iOS 6 limitations in iPhone4 is a great reminder why INTERNALS are all that matters

[kre62]

At the time I had a 3G, I didn't deem the 3GS a worthwhile upgrade, just like I don't see the 4S as a worthwhile upgrade over the 4.

I am getting your point. I just personally think you are wrong. The 3G was a terrible phone. You should have jumped on the 3GS, that phone was an order of magnitude faster. The 4S is an order of magnitude faster than the 4. And that is why the 4S is the next 3GS..relevant longer.


Bottom line: If you think Apple is screwing you over, get on the odd cycle. You will feel less screwed over cause your phone will last longer. 100%.

 

[terraphantm]

I am getting your point. I just personally think you are wrong. The 3G was a terrible phone. You should have jumped on the 3GS, that phone was an order of magnitude faster. The 4S is an order of magnitude faster than the 4. And that is why the 4S is the next 3GS..relevant longer.


Bottom line: If you think Apple is screwing you over, get on the odd cycle. You will feel less screwed over cause your phone will last longer. 100%.

The 3GS was a significant and necessary upgrade. The 4S while technically just as significant was not as necessary. The iPhone 4 does not have the same performance issues that the 3G was having back in the day (and it's also worth noting that the 4S and 4 have the same amount of total RAM)

 

[newyorksole]

Apple is a business.

They aren't forcing you to upgrade.

Stop getting so upset.

 

[Savor]

So to sum up what the OP wants us to do in this fairly pointless topic - Upgrade in the odd-numbered years or "s" cycle. Yes, master! Yet, the OP completely misses the point that 3Gs to 4 was still an upgrade internally and externally! The Retina Display, camera, and longer battery were all worth the upgrade in 2010. Sorry to the late-comers to the 4-design that was still stuck with their 3Gs. The 4s is hardly a upgrade except people wanting Siri, an updated cam, or a dual core chip that gives us a 2-sec difference in opening apps/sites and not all of us cares to play games like Infinity Blade 2 to even care of the GPU. The next iPhone will always be better than the last one, so how could anyone ever miss out? Why does the OP need to suggest to us who are all capable of buying and selling phones to pick a SPECIFIC year to upgrade for an iPhone? It is OUR money. So if we can get another redesign and specs update this fall, should we just wait next year for the "s" version?

The main mantra for Apple fans is "it just works." The OP is making a baseless claim by comparing the iPhone 3G to the 4! For goodness sakes, the OG/3G had only 128 MB of RAM and were slow as molasses by 2009-2010 standards. The 4 is still smooth as silk like the 3Gs was after two years. And some of the software updates are pointless including what iOS6 might be.

 

[theonekcrow]

FaceTime over 3G is also not beyond the iPhone 4, especially when the 4's "One More Thing" was FaceTime, to which Steve confirmed it would be WiFi only but the capability to run it was there for when carriers supported it.

This is the only thing that irked me about iOS 6, changing this to 4S and new iPhone only... It was because of the quote above, it was "promised" for the 4, but now is taken away for no good reason. And you can't say data, cause in the US (which has the GSM model and the the CDMA model), CDMA data is lucky to be over 2 Mbps, while AT&T and T-Mo in some areas are a lot faster than that. For this feature to be left out of an iPhone 4, there is no logical explanation for it...

 

[kre62]

So to sum up what the OP wants us to do in this fairly pointless topic - Upgrade in the odd-numbered years or "s" cycle. Yes, master! Yet, the OP completely misses the point that 3Gs to 4 was still an upgrade internally and externally! The Retina Display, camera, and longer battery were all worth the upgrade in 2010. Sorry to the late-comers to the 4-design that was still stuck with their 3Gs. The 4s is hardly a upgrade except people wanting Siri, an updated cam, or a dual core chip that gives us a 2-sec difference in opening apps/sites and not all of us cares to play games like Infinity Blade 2 to even care of the GPU. The next iPhone will always be better than the last one, so how could anyone ever miss out? Why does the OP need to suggest to us who are all capable of buying and selling phones to pick a SPECIFIC year to upgrade for an iPhone? It is OUR money. So if we can get another redesign and specs update this fall, should we just wait next year for the "s" version?

