Apple fans unite as the world is set to receive iOS 7 with open arms today as first reviews for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c hit the street last night. There’s little question for many current iPhone owners, iOS 7 will be a completely different look and the tech world will be on the lookout for the type of reception iOS 7 will receive. As with most iOS updates, the release is expected sometime this afternoon and given past Apple updates…will likely be a little tricky at first thanks to overloaded servers so tread lightly when it drops.

That’s not all the Apple news the world is ready for today as the first reviews for the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c hit the street last night. There’s plenty to talk about and if you’re on the fence I’d gladly recommend taking a read at some of the more detailed reviews like AnandTech where you’ll get a nice mix of the tech-factor and non-biased review.

In the meantime, here’s a quick run-down of some of the reviews and some highlighted comments:

Engadget: Is the 5s the best iPhone ever made? Yes, though that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Apple took a good product and made it better through hardware upgrades, new features and a completely revamped software. In what would otherwise be considered a mundane update to the iPhone 5, Apple somehow managed to appeal to both the geek (64-bit support, M7 coprocessor, Touch ID) and the average Joe (a fresh, colorful iOS 7), all while laying the groundwork for the company’s future…And what if you’re not sold on iOS? If you haven’t seriously considered an iPhone before, there likely isn’t much in the 5s to make you change your mind. For anyone who needs copious amounts of screen space, a 4-inch display likely won’t cut it, but to be fair, the 5s is the best small phone you can get — we can’t think of any other device with a display smaller than 4.5 inches that even comes close.

TechCrunch: With the iPhone 5s, Apple once again wins the right to claim the title of best smartphone available. The hardware may resemble its predecessor in many key ways, as with the 4-inch Retina display, but it improves dramatically in areas like the camera where it makes the most difference to every day users, and in the addition of the fingerprint sensor, which is already a feature I miss when I switch back to older generation devices or the iPhone 5c. And thanks to the 64-bit A7 processor, this phone, more than any iPhone before it, is likely to be the device that grows more appealing as the software ecosystem catches up, which is great news for buyers looking for something that isn’t so easily replaced by the next big thing that comes along.

AndandTech:  (5c)The iPhone 5c is a well built device. For all intents and purposes it is a perfect replacement for the iPhone 5. If you were planning on buying a cost reduced iPhone 5 once the 5s came out, the iPhone 5c should have no problems filling that role. Its performance, battery life and camera quality are all on par with the 5.

Apple’s return to a polycarbonate iPhone design seems to have gone quite well. The iPhone 5c is solid, doesn’t have any noticeable amount of flex and has a great in hand feel thanks to its nicely curved edges. I feel like the color options will go over very well with the 5c’s target markets. I can see many users even preferring the styling of the 5c to the 5s in those markets that aren’t feature/performance sensitive.

(5s) The iPhone 5s is quite possibly the biggest S-update we’ve ever seen from Apple. I remember walking out of the venue during Apple’s iPhone 5 launch and being blown away by the level of innovation, at the platform/silicon level, that Apple crammed into the iPhone 5.

At the end of the day, if you prefer iOS for your smartphone – the iPhone 5s won’t disappoint. In many ways it’s an evolutionary improvement over the iPhone 5, but in others it is a significant step forward. What Apple’s silicon teams have been doing for these past couple of years has really started to pay off. From a CPU and GPU standpoint, the 5s is probably the most futureproof of any iPhone ever launched. As much as it pains me to use the word futureproof, if you are one of those people who likes to hold onto their device for a while – the 5s is as good a starting point as any.

PocketLint: If you want a phone that just works, then the iPhone 5S is a very good place to start. Apple has made it look effortless which is no simple task, and in doing so – by making it look almost too easy – you can sometimes miss the beauty and power in your hand. It’s stunning to use, there’s stacks of power, it’s without gimmicks and a nod to the future. It’s these simple elements that make the iPhone 5S, for us, one of the best phones on the market. There’s a lot to admire about that.

USAToday: Taken in totality, the features new to the iPhone 5s make what I consider to be the best smartphone on the market even better, helped enormously by Apple owning the entire end-to-end experience. In my view, iOS is still simpler to use than Android, and made even simpler in iOS 7. Apple releases the new operating system for all of its phones at one time, while Android updates come to devices in a more scattered fashion. And Apple still claims the most apps.

I’m a little more disappointed that Apple stubbornly stuck to a 4-inch Retina display when many Android competitors offer 5-inch displays or larger. Sure, there are trade-offs with larger screens, but since Apple has already bolstered consumer choice with two new iPhones, would a third model have been that much of a stretch?

Of that second new model, the iPhone 5c may have a cheap price, relatively speaking, but there is nothing cheap about the phone. Plastic be damned — the phone feels good in the hand. Apple says it is built around a steel frame that doubles as an antenna. And, yes, the color designs — my test unit is blue — look cool, too, complemented by matching wallpaper.