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iPhone 4S Hands-Ons and First Impressions
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because it was four months overdue, 16 months in total since we last saw an upgrade. why did they wait so long, in such a ruthlessly competitive market, just to add a camera and better cpu?
Very cool, that 'beta' Siri is already holding up against the experimentation of folks who would be perfectly pleased to report on any of its failings. I'm very much looking forward to experimenting with this feature and looking forward to enjoying the text-to-speech OS integration.
Honestly, There's nothing in ANY of those 7 points that don't also have major down sides.
1. Usable to only a small percentage of the population, better to bump the speed on existing 3G networks. They're speeding up more people this way. Next year LTE will make more sense. It won't matter for me for probably another 4 years for where I live.
2. Not ever going to happen. Don't expect apple to do it, and expect fewer and fewer tech products to do it.
3. You want a bigger phone? I don't. Granted, they could increase the screen by 1/2" by taking it out to the edges, but not worth a complete redesign for that. And I'm weary of bleeding edge touch screens, it's too easy to accidently touch the screen while gripping it. I think it's better to leave a LITTLE bezel.
4. 100% multitasking would be a complete waste of battery life. Bad idea. Better yet, implement webpage background loading, just like backgrond audio playback, and be done with it, that's the only place it's ever occured to me that the iPhone doesn't do multitasking. Actually, I take that back, BG webpage loading could be very problematic too, with all the rotators and popups these days, it would drain your power very very quickly. Keep it as is.
5. Not going to happen... never going to happen. Never buy an Apple OS expecting themes. They've never offered skinning/themes in 35 years. It just goes against their basic philosophy of interface design. If you don't agree with it, unfortunately, you're out of luck.
6. Really? WHY? So they can dazzle people with bigger numbers? The point of a "retina" display is that pixels are already as small as the eye can discern them. Maybe 15% higher resolution is to satisfy the most anal scrutinizers in an A/B comparison test. But you'd want to DOULBE the resolution to make it compatable with existing graphics, or everything is going to look WORSE! More pixels means more power drain. Requiring a resolution doubling to satisfy a 15% theoretical increase in percieved resolution is a BAD BAD business decision, especially when you factor in battery drain.
7. Flash... oh god, the old flash arguement again. Flash is bad for smartphones, all smartphone. The implementations of it on Android are dubious at best, drain battery life, crash, and often don't have touch implementation. By holding out on Flash, Apple are forcing web designers to use HTML 5, which is much better for smartphones, less propriatary, and uses less processing (and battery drain). Apple's personal reasons are purely financial, obviously, but the end result is that by holding out, they're making the web better for EVERYONE: iOS, Android, Windows phones, you name it. Less Flash = better 'net for everyone. Giving in now would mean Flash wins, and smartphones lose. Pray that they don't embrace it.
This is a logical naming structure. They have already used it once successfully. Case does not change, we just add an S to the name. Or do you want a logical naming structure like the Galaxy line
Behind what? In screen size? No Android manufacturer can make a phone that competes with the iPhone 4 in the market. They had 18 months to try, now they have to start all over...
Same here.
The iPhone 4S is not designed for iPhone 4 users.
AT&Ts accelerated upgrades are based on your total bill.
iPhone tax?
The 4S is not designed for iPhone 4 users to break their contract. It is probably now designed to lure anyone on a new smart-phone to break their contract. It is ok to use a year old phone, everyone expects it and they will still respect you. The nice thing about using an iPhone is that you would actually get software upgrades.
Nothing. At all.
Wouldn't want to be the Sprint CEO today.
Talk about poor timing.
"What? Wait? We didn't buy millions of iPhone 5s?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!
I am sure he knew exactly what he was paying $20b for. I am also sure he is pleased to have a new #1 handset that may keep him from continuing to hemorrhage customers. The T-mobile CEO is likely a bit upset atm.
sucks for the guys who sold their iphone 4 hoping there would be a redesigned iphone 5 with bigger screen... phew! I almost sold mine too...
The iPhone 4S (or even if it was called a 5) was not designed as an upgrade for iPhone 4 users.
Interesting in everyone point you make you show a remarkable lack of comprehension.
Apple does not make their phone as compelling upgrades for last years model. That is not how they plan to make money. (I wonder if I say this enough different ways, will people catch on?)
que?
Keep on believing, if you wish really hard, it might come true!
This one is easy. It doesn't. Not even a little bit.
You called it.
Just admit to what we already know: It'll sell like mad.
If the lowly iPhone 3GS can outsell a lot of newer Android models, an improved iPhone 4 will blow away previous sales records, easily.
Apple has perfected the User Experience. Simple as that. That means everything. The competition can barely get the basics right, and they're assuming they can go it on specs alone. Apple has proven you can't do that, and that reality hasn't changed and will not change for the foreseeable future.
Be sure to bookmark today's iPhone keynote threads. Then when the iPhone 4S leads all the market measures that matter and sells in record numbers, come back to these threads for some tasty claim chowder.
I don't know about this move
So, I'm a high school teacher. The good thing for Apple is that quite few kids even knew this event was happening. ...The bad news, all of them were disappointed.
Kids, and probably adults, consider Apple to be fashionable. This isn't a bad thing, I don't know why it's always portrayed that way, but people just like Apple products. I suppose they're a status symbol to some degree, but iPhones have become so ubiquitous here, the phone is more like how kids thought of their cars in the past. They take pride in them, show them off, and let others use them. For them, all they wanted was a new Apple iPhone.
The screen could have probably even shrank in size, that's not what they care about. They care about how the phones look. And this update is, effectively, no update for these image conscious teens.
So, should Apple care? I don't pretend to know. I'm guessing they've done the demographic studies and are making this move because it's the most profitable path to take--my problem is understanding the logic. Sure they save money by not retooling factories, but these aren't auto plants we're talking about. Would a redesign really have cost them that much? I guess so, but I don't get it.
Personally, as a gadget geek, I'll stick with my iPhone 4. ...Not really a bad thing for me, it will save me a few hundred bucks I would've given Apple, and I get to keep a phone I love. All that said, I find myself streaming Netflix more often before I get to bed, so a bigger screen wouldn't have hurt my feelings. Apple certainly doesn't owe me anything, and I recognize how important the software and OS are for a phone...so no thought of leaving for Android here.
Just some thoughts from this side of the peanut gallery.
So, I'm a high school teacher. The good thing for Apple is that quite few kids even knew this event was happening. ...The bad news, all of them were disappointed.
Kids, and probably adults, consider Apple to be fashionable. This isn't a bad thing, I don't know why it's always portrayed that way, but people just like Apple products. I suppose they're a status symbol to some degree, but iPhones have become so ubiquitous here, the phone is more like how kids thought of their cars in the past. They take pride in them, show them off, and let others use them. For them, all they wanted was a new Apple iPhone.
The screen could have probably even shrank in size, that's not what they care about. They care about how the phones look. And this update is, effectively, no update for these image conscious teens.
So, should Apple care? I don't pretend to know. I'm guessing they've done the demographic studies and are making this move because it's the most profitable path to take--my problem is understanding the logic. Sure they save money by not retooling factories, but these aren't auto plants we're talking about. Would a redesign really have cost them that much? I guess so, but I don't get it.
Personally, as a gadget geek, I'll stick with my iPhone 4. ...Not really a bad thing for me, it will save me a few hundred bucks I would've given Apple, and I get to keep a phone I love. All that said, I find myself streaming Netflix more often before I get to bed, so a bigger screen wouldn't have hurt my feelings. Apple certainly doesn't owe me anything, and I recognize how important the software and OS are for a phone...so no thought of leaving for Android here.
Just some thoughts from this side of the peanut gallery.
because it was four months overdue, 16 months in total since we last saw an upgrade. why did they wait so long, in such a ruthlessly competitive market, just to add a camera and better cpu?
If theres one thing Apple likes, its profit. I think Apple realizes they can still cash in for another year with the same phone look. Then next year when there is actually competition they will release the new design. If its anything like we have seen in the mockups, it will be pretty awesome. Despite what people say about Android, Apple is selling more iPhones than ever. I still havent seen another phone as polished as the iPhone. I have to say I havent used the latest phones but the Incredible was pretty crappy. Android OS just doesnt function as nice. iOS not just a bunch of different features thrown into the phone, everything is smooth and polished.
The same place it was when morons started expecting it with no legitimate reason: nowhere.
Disappointing...the screen at least. Good hardware, 4 year old screen size.
Lets just add cellular service to the ipad 2 and screen size is fixed.
I'd hoped the new iPhone would be so great it would make my next phone purchase a no-brainer. That didn't happen. I'm glad about some of the upgrades, but now I'll have to think hard about my next phone/carrier. None of them really seem ideal at the moment.
The only thing missing from the iPhone at this point is NFC. That's it. If they add that on the next gen, after that only spec bumps will happen. I don't think Apple will ever include gimmicks like SD card reader etc on their phone so, the list of things which they can add is getting incredibly short.
Then again, with Siri, stuff can change dramatically. Intel is going to come up with some incredible mobile CPU's in the next years which are rumored to be smaller than ARM designs. So Apple can build a much smaller iPhone, which works through Siri and Siri only. Imagine a phone in the size of Nano which can do almost everything iPhone 4S does, through Siri.
Well maybe you missed the story where the A5, which is not just a CPU but a system on a chip, outperforms the newest and greatest Android super phones on graphics benchmarks when using the iPad 2 as the test bed.because it was four months overdue, 16 months in total since we last saw an upgrade. why did they wait so long, in such a ruthlessly competitive market, just to add a camera and better cpu?
It is not just a 2X faster CPU but 7 times faster GFX engine than what was in the iPhone 4. They also had to work on Siri integration.
This is exactly what we were all worried about "post Steve Jobs". Status quo stuff. Ride the wave until it simply just fades to a ripple.
And yes I know he just officially quit, but he really hasn't been running the show for a bit. This feels like a "post steve jobs" release.
And yes I know he just officially quit, but he really hasn't been running the show for a bit. This feels like a "post steve jobs" release.