The main mantra for Apple fans is "it just works." The OP is making a baseless claim by comparing the iPhone 3G to the 4! For goodness sakes, the OG/3G had only 128 MB of RAM and were slow as molasses by 2009-2010 standards. The 4 is still smooth as silk like the 3Gs was after two years. And some of the software updates are pointless including what iOS6 might be.

Ran into people like you when the 3GS came out too. You never seem to get the point that we are talking about the future. It may be the case that the 4 and 4S run iOS 5 well enough, but just one software upgrade later and the 4 is showing it's age. Weather it be Apple nazi tactics or true hardware limitations, the even cycle phones will always go obsolete faster, cause they are starting out of the gate with 1 year old tech.

Hope that helps.

 

[Savor]

OP is making a claim that iPhone 3Gs is equal to the iPhone 4 internally like the first gen iPhone and iPhone 3G when it clearly isn't. Why does someone care so much specs? I thought that is for Android and it contradicts mostly everything that makes people stay with iPhone. It just works for them. Many people dont care of the latest software update or how many cores a phone has. MR represents a small fraction of consumers out there.

I don't get why you need to "pick a specific year" to update. So if the processor and GPU isnt all that improved in the next iPhone, should I have to wait another year for the "s" to get attached to it even if the next iPhone has a killer-feature I want right away? A person's needs and wants will always vary. It is subjective like beauty. It is not like the specs went backwards for every new iPhone, so you will hardly miss out whether you pick an even-numbered year or an odd one. There is no right or wrong in updating because people's needs are all different.

 

[gngan]

Ran into people like you when the 3GS came out too. You never seem to get the point that we are talking about the future. It may be the case that the 4 and 4S run iOS 5 well enough, but just one software upgrade later and the 4 is showing it's age. Weather it be Apple nazi tactics or true hardware limitations, the even cycle phones will always go obsolete faster, cause they are starting out of the gate with 1 year old tech.

Hope that helps.

First of all, chips are updated every hour. If you were to look at the internal before buying an smartphone then you will either be buying every new devices or never buy one.

I think every iPhone has its selling point. Iphone 3G was great because users can go online without wifi (i think that's a big jump). iPhone 3GS is great because iPhone 3G has too little ram and it lags. iPhone 4 is great because it's a redesign and retina display. Even though i have an iPhone 4S, i think it has the least selling point. I don't see significant difference between 4 and 4S except Siri. Moreover, Siri is only working in the states and it's not even a hardware limitation.

If you have so many friends that don't agree with what you said and a lot of us don't agree with what you said then there must be a reason. We must be too stupid to understand what you said.

 

[Technarchy]

Even though i have an iPhone 4S, i think it has the least selling point. I don't see significant difference between 4 and 4S except Siri. Moreover, Siri is only working in the states and it's not even a hardware limitation.

At a glance, but under the hood the 4 and 3GS get trampled by the 4S.

From a business perspective, Apple doesn't have any motivation to not give the 4S the full iOS6 experience, because the next model will have a larger screen and LTE and probably a better camera, so it will have highly marketable and desirable features above and beyond iOS6.

 

[macingman]

Glad that some are understanding the scam apple has been pulling for years. Watch as the iSheople stand in line and "upgrade" to the latest iphone.

I wouldn't call it a scam. No one is being promised any features. Any features added to a phone after purchase are a bonus and aren't a promise. Apple doesn't say at any time a past device can't support a feature they simply disable that feature on an old device with no explanation. To scam someone you need to lie and be deceitful Apple has never done anything of the sort.

Apple isn't the only company that disables features on new devices. Does the SGSII support the S voice (or whatever it's called) the GSIII comes with out of the box?

Most Andrioid phones never get updates to begin with.

Please get your facts straight before posting and stop levelling Apple hate for no reason.

I'm no fanboy BTW have an android phone and windows PC as well as my Apple devices.

 

[Arran]

Oddly, this might be about protecting TomTom's dying revenue stream?

