iPhone 4S Hands-Ons and First Impressions

[ThunderSkunk]

Funny how much importance we place on form.

In the iPhone 4 enclosure, with its "S" suffix appended, my reaction is, there's nothing I haven't seen before.

If they'd stuck these guts in a different enclosure and called it a 5 with these same new specs & innovations, I'd have jumped screaming out of my seat and peed in my shoe a little.


Just caught myself... I'll chalk it up to being an I.D..

 

[Black Belt]

I have a 3GS which I dutifully went out and purchased in June of 2009.

In February of this year, I became eligible for an upgrade. I said, no, I'll wait.

Verizon iPhone came out. Me, who gets no service in my apartment on said 3GS, said no, I'll wait.

White iPhone came out. I said, no, I'll wait.

June came and went. iOS 5, but no iPhone

At this point, my mute button no longer works and my back case is cracked, making it almost impossible to sync on a non-dock. Best Buy would not fix it - as my warranty ran out exactly two years after I purchased the phone

July came and went

August came and went. My backlight burnt out due to being caught in a monsoon. So now, in addition to not being able to mute the phone or sync it in my car, I have to use a flashlight to read it (yes, I know I can fix it, but I am a very busy woman and just have not yet had the time to do so).

September came and finally a glimmer of hope that I will finally be on the right cycle for the freshest upgrade.

Nope. Unless I would like to wait another year to see the actual iPhone 5, I am now stuck on the -S cycle.

That, my friends, is why a lot of people are annoyed.

Just put your credit card on an annual automatic purchase. That's what Steve wants. Give in to the dark side.

 

[Abyssgh0st]

I want my Siri Chick with a hot English or even better Irish/Scottish/New Zealand accent. Schwing!

There are different Siri accents. Hoping there are some good ones, as I hate the default woman one.

 

[milo]

Than why does my 1 year old Evo do the same thing?

The question is whether it truly is the same thing. If you were to say the same things to both phones, do both get it right and provide good responses? So far the hands on reports have said that they couldn't get Siri to fail, even when they tried - is that the case with the voice on Android? Including things like messaging someone, then setting up a meeting without having to specify the person again, if there's a conflict offering to reschedule etc?

I'm sure once it's out in the wild there will be demos and tests that compare results on the two platforms. With a feature like this if there's a difference it should be pretty obvious pretty quickly.

 

[anomie]

So, now Apple will carry 3GS, 4, and 4S? What is the word I was looking for? Oh yeah - fragmentation! Delicious irony is delicious

Obviously you have no idea what "fragmentation" means..

 

[Maschil]

I have a 3GS which I dutifully went out and purchased in June of 2009.

In February of this year, I became eligible for an upgrade. I said, no, I'll wait.

Verizon iPhone came out. Me, who gets no service in my apartment on said 3GS, said no, I'll wait.

White iPhone came out. I said, no, I'll wait.

June came and went. iOS 5, but no iPhone

At this point, my mute button no longer works and my back case is cracked, making it almost impossible to sync on a non-dock. Best Buy would not fix it - as my warranty ran out exactly two years after I purchased the phone

July came and went

August came and went. My backlight burnt out due to being caught in a monsoon. So now, in addition to not being able to mute the phone or sync it in my car, I have to use a flashlight to read it (yes, I know I can fix it, but I am a very busy woman and just have not yet had the time to do so).

September came and finally a glimmer of hope that I will finally be on the right cycle for the freshest upgrade.

Nope. Unless I would like to wait another year to see the actual iPhone 5, I am now stuck on the -S cycle.

That, my friends, is why a lot of people are annoyed.

DONT worry Tim Cook knows that you will be out of that cycle in 4 years...... Sorry bro..

 

[kironin]

Yawn...... will be looking at larger screen Androids ....

 

[Judas1]

It was great when it worked on other phones before apple bought it.. they haven't done much that wouldn't have been done in the time since.. except allow calls to private api's

Judas, siri performed great on the iphone 4 - there was never a problem with that.

I think a lot of people just never used it before apple bought and removed it from the store.

Siri probably worked fine by all our standards. But by their standard, it was taking too much resource from the overall performance itself.

 

[EvilShenaniganZ]

Why did no other sites take a hands-on video? Or am I just missing them?

Engadget -
"Sorry, guys, but this time around Apple isn't allowing anyone to take photos or videos of the new iPhone in the hands-on area at its event. But don't worry, we'll give you all that and more when we review it in the coming weeks!"

 

[polaris20]

I have a 3GS which I dutifully went out and purchased in June of 2009.

In February of this year, I became eligible for an upgrade. I said, no, I'll wait.

Verizon iPhone came out. Me, who gets no service in my apartment on said 3GS, said no, I'll wait.

White iPhone came out. I said, no, I'll wait.

June came and went. iOS 5, but no iPhone

At this point, my mute button no longer works and my back case is cracked, making it almost impossible to sync on a non-dock. Best Buy would not fix it - as my warranty ran out exactly two years after I purchased the phone

July came and went

August came and went. My backlight burnt out due to being caught in a monsoon. So now, in addition to not being able to mute the phone or sync it in my car, I have to use a flashlight to read it (yes, I know I can fix it, but I am a very busy woman and just have not yet had the time to do so).

September came and finally a glimmer of hope that I will finally be on the right cycle for the freshest upgrade.

Nope. Unless I would like to wait another year to see the actual iPhone 5, I am now stuck on the -S cycle.

That, my friends, is why a lot of people are annoyed.

