iPhone 5 reviews: The verdict on the new Apple smart phone is in

Horizons readers will remember that Apple has made its own in-house mapping service the de-facto maps app on the iPhone 5 – gone is Google Maps, which had been a staple of the iPhone since the first iteration of the phone. So how does Apple's offering stack up? 

"Google had beaten Apple to the punch with audio turn-by-turn directions for Android. Apple has generally done a very good job with its own turn-by-turn feature, which I tested driving in San Francisco and the greater New York City area," writes Edward Baig of USA Today. "The Maps app includes real-time traffic and accident alerts, and a feature called Flyover, photo-realistic 3-D imagery of landmarks as you zoom in over major cities."

And now on to the elephant in the room: Lightning, the replacement for the iPhone dock connector of yore. Apple says Lightning makes transfers much faster, but it causes a whole lot of compatibility issues: no longer will your old iPhone and iPad cords work on the iPhone 5. 

"A lot of people are upset that they’re going to need adapters for their old accessories," argues MG Siegler of TechCrunch. "But that’s the price of progress. The Lightning connector is tiny compared to the old 30-pin connector, and the ability to plug it in with either side facing upwards is nice. I’m also not going to miss the pocket lint build up in the long port at the bottom of the iPhone." 

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