...if you think turn by turn navigation can't be done on the iPhone 4 then you're deluded, as TomTom has worked since I purchased it when I owned an iPhone 3G.

Quite! It works really well on the 3G.

It makes me wonder if Apple agreed to withold turn-by-turn from older phones as part of their gps technology deal with TomTom? I can easily see TomTom making that stipulation, since it would let them wring another year or two of revenue from their stand-alone app. TomTom must be hurting right now: High-margin standalone GPS is dead, and iOS 6, had it supported turn-by-turn on older devices, would have killed another revenue stream. At least this way, TomTom have bought themselves time to rejig their business model.

It might even boost TomTom's revenue if it encourages older device owners to buy the app to, "keep up".

 

[ChromeCloud]

Missing software features is part of a bigger marketing strategy

You are too focused on thinking about missing software features in terms of existing iPhone 4 users upgrading to iOS 6, when this is clearly just a side effect of a much bigger marketing strategy.

Fact is, the iPhone 4S isn't really much of an upgrade from the iPhone 4 for the average user: design is the same, cameras are improved but the iPhone 4 cameras were already good enough, processor is faster but the iPhone 4 doesn't really lag and so on.

Most updates of the iPhone 4S over the iPhone 4 are just incremental, almost imperceptible upgrades for the average iPhone user.

So... let's say you are in the market for a new phone. Right now. Both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S are available for you to buy in the stores... Which of the two are you going to choose?

If Apple didn't artificially block some cool iOS features on the iPhone 4, I bet 95% of the people would choose to still buy an iPhone 4 as of now.

That's the big reason why Apple is keeping those new features away from the iPhone 4... it has nothing to do with existing users that are upgrading... It's all about new users that wouldn't even consider spending a couple of hundred dollars more if it was just for some slightly more responsive UI and better cameras.

 

[applefanDrew]

Just going to point out anything to do with Siri is server side. It requires no processing power off the phone.

So you fail again.
The blocking you see is standard software blocking from Apple. It is SOP. It to me is more and more reason to minimize my integration into the Apple eco system. It cost to much to leave and it cost to much to stay in due to bs force upgrades.

Why wouldn't you upgrade every 2 years? And even of you had a valid reason not too, do you really have to have the latest software? If you like your original iPhone (for instance), then enjoy it and use 3.1.3....but no complaining is allowed. If you want the latest software get the newest phone. And to do that, you have to weigh what you want vs. cost/affordability for you.

 

[WeegieMac]

What Kre also fails to acknowledge in his theory that you're best sticking to the "odd" update cycle, is that you get the device on the second release of the same design. So while you sit there with your 4S and smugly praise it right now, when the new design comes out and you (as I presume from your posts) keep your 4S for another year, you'll have an old design AND an inferior device technically.

Sure, you'll get the NEXT iPhone, and begin your theory again, but your own way of doing things is nothing but a mirror image of how I do things. I buy a new device on the first redesign, miss out the following device with the same design used, but upgrade for a significant technical boost AND a new design.

You buy a new iPhone on the second design iteration, enjoy the device being technically relevant for a further year, but have to see a completely (inside and out) iPhone on the market for another 12 months before you upgrade again.

Horses for courses. No one is wrong, and you should stop telling some people they are.

----------

Quite! It works really well on the 3G.

It makes me wonder if Apple agreed to withold turn-by-turn from older phones as part of their gps technology deal with TomTom? I can easily see TomTom making that stipulation, since it would let them wring another year or two of revenue from their stand-alone app. TomTom must be hurting right now: High-margin standalone GPS is dead, and iOS 6, had it supported turn-by-turn on older devices, would have killed another revenue stream. At least this way, TomTom have bought themselves time to rejig their business model.

It might even boost TomTom's revenue if it encourages older device owners to buy the app to, "keep up".

You know, this theory may not be as far fetched as some reading it may think.

