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"Apple, the planet&amp;#039;s most valuable company, last night held another one of the glittering product launches that have become its trademark, where the new iPhone was launched.  Once again, the world&amp;#039;s media was focused on the company as it introduced the iPhone 5, but as with the iPhone 4S launch in October 2011, the company rather underwhelmed the attending media.   Let&amp;#039;s be clear. The iPhone 5 is a beautiful product; a taller, thinner and sleeker iPhone that is made of premium materials, making it one of the most stunning smartphones we have ever seen and handled.  But something was sorely lacking from the launch event; the sense of wonder and surprise.  It is hard not to mention Steve Jobs here, Apple&amp;#039;s co-founder and visionary leader, who passed away almost a year ago.  Jobs was a master at these launches, whipping the crowd into feverish excitement and then delivering the killer punch; products that made people go, &amp;#039;wow&amp;#039;.  &amp;gt; Apple announces new iPod Nano, iPod Touch &amp;gt; iOS 6 releasing on September 19, Apple confirms Tim Cook, Apple&amp;#039;s former chief operating officer who moved up to chief executive last year, is no Steve Jobs. He spent rather too much time at the launch talking about how much better Apple was than the &amp;quot;competition&amp;quot; and extolling the positive future prospects of the firm - as though we haven&amp;#039;t seen the consistent run of blockbuster quarterly results.  Apple has always maintained an almost mythical sense of cool and allure, yet at times the launch felt a bit like a corporate seminar - all we needed was a few spreadsheets and sales projections.  Even a set by the Foo Fighters could not elevate the gloom, although Cook certainly enjoyed it.   But the biggest issue over all others was that everything announced last night had already leaked extensively on the web. The Earpod headphones were revealed by a Vietnamese website; the Lightning dock connector shown on a French site.  The 4-inch screen in the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch had been widely expected, as had the 4G connectivity, including that it would be coming to the UK on the EE network. Even the makeup of the launch announcements was accidentally revealed yesterday afternoon on Apple&amp;#039;s own website.  For a company famed for its security, this seemed a leak too far and robbed the sense of surprise from the event (although, we do appreciate the irony of complaining about this whilst also reporting every leak in Digital Spy Tech).  The entire iPhone 4 was leaked by Gizmodo in 2010 after a prototype was left in a bar, but Apple pursued that aggressively, threatening the site with legal action.   In 2012, the leaks of the iPhone 5 have been like a slow bleed, as though Apple is no longer concerned about retaining secrecy around its products. Another issue is about copying rather than innovating. Apple recently won a major $1bn+ patent verdict against rival Samsung in a US court, but despite losing the case, Samsung has actually benefitted from extra attention on its more recent and innovative handsets. Apple&amp;#039;s increase of the iPhone screen size is surely in part a response to the rise in display size in other smartphones, including the 4.8-inch display in Samsung&amp;#039;s hugely popular Galaxy S3.  So, where is the innovation from Apple? Handsets running 4G are already widely available (albeit not until this year in Britain), and Samsung and HTC have already indicated that they may take legal action over Apple&amp;#039;s LTE technology, which allegedly infringes their patents.   Elsewhere, the new iPhone did not include any new Near Field Communications or fingerprint security technology, and the improvements to the iOS operating system could hardly be called gigantic leaps forward.  If rumours are true of a small screen iPad Mini coming next month, then surely this will be seen just as a response to the success of Amazon&amp;#039;s Kindle Fire tablet and Google&amp;#039;s Nexus 7, rather than Apple setting the tone for the market.  But maybe we are missing the point here. Apple is a company and it makes products. Products that we buy. Should we expect the company to reinvent the wheel every year or just do what is does, and well? The new iPhone is a fantastic phone from the initial hands-on we have had. It packs more power via the A6 processor but comes fitted with what Apple claims to be a significantly improved battery life.  In a Digital Spy poll earlier in the week, our readers voted overwhelmingly that they wanted a longer-lasting battery over all other features in the iPhone 5. They just wanted a phone that works for a full day without charging. So, maybe Apple is just focusing on giving people what they want. The firm changed the smartphone game with the iPhone in 2007, and it has just announced the best version of it yet. And will it sell? Oh yes it will.  &amp;gt; Apple iPhone 5: Will you be buying? iPhone 5 in pictures:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/apple/news/a405693/iphone-5-has-apple-lost-its-cool/>