????上周五，我和一個朋友在舊金山一家常去的附近餐館等點心時，我掏出了從蘋果公司（Apple）借來的金色版iPhone 5S。我拿著它晃來晃去，就像一個剛訂婚的人炫耀無名指上的戒指一樣想引人注意。可這一招不管用，于是我只好提高嗓門，跟朋友秀秀這部手機的指紋掃描儀是怎么用的。

????就在這時，我們邊上的一對情侶看見這情景來了興致。他們盯著手機，然后一臉痛苦和妒忌地走到我身邊。那女子嘟噥道：“今天早上我們在埃默里威爾那家店足足等了三個小時，”她是一心想和男朋友一起買一部金色版5S的，最后卻發現：蘋果店里這款手機根本就沒有幾臺。

????結果，整個這頓飯期間，這一對就一直看著我們放在桌上的5S，對這臺似乎和金子一樣貴重的手機流露出無限向往。他們想要這臺手機的原因當然純屬個人偏好，但不可否認的是，iPhone誕生六年來，它已經變成無數人夢寐以求的身份象征了：那些能買到新款的人在開始幾星期里就能引領潮流，對那些必須等上幾周、甚至幾個月才能買到自己心儀手機的人而言，他們就是令人艷羨的對象。

????現在忠實的果粉們已經知道，如果新款iPhone的名字后加了S，那就意味著它和去年的老款樣子相去無幾。iPhone 5S也遵循著這個慣例，但它的問世過程確實平添了許多新的波折，以確保蘋果所謂的“驚人的需求量”（十月份它就已經延遲交貨了）。作為新加入銀灰色iPhone 5S陣營的機型，金色版淡香檳金的色調足以提醒身邊那些眼神夠好的人：這位機主拿的正是蘋果的最新款手機。除此之外，不管是4英寸的Retina屏幕還是雙色玻璃，以及鋁合金背殼，5S看起來都和去年那款輕盈修長的5幾乎別無二致。就連重量也還是3.95盎司。

????不過手機內部卻有大量的新變化。蘋果在本月初舉行的產品發布會上展示了全新的A7處理器，使iPhone 5成為第一款運行64位架構的智能手機之一。蘋果稱A7的處理速度是上一代的兩倍，此外它還能同時處理更多數據。現在，這主要意味著在全新的iOS 7中，應用打開的速度更快，動畫效果更平滑——這兩點一開機就能感受到。iOS 7是對原來操作系統一次脫胎換骨的升級，它摒棄了以前那種擬物化的圖標，代之以更簡潔、更扁平化的外觀（軟件團隊顯然覺得這種劇變和動畫效果樂趣多多：應用、屏幕和信息載入、縮放和挪移都更隨心所欲了）。長期來看，A7將讓開發者推出更復雜的應用，也會帶來更好的用戶體驗。

????憑借Touch ID，5S也終于擁有了指紋識別的功能。這項時髦的技術是蘋果去年斥資3.56億美元收購AuthenTec公司的成果。Touch ID被嵌入了手機的home鍵，這個鍵現在被一個相配的金屬環圈了起來。設置指紋掃描儀讓它認出指紋需要花兩分鐘，但一次就能搞掂，同時也是個很有意思的過程。至于這項技術價值如何，Touch ID也證明了它是相當安全的：至少我接觸的10個人無法打開我的手機，因為Touch ID認不出他們的指紋。當然，如果時間足夠，有合適的工具和足夠的錢，它也可能被破解，但這并不容易【安全技術專家布魯斯?施奈爾對《財富》雜志（Fortune）表示：“這不過是你的手機而已——又不是要發射導彈。我們需要的只是有限的安全度，而我覺得Touch ID安全性足夠了。”】??

????Last Friday, while waiting for dim sum with a friend at a neighborhood haunt in San Francisco, I whipped out the gold iPhone 5S I had on loan from Apple (AAPL). I waved it around, like someone who just got engaged might exaggeratedly wag their ring finger for attention. When that didn't work, I loudly demonstrated to my friend how the device's fingerprint scanner worked.

????That's when the couple next to us perked up. They stared at the phone, then back to me with looks of bitterness and jealousy. "We waited three hours this morning at the Emeryville store," griped the woman, who had hoped to buy a gold 5S with her boyfriend but struck out: the Apple store only had a few of them.

????Throughout dinner, the pair glanced at the 5S on our table, longing for a device seemingly as precious as gold itself. Why they wanted it, of course, is a matter of personal preference. But there's no denying that in the six years of the iPhone's life, the device has become a highly coveted status symbol: The owner with the newest model during those first few weeks becomes a kind of transient trendsetter, someone worth envying to those who must wait weeks or months until their own devices arrive.

????By now, the Apple faithful know that when the letter "S" trails the name of a new iPhone, it will look a lot like last year's model. The iPhone 5S doesn't buck that formula, but it does toss in enough new tweaks to warrant what Apple has called "incredible demand." (It's already backordered through October.) The subtle champagne-hued gold, a new addition that joins the iPhone 5S's space gray and silver, is enough to alert keen, nearby observers that the user possesses Apple's latest. Other than that, the 5S looks almost exactly like last year's light and svelte 5, from the size of that 4-inch Retina display to the two-tone glass and aluminum back. It also weighs the same 3.95 ounces.

????More has changed on the inside. At its product announcement earlier this month, Apple played up its new A7 processor, one of the first smartphones to run on 64-bit architecture. While Apple has said the A7 offers twice the speed as its predecessor, it also allows for more data to be crunched at once. For now, that mostly translates to faster app launches and smoother animation -- both were noticeable from the get-go -- inside the new iOS7, a radical revamp of the mobile operating system that ditches the previous skeuomorphic look for one that's flatter and cleaner. (Although the software team clearly had a lot of fun with sweeping transitions and animations: apps, screens, and messages swoop, zoom, and bounce quite liberally.) In the long run, the A7 will translate into more complex apps from developers and, ideally, better user experiences.

????Fingerprint scanning has also found its way into the 5S with Touch ID, a nifty piece of tech that's the result of the $356 million acquisition of AuthenTec last year. Touch ID is built right into the phone's home button, now surrounded by a matching metallic ring. Setting it up so the scanner recognizes your fingerprint is a one-time deal that takes two minutes, but it's actually a pretty entertaining process. And for what it's worth, Touch ID also appears pretty secure, too: at least 10 people I approached couldn't get into my phone because Touch ID didn't recognize their prints. With enough time, the right tools, and money, it's of course possible to hack, but it's not easy. ("It's your phone -- we're not launching missiles here," Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, told Fortune. "We're looking for a little bit of security, and I think Touch ID is a really great idea for that.")?