Does the 4S do what you need it to do in order to communicate, be entertained, and be productive?

I'm baffled as to why people dwell upon the numbering, instead of the actual feature set. If it doesn't do what you want, then be angry about that, I guess.

 

[bigbadnewill]

Funny how much importance we place on form.

In the iPhone 4 enclosure, with its "S" suffix appended, my reaction is, there's nothing I haven't seen before.

If they'd stuck these guts in a different enclosure and called it a 5 with these same new specs & innovations, I'd have jumped screaming out of my seat and peed in my shoe a little.


Just caught myself... I'll chalk it up to being an I.D..

So true!!!

 

[farmboy]

And where is Siri in Danish

Hvor er Siri?

Any other questions?

 

[AidenShaw]

Clearly you don't have anything that flaps about halfway down your thigh

Never mock the afflicted...

It could be so long that I have to wrap it around my ankle and tuck it into my sock - but if it's 9mm thick it won't make anyone happy.



(and love that a user nicknamed "Shrink" is defending the "afflicted" ! )

I want my Siri Chick with a hot English or even better Irish/Scottish/New Zealand accent. Schwing!

I have my Garmin set to Bruce - the hot Australian male accent.

Unfortunately, here on the Peninsula we have lots of streets with Spanish names - and 'strine is just horrible at Spanish names.

 

[sparks9]

I think the iPhone 4S is OK.

Also, now you know for sure that the next iPhone will be the iPhone 5.

 

[diddl14]

The only reason I'm posting this comment is to get downvoted by the Apple fanboys that fail to realise how much the company sucks for sticking an 'S' on the end of the phone for a 2nd time and still thinks its a revolution.

From your signature you are quite a fanboy yourself, or?

On a side note, putting an "S" to it is the best evidence that Apple is not considering the upgrade a revolution. It's fanboys like yourself expecting a revolution that is causing some of this collective expectations and disappointment. It's just a freaking company, not a miracle machine.

 

[EvilShenaniganZ]

The question is whether it truly is the same thing. If you were to say the same things to both phones, do both get it right and provide good responses? So far the hands on reports have said that they couldn't get Siri to fail, even when they tried - is that the case with the voice on Android? Including things like messaging someone, then setting up a meeting without having to specify the person again, if there's a conflict offering to reschedule etc?

I'm sure once it's out in the wild there will be demos and tests that compare results on the two platforms. With a feature like this if there's a difference it should be pretty obvious pretty quickly.

I just don't like it when people say Apple did this or Apple started that first.
They have however most likely made it better. I have no doubt it's better just know they brought it to the table late.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Hmm, nothing remotely negative in this article. Let's sit back and watch how today's regular release hate-squad tackles this one...

Oh right, by ignoring the article and posting the same tone-deaf complaints from every other topic on the forum.

I'll be looking forward to Siri in my next iPhone. That's something I can't say about any voice service I've seen Android users fumble with (typically once or twice before giving up).

It is funny. This thread covers hands on usage and we keep seeing the same tired arguments that have nothing to do with the discussion at hand

 

[diddl14]

Funny how much importance we place on form.

In the iPhone 4 enclosure, with its "S" suffix appended, my reaction is, there's nothing I haven't seen before.

If they'd stuck these guts in a different enclosure and called it a 5 with these same new specs & innovations, I'd have jumped screaming out of my seat and peed in my shoe a little.


Just caught myself... I'll chalk it up to being an I.D..

Respect and +1!

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_4 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8K2 Safari/6533.18.5)

i can't believe they're still selling the 3gs...

the service is what costs a ton, so if you can't afford a regular 4 - it's probably a very bad idea to commit to a 24 month contract...

An extra line costs 10 a month

 

[farmboy]

Never mock the afflicted...

Is it OK to afflict the mocked, though?

 

[Halebopp]

Decent upgrade

OK, a bigger screen would have been nice but it's not a deal-breaker. My wife's line is up for upgrade very soon so she'll get my 4 and I will take the 4s. I only wish the 32gb price didn't increase by so much, wasn't it $199 for the 32gb iPhone 4?

 

[milo]

they brought it to the table late.

Some would say late, others would say they waited until the technology was ready instead of releasing something half baked. A bad first impression of a feature often leads to users not being willing to give it another chance later when it's improved.

 

[hindmost]

MacRumors should stop posting heresy, and post the facts! Then people won't be disappointed. Simple.

=====================================
uhhhh.......then it wouldn't be 'MacRumors' would it? It would be 'MacFacts'. And since 'facts' are only available at the time of, and subsequent to, an event, well....just about nobody (except maybe you) would use this web site.

Think about it.

 

[lamewing]

i can't believe they're still selling the 3gs...

the service is what costs a ton, so if you can't afford a regular 4 - it's probably a very bad idea to commit to a 24 month contract...

Unless you buy off contract, it is free. And it really isn't subsidized considering you pay the same rate (in the U.S.) whether you are on contract or not. You can turn around an sell that iPhone 3GS in 6 months and still will make over $200 profit which you can use to buy a factory unlocked phone. So the contract really is irrelevant.

 

[Maschil]

Unless you buy off contract, it is free. And it really isn't subsidized considering you pay the same rate (in the U.S.) whether you are on contract or not. You can turn around an sell that iPhone 3GS in 6 months and still will make over $200 profit which you can use to buy a factory unlocked phone. So the contract really is irrelevant.

YEP.... 3gs to iphone 4 is a big step... i would shell out the 100 in a second.... the 3gs will be limping on ios 5...