I’ve been trying to put together the pieces, both of iOS 7 and the iPhone 5S, to see if there’s a more comprehensive picture coming than we’ve seen yet - Cook said something to the effect that the 5S is the most “forward-looking” phone ever. Taking that at face value, to what are they looking forward to?
The A7 combined with the camera improvements leads to a lot of nice image-processing features, but that’s an evolution of an existing capability. Better performance and battery life for apps, especially high-demand apps like games and image/video manipulation, again is good, but evolutionary.
The fingerprint sensor is a big change, bigger than it might seem on the surface. Apple is really focusing on security (including remote lock of even wiped devices in iOS 7), and the fact that most people don’t even use passcodes, let alone strong ones, is depressing, given the sensitivity of data most people have on their smartphones. (Also, with the upcoming iCloud keychain, I think users would be a lot more secure if the phone was more secure in itself.) And while there’s room to expand on the functionality, that’s a “today” feature, not something for the future.
So what will the future hold? Here’s what my crystal ball says:
1) The M7 coprocessor might be the most overlooked upgrade in the 5S. Right now, people are seeing the application for fitness apps and the like, but where I see the biggest bang for this is, in with conjunction with background processing in iOS 7, is massive improvements to location services, specifically geo-boxing. Right now, geo-boxing... works... kind of, if you’re willing to accept the battery drain of havng location services on constantly. “Remind me to pick up milk when I get to Food Mart” is a great idea, but if I’m walking around not hooked up to a charger for a couple of hours before I get to the store, my battery drain is going to be pretty heavy.
But, with a location/movement sensor system, and a background task that wakes up occasionally to check the sensor logs, it knows where my last fixed position was (from GPS/WiFi) and how much I’ve moved (and and what speed) since then, it can know that if I’m at the office some 30 miles away from Food Mart, there’s no need to go “active” with location services on the main processor to see if I’ve come within range of my set marker. Once it determines I’m starting to drive home (due to velocity), it can change its sampling frequency to determine when to fully wake the main CPU.
2) The 64-bit unification. Coming out 64 bit now allows plenty of time for developers to transition from 32- to 64-bit applications (while the $, 4S, 5, and 5C are still supported), so it should be fairly seamless. Not only is this good for the phone’s performance and battery life - both good in and of themselves, but since iOS has a good deal in common with OS X - many core libraries in common, etc. - and the OS X platform is 64-bit, this will make it easier for developers to make apps that work on both iOS and OS X. That consistency of user interaction and availability on all devices is a big goal, and is consistent with Apple’s general trend for their own apps.
3) Remember Passbook? Now imagine an overhaul with improved geo-boxing to make location-based passes usable and a security system built right into the phone that links to an Apple ID that is used for making purchases... and that makes your phone a mobile payment device. I think low-power Bluetooth might be the long-term goal here (NFC is a dying technology), but Passbook passes that can be scanned at point of sale would certainly be an interim step, and will likely persist even when Bluetooth is in effect as an alternate method.
TL;DR: Secure mobile payments, improved and more efficient location services, and better linkage back to the Mac.
What you are describing works right now. I use it regularly with Siri. I can tell Siri to remind me to do a specific thing when I get to my office or home and she does. . . and I don't notice a power hit. Stand-by seems to be OK. I leave location serve pecs on by default on both my iPhone and my iPad. Find my iPhone/iPad would be useless if location services were turned off and either were stolen or lost making that feature useless.
That feature has come in handy for my girlfriend when her iPhone was stolen from her purse at a movie theater by a kid sitting two seats away. . . tracking it became very easy and his mother was aghast that her son was a thief when she found it in his room. . . after we showed her the screen showing her the mapped location.
I wouldn't worry about it. I've gotten 48 hours of stand-by time on my iPhone 5 with regular usage and thirty days on my iPad. I generally charge them every night though. I've never run out of charge unless I've been using them super heavily. . . but GPS and location services are not a big drain.