To all those saying the 4S is a "minor" upgrade

[kre62]

Let me ask you a question:

If I took an old laptop running windows XP and put the insides in a new shiny sleek case, is it an upgrade?

What if I take the case and put an intel core i7 in there, new ram, etc? Is that an upgrade? Even though the laptop looks the same?

Look I'm just as disappointed as anyone there was not a significant exterior redesign. but keep