Major iPhone 5 Details Break Out: 1GB RAM, Assistant, Backlit Camera

Sources familiar with the new Apple iPhone have leaked a bulk of new information about the inner workings of the handset, as well as some software enhancements that will allegedly work with new-gen iPhones only.

According to the people cited by 9to5mac, the iPhone 5 will pack Apple’s dual-core A5 processor but it will have drastically improved graphics and double the RAM of the iPhone 4.

Not even the iPad 2 has 1GB of RAM, so why would it need so much?

Well, it’s because iPhone 5 will need to handle a lot of new background tasks that Apple will introduce, according to a source familiar with the manufacturing of the A5 SOC (system on a chip).

An upgraded camera system will also be found on the fifth-gen iPhone. It will have an 8 megapixel image sensor that takes “incredibly high-resolution and clear shots”, thanks to a backlit sensor, even in low light conditions.

The iPhone 5 will reportedly be a world-phone, as previously rumored, thanks to a Qualcomm Gobi Baseband chip that allows it to roam the airwaves of both GSM and CDMA operators.

However, the biggest and most exciting change will be the Assistant, the brainchild of the Siri acquisition last year, according to those who are privy of Apple’s plans with the new device.

The Assistant will basically allow users to do all kinds of stuff - like set a reminder, or send a quick text message - by simply talking to their phone as if it were a real person waiting to take instructions.

The feature is said to work only with devices that pack the aforementioned A5 chip with 1GB of RAM, which means that current-generation iPhones and iPads will miss out on Assistant.

The integration with Wolfram Alpha, the online computational knowledge system, is regarded as “the coolest aspect of Assistant”, in its ability to leverage different kinds of services.

Finally, the new iPhone is said to feature Nuance speech-to-text integration (though this mostly has to do with software, rather than hardware). This information reportedly came from a mobile carrier source who had access to the feature during its testing phases.

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