The new maps app clearly displays the TomTom logo, which could be something simple like basic acknowledgement or something more clever like subliminal marketing. An iPhone 4 owner using maps on iOS 6 sees the TomTom icon, but sees they don't have Turn By Turn navigation may, by that rationale, go to the App Store and have a look at the TomTom app. Personally, I'd think "£50 for something the 4S does for free"?!?

However, some may well buy it, and remember that while TomTom sells for £50 on the App Store, Apple take their usual 30% cut, which is a handsome £15 per copy sold. If even 1000 iPhone 4 users, and that is plausible, decide to buy the TomTom app, Apple nets a tidy £15,000 for simply omitting a feature that the device an handle and then some.

I could well be over thinking things here, but your point in bold raises some questions.

 

[gngan]

At a glance, but under the hood the 4 and 3GS get trampled by the 4S.

From a business perspective, Apple doesn't have any motivation to not give the 4S the full iOS6 experience, because the next model will have a larger screen and LTE and probably a better camera, so it will have highly marketable and desirable features above and beyond iOS6.

It's obvious that 3GS can't compare to 4S. Under the hood, 4S is an upgrade to 4 but to an average user it's not enough to buy it. The camera on 4 is good enough, if i wanted to take good pictures then i will use mu DSLR. iPhone 4 is plenty fast and i don't see much difference in daily use for 4 and 4S. Graphic power also isn't much for average user.

I had a 3G, 3GS then 4S. My family has two iphone 4 and i constantly help them with any phone issues. I don't see much difference between them.

 

[UCLAKoolman]

When iOS 6 is released the iPhone 4 will be TWO YEARS OLD. Most people should be eligible for a subsidized upgrade by then.

 

[Big.Mac.Daddy]

Why wouldn't you upgrade every 2 years?

Because someone would rather save tons of money by going prepaid with their still working phone rather than being locked in a contract to AT&T?

 

[applefanDrew]

Because someone would rather save tons of money by going prepaid with their still working phone rather than being locked in a contract to AT&T?

You still have to pay for service.

 

[Big.Mac.Daddy]

You still have to pay for service.

You missed the point entirely

You asked "why wouldn't someone upgrade every two year?" A legitimate reason someone wouldnt is to take their still working device and go prepaid to save a ton of money instead of being locked into a contract w/ AT&T paying a lot more.

 

[applefanDrew]

You missed the point entirely

You asked "why wouldn't someone upgrade every two year?" A legitimate reason someone wouldnt is to take their still working device and go prepaid to save a ton of money instead of being locked into a contract w/ AT&T paying a lot more.

Ok that's fine. But that doesn't give that person the right to complain that their 2+ year old device doesn't support some features of the latest software. That's the price for being "free" from contracts.

 

[kre62]

What Kre also fails to acknowledge in his theory that you're best sticking to the "odd" update cycle, is that you get the device on the second release of the same design. So while you sit there with your 4S and smugly praise it right now, when the new design comes out and you (as I presume from your posts) keep your 4S for another year, you'll have an old design AND an inferior device technically.

Sure, you'll get the NEXT iPhone, and begin your theory again, but your own way of doing things is nothing but a mirror image of how I do things. I buy a new device on the first redesign, miss out the following device with the same design used, but upgrade for a significant technical boost AND a new design.

You buy a new iPhone on the second design iteration, enjoy the device being technically relevant for a further year, but have to see a completely (inside and out) iPhone on the market for another 12 months before you upgrade again.

Horses for courses. No one is wrong, and you should stop telling some people they are

Wow. You're really not getting this huh?

My entire point is the all you get on the even cycle is the redesign. Not the latest tech like you claim.

The new phone HAS THE SAME INTERNALS AS THE LAST PHONE!! Bro...please try to understand.

The iPhone 5 will have the same processor as the 4S. 98% likely, especially since the iPad 3 has the A5X (Same processor, 2 more graphics cores).

The A5X has shown to be equal in performance to the A5.

So no, you wont have the latest tech. You have to buy odd to get that.

The "minor refresh" is the change for 3GS to 4, and soon the 4S to 5. The major refresh, meaning new architechture, new CPU, is the odd cycle.

Hope that makes more sense.

 

[WeegieMac]

Wow. You're really not getting this huh?

My entire point is the all you get on the even cycle is the redesign. Not the latest tech like you claim.

The new phone HAS THE SAME INTERNALS AS THE LAST PHONE!! Bro...please try to understand.

The iPhone 5 will have the same processor as the 4S. 98% likely, especially since the iPad 3 has the A5X (Same processor, 2 more graphics cores).

The A5X has shown to be equal in performance to the A5.

So no, you wont have the latest tech. You have to buy odd to get that.

The "minor refresh" is the change for 3GS to 4, and soon the 4S to 5. The major refresh, meaning new architechture, new CPU, is the odd cycle.

Hope that makes more sense.

No, you're not getting it. And you're just coming across as far self opinionated now.

"So no, you wont have the latest tech. You have to buy odd to get that".

You don't buy odd to get the latest tech. You get the latest tech if you buy the new iPhone on an annual basis. FACT.

You buy the iPhone when it's on the second version of the same design.

I buy them on the first version of each design.

Bottom line, at the time each of us upgrade, we get the latest device. Your device is more relevant for the first year the new phone is released, mine is a further year old by the time you buy yours.

You claim by buying "odd", ie: the 4S in this case, that you have the latest tech.

News flash, I buy the new iPhone in October, your device is old news, no longer the latest tech.

You bought the 4S, you're obviously still loved up and/or are unable to get the new iPhone in October due to contractual reasons and are woefully and embarrassingly self justifying it to yourself.

It's a matter of timing, and preference.

Now lock this bloody thread.

 

[kre62]

No, you're not getting it. And you're just coming across as far self opinionated now.

"So no, you wont have the latest tech. You have to buy odd to get that".

You don't buy odd to get the latest tech. You get the latest tech if you buy the new iPhone on an annual basis. FACT.

You buy the iPhone when it's on the second version of the same design.

I buy them on the first version of each design.

Bottom line, at the time each of us upgrade, we get the latest device. Your device is more relevant for the first year the new phone is released, mine is a further year old by the time you buy yours.

You claim by buying "odd", ie: the 4S in this case, that you have the latest tech.

News flash, I buy the new iPhone in October, your device is old news, no longer the latest tech.

You bought the 4S, you're obviously still loved up and/or are unable to get the new iPhone in October due to contractual reasons and are woefully and embarrassingly self justifying it to yourself.

It's a matter of timing, and preference.

Now lock this bloody thread.

The iphone 5 will have the same processor as the 4S. End of story. Same tech. Same family. Same generation. Same internals. Cut from the exact same cloth. I'm talking about the unreleased phone, due in october.It'll have the same chip as my phone. Hundo percent. Same tech as now. Thus when the 5 is released, it'll already have 1 year old tech in it. Just like the 4 had the 3GS tech in it. Thats it.

 

[cyks]

The iphone 5 will have the same processor as the 4S. End of story. Same tech. Same family. Same generation. Same internals. Cut from the exact same cloth. I'm talking about the unreleased phone, due in october.It'll have the same chip as my phone. Hundo percent. Same tech as now. Thus when the 5 is released, it'll already have 1 year old tech in it. Just like the 4 had the 3GS tech in it. Thats it.

That's all fine and dandy except that there's far more to tech than just the processor.

You keep saying that the tech in the 3GS and 4 is the same, when the retina display and camera easily prove you wrong.

...and that's ignoring the RAM or processor speed improvements.

 

[kre62]

That's all fine and dandy except that there's far more to tech than just the processor.

You keep saying that the tech in the 3GS and 4 is the same, when the retina display and camera easily prove you wrong.

...and that's ignoring the RAM or processor speed improvements.

FINE change every instance where I said tech to Processor/GPU

Those are the only things that really determine product life. Devices with the same internal tech, i'e' processor and GPU, tend to die off at the same time.

Learn it, and use it to your advantage when buying Apple products.

Or buy the shiny new design and literally complain every time your device gets left behind or lumped with an "older" device. Its happened twice already, Lets repeat history why not!!!