhone 5S sports Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, 3G and4G connectivity, with special mention of the latter as this phone supports the most LTE bands than any other smartphone, allowing even more people to take advantage of the superfast network.

There's a new way to control Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 in iOS 7 with the arrival of the Control Center, which is accessed with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen as we mentioned before.

This brings up some shortcut settings including toggles for both connections, plus you can also enable airplane mode here if you want to go off the grid - or, you know, if you get on a plane.

GPS and GLONASS also make an appearance to help you locate yourself in Maps with earth shattering accuracy (and very quickly, too) and navigate you round the world with the free turn-by-turn satellite navigation system.

The iPhone 5S sports Apple's new physical connection port - dubbed Lightning - on its base which is used for charging as well as connecting to computers and any third party peripherals you may pick up.

It provides a faster connection than the 30-pin port it replaced, allowing for quicker data transfer meaning you won't be waiting around quite so long. Plus you can plug it in both ways round, which saves scrabbling at night.

Apple offers its own cloud storage solution cunningly named iCloud which lets you store all your vital information in its secure servers should the worst happen to your iPhone 5S.

You can back up everything from contacts, mail and calendars to photos, documents and notes to iCloud, and if you've owned an iDevice in the past you can download your settings from that onto your iPhone 5S - saving you from having to re-enter various bits of information.

iCloud also enables the "Find my iPhone" feature, so if you were to misplace your new iPhone you can log onto the iCloud website and see where your phone is on a map.

Once located you have the choice of making play a sound so you can dig it out from behind the sofa, report it as lost or erase the contents of the phone - it's all very clear stuff.

iTunes

No longer is there a reliance in Apple's desktop iTunes software when you come to starting up your iPhone for the first time - no physical connection ever needs to made to a computer during the lifetime of the 5S if you don't fancy digging out your Lightning cable.

If you do decide it's time for things to get physical between your computer and iPhone then you'll need to make sure you've got the latest version of iTunes (that's version 11.1) installed, otherwise it will refuse to play with your new phone.

Why would you want/need to connect your iPhone 5S to your computer? Well perhaps you've got lots of music, movies and photos you want to transfer from your machine to your new phone - iTunes will pull it all in, churn it up and spit it out to your new iPhone in a useable format.

Using iTunes is a rather hit and miss experience, with the software performing far better on a Mac than a Windows PC, but either way it's usually a long, drawn out process which involves lots of syncing - so avoid it if you can or are tremendously regimented in your music organisation.

Gallery

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.

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.

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.

Internet

The internet browser on the iPhone 5S is one of the most improved elements when it comes to looking at the way iOS 7 has been integrated into the device. The overall UI is more sleek than ever, and there are some dynamic touches that make trotting around the world wide web much easier.

One of the biggest changes, and simultaneously the smallest, is how fast the URL bar will shrink and grow as needed. Go to the top of the page where the URL bar used to be and it will expand to offer full functionality. Start scrolling and you'll see it move away, but still give you the information you need to check on where you actually are on the net.

The Retina display is still sharp enough for general browsing, but you'll need to double tap more than you might on other phones to zoom in as text isn't as legible on some of the Full HD phones out there when viewing a web page from afar.

However, the A7 processor is adept at not only rendering web pages with panache, but also making sure that web elements are loaded properly and don't detract from the overall zooming experience. It's fluid without being fast, which is a trait of iOS 7 overall.

We like that Apple has also included the search bar in with the URL entry area, as it means that more screen real estate can be used for browsing, rather than all being crushed at the top. There's no need for it to be any other way, and it makes things more integrated too.

You get icons on the home landing page which you can set as your most-used apps, and this is a nifty feature that solves the fact that Apple's bookmarking system can be a little convoluted, The icons at the bottom of the screen can be a little harder to work out on the first viewing, but do work nicely nonetheless, with the tabs page allowing you to simply swipe away the open web pages you don't want.

Airdrop is integrated here too, if you want to share web pages with people around you easily, as well as the ability to share it to Twitter, Facebook or other installed apps. Of course you can always lock it in an app like Pocket, but with the ability to add these things to the reading list for easy access later on, that's not really as much of a necessary option.

The reading mode has also been given a tweak that means that it no longer takes up as much of the URL bar, with a simple 'lines' icon signifying when you can enter the cleaner, more stripped down version of the page. This is most useful when using the Twitter functionality, which we really like.

If you're signed into Twitter on your iPhone, then it can parse through your feeds and present you with a list of Tweets with embedded links, which you can scroll through at your leisure, with the bottom of each web page passing on to the next one Tweeted.

It's a nice way to browse through what your friends are sharing, and will perhaps encourage reading on a wider range of subjects.

Apple was in danger of making Safari too complicated with recent iterations, and on the iPhone 5S the cleaner, more simple look is held up nicely by the processing power. We're fans of this method of browsing as it allows users to get to the stuff they really want with the minimum of fuss, and share it easily too.