Apple unveiled its latest iPhone 5 at a media event in San Francisco on Wednesday, formally announcing the smartphone's bigger display and support for high-speed LTE wireless networks.

Made entirely of glass and aluminum, the new smartphone is the thinnest and lightest phone Apple has ever produced. The iPhone 5 has a 4-inch screen compared with the 3.5-inch display used in previous models, enabling a 5th row of icons to be displayed on its home screen.

According to Apple, the new phone features an A6 chip, which is two times faster than the previous A5 but 22-percent smaller in size. The phone's battery life has also been expanded to a standby time of 225 hours and eight hours of LTE browsing.

The new iPhone 5 supports LTE networks by selected carriers in North America, Europe and Asia, while its Wi-Fi hardware supports speeds up to 150 mbps.