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Joshua Topolsky on the iPhone 4S/5

mikethebigo

mikethebigo

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 25, 2009
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In the latest TIMN podcast, Joshua Topolsky chimed in on the iPhone 4S/5 debate, and basically summarized how I think we all feel: "My brain says they have got to do something new, but my gut says I don't think they're going to. Something doesn't feel right."

The crew discusses that Android is basically winning with marketshare right now and Apple needs to really come out guns blazing to fight off the momentum of Android and the new Nexus Prime/Ice Cream Sandwich. They also discuss that it's ridiculous if you don't think the external appearance of the phone matters. They believe the general population will be underwhelmed with a phone that looks exactly the same, and I agree with them.

Topolsky says, "As a company, it's really crazy if the best that they can do on their new flagship phone on Tuesday is a phone that looks just like their last flagship phone."

As a reminder, TIMN was the first the actually leak the teardrop shape rumor.
 
aziatiklover said:
Don't know if serious cuz I don't know who is J wat?
Click to expand...

Former Editor in Chief at Engadget, now at This is my next... before it becomes The Verge. Basically an incredibly influential and well-connected member of the tech journalism world. His voice and opinions carry some weight.
 
They hit the nail on the head. Thats 100% how i was feeling.

They really should bring out a totally new phone, but i dont think they will.
Android is doing well, so Apple need to push themselves more than ever.
The tech community will probably still buy a '4S', general public are going to think twice if the device looks identical.

It would just be insanity to release a 4S.. but somehow, i'm pretty sure thats what they're going to do.


appleguy123 said:
So JT just repeated what 1,000 threads on MacRumors have said verbatim?
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To be fair, without blowing our own trumpet, we are right, and so are they. Yes, apple really should release an IP5 irrespective of how i feel, but i really don't think they are going too.
 
appleguy123 said:
So JT just repeated what 1,000 threads on MacRumors have said verbatim?
Click to expand...

Except that his opinion is a lot more reliable than the average forum member. While he was leading engadget he broke a ton of hot news, and it seems he took those sources (along with some of the best engadget editors) to TIMN.

Engadget is a joke now.
 
Well some designs become classics.
The iPhone is one of them. No matter what any others do, it will always be compared to the iPhone.
I think there is still a couple of design iterations to find the best design they can make.

The Mac evolved from the original Mac to the eMac and then to the iMac Lamp and the withe flat screen iMac, to the nowadays iMac.
There will always be Macs. And people like me, as well as many others will still prefer them.
The competition will only make things better for us the consumers.
I hope that some of you are right and Apple "fails", so we can see a major breakthrough in 2012.

----------
Peace said:
Flagship phone ? It's their only phone.
Click to expand...

And the best one ever invented.
 
appleguy123 said:
So JT just repeated what 1,000 threads on MacRumors have said verbatim?
Click to expand...

People just flamed me for saying exactly what you just said.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=13445067&#post13445067

I was holding an iPhone 4 the other day in an Apple store, and can't believe they're already coming out with a new one, possibly with a new design.

The current iPhone 4 feels very solid, but then again I'm not used to it and don't have one, so maybe the people with one want a new design.
 
Sarngate said:
Except that his opinion is a lot more reliable than the average forum member. While he was leading engadget he broke a ton of hot news, and it seems he took those sources (along with some of the best engadget editors) to TIMN.

Engadget is a joke now.
Click to expand...

He just said what he thought. He didn't present new evidence. In that regard he is no better than anyone on MacRumors.
 
No matter how much we can agree with those statements, the next iPhone will still likely be the best-selling phone in the world until the next new release next year. 3GS looked exactly like the 3G with a 3.5 inch screen and 480x320 resolution, and it still outsold every other Android with better specs in the U.S.

Think Star Wars on Blu-ray. Fanboys complained about the minor changes and it still broke sales record in a week. MacRumors doesn't speak for the entire population. Posters can randomly defect and iOS still has the highest retention rate. Most people are stuck into Apple ecosystem. We buy their products and accessories and still continue to put money on the content.
 
Savor said:
No matter how much we can agree with those statements, the next iPhone will still likely be the best-selling phone in the world until the next new release next year. 3GS looked exactly like the 3G with a 3.5 inch screen and 480x320 resolution, and it still outsold every other Android with better specs in the U.S.
Click to expand...

The market was different then. Releasing a 4S this time will hurt Apple's bottom line.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A5313e Safari/7534.48.3)

Savor said:
No matter how much we can agree with those statements, the next iPhone will still likely be the best-selling phone in the world until the next new release next year. 3GS looked exactly like the 3G with a 3.5 inch screen and 480x320 resolution, and it still outsold every other Android with better specs in the U.S.

Think Star Wars on Blu-ray. Fanboys complained about the minor changes and it still broke sales record in a week. MacRumors doesn't speak for the entire population. Posters can randomly defect and iOS still has the highest retention rate. Most people are stuck into Apple ecosystem. We buy their products and accessories and still continue to put money on the content.
Click to expand...

The market when the 3GS came out was different than the market is today. Android is a much bigger threat. The iPhone may continue to sell better than any other single smartphone, but overall Android is now definitely dominating overall and Apple can't afford to fall further behind.

If you say "I don't care how many sell as long as I like it," I will point you to Apple's performance in the 90's when they operated by the same philosophy.
 
I'll also chime in by saying that i agree with Joshua's comments.

We are all going into this event partially blind, we know that we'll see this..

- iPhone 4S
- Same form factor as iPhone 4
- CDMA and GSM in one phone
- HSPA+ (at least 14.4mbps)
- 1GB RAM
- A5 Processor
- SGX 543MP2 (same as iPad)
- Assistant Voice Recognition

Question is, what about the millions of cases? What about the Photostream icon? What about the apparent major secrecy behind the successor to the iPhone 4?
What about the iPhone 5?

The average consumer won't upgrade to the iPhone 4S, because if they already own an iPhone 4, then they won't see any point. You can't blame them, because the iPhone appeals to the average consumer. Therefore, Apple can't think like Samsung and say "you're gonna love the new Dual Core iPhone, but it looks just like your current iPhone 4", instead Apple should say "the brand new slick design of the iPhone 5, coupled with the beautiful 4" retina display will bring you the best experience".

Apple only releasing an iPhone 4S actually makes no sense, from this standpoint.

Can you imagine the iPhone 4S, a device with a 16month old design, being compared to the current generation smartphones?
 
mikethebigo said:
In the latest TIMN podcast, Joshua Topolsky chimed in on the iPhone 4S/5 debate, and basically summarized how I think we all feel: "My brain says they have got to do something new, but my gut says I don't think they're going to. Something doesn't feel right."

The crew discusses that Android is basically winning with marketshare right now and Apple needs to really come out guns blazing to fight off the momentum of Android and the new Nexus Prime/Ice Cream Sandwich. They also discuss that it's ridiculous if you don't think the external appearance of the phone matters. They believe the general population will be underwhelmed with a phone that looks exactly the same, and I agree with them.

Topolsky says, "As a company, it's really crazy if the best that they can do on their new flagship phone on Tuesday is a phone that looks just like their last flagship phone."

As a reminder, TIMN was the first the actually leak the teardrop shape rumor.
Click to expand...

I agree with him.

The reason Apple could afford to not change the appearance of the 3GS is because the iPhone was pretty much the sole leader back then in 2008/2009.

Times have changed, Android has caught up, and in some respects, is outpacing the iPhone. Apple must realise this, so they have to up the ante now by releasing a major update.

I am not worrying. Apple know what they are doing. They will somehow still make me want it whatever the outcome is.
 
If there's no redesign, Apple will look complacent. The momentum and innovation (in both hardware and software) is on the Android side at the moment.

Android was a joke a few years ago, but Google and their hardware partners have really ramped it up this year.
 
Apple doesn't have to bring out a new iPhone, because they are going to a new carrier which they will sell millions of 4S's to sprint customers.

The only reason android sells well is because they are on every carrier, now that apple is on sprint they should sell better and bring android sells down.
 
I am not here supporting Apple for this. But I just have to point out REALITY with real-life examples to some posters who think complaining is going to stop millions of others on buying the next iPhone no matter what it looks like or what they call it. iPhone is practically critic-proof. iPhone 4 went through Antennagate and became the best-selling smartphone ever.

Referencing back to Star Wars, that saga still had a couple turds like the Episode I & II, had the stupid "NOOO! change" in ROTJ, and fanboys still ran out to buy the complete saga. Star Wars was the first to really create fanboyism for movies. Once a fanboy, you become a fan/customer for life.

Star Wars is still Star Wars which means alot. And people love Apple or idolize Steve Jobs almost religiously. People will parrot anything that man or whatever the commercial says. Magical. Revolutionary. If it is not an iPhone, it is not an iPhone." If people see the Apple logo, the cool commercial, and the phone can playback the iTunes content, they will buy it. A walking cash register for Apple with iOS apps or iTunes media content and they get a 30% cut. This is no different than what Amazon will do with the Kindle Fire by trapping you into the walled garden too.

And is waiting for the next one really THAT LONG to wait? Just another year at most. Not 16 years or 3 years.

2G -> 3G Same internals (with 3G chip only difference)
3G -> 3GS Same looking

Every iPhone pretty much became a blockbuster hit that year it was released. They still haven't saturated the lower market yet or even tapped into the potential of the Asian markets.
 
My guess:

They will announce iPhone 4S for end of october and a iPhone5 for second quarter 2012.

Hit me when I am right. :eek:
 
My faith is still behind Joshua Topolsky, and I've believed him since he basically unveiled the "tapered/teardrop" design at TIMN.

However, the fact that his "gut feeling" is that there will only be a 4S is truly worrying. I'm still betting strong on a redesigned iPhone 5 though.

If no iPhone 5 shows up, Tim Cook will be starting up his CEO career with the title of "the CEO that couldn't manage internet and investor expectations of Apple"
 
Topolsky also said after he broke the news of the tear drop shaped iphone, he started hearing rumors it was only going to be a spec bump. Although he didn't think it was worth reporting because it wasn't anything substantial.
Which makes me think he must have had some concrete evidence to run the the original story about the redesigned iphone.
If it doesn't get announced Tuesday, then maybe that's the next redesigned iphone?
On the podcast, I got the impression that they thought it was weird that there was so many rumors, all contradicting each other.
If those guys can't make sense of what's going on and they say they're excited for the announcement, then either it's an iPhone 4s (boring!) or Apple has kept the iPhone 5 in the dark.

Either way, I still say the iPhone 4s gets announced on Tuesday along with a redesigned iPhone 5.

or...

The N90a is the iphone 4S. The N94 is actually the iPhone 5, but all the leaked models we've seen has iPhone 4-like shells. And on October 4th, we see the iPhone 5.
 
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