Apple Inc. announced Tuesday that it will begin selling the iPhone 5 in Israel on Friday, December 14, as part of a worldwide launch in 50 countries. The iPhone 5 is already on sale in 47 countries.
The new iPhone will be on sale throughout the country by Israel's major mobile carriers, and the smartphone can already be purchased in private stores for about NIS 5,000.
The new model's most significant improvement over the iPhone 4S is the screen, which retains its high-quality "Retina" display technology, but has been elongated to 4 inches from 3.5 inches, creating room for five rows of icons instead of the previous four.
Despite the elongation the iPhone 5 is thinner than its predecessor; it was billed as the world's thinnest smartphone when it was first announced in September.
Apple also moved the earphone plug-in port point to the bottom of the phone and replaced the 30-pin charger with a smaller "lightning" port, a change that may annoy consumers whose old iPhone accessories will no longer match the plug. Apple offers a $30 adapter to retrofit old accessories.
The iPhone 5 weighs 112 grams and is 7.6 millimeters thick, shaving off volume and weight from the iPhone 4's 140 grams and 9.3 millimeter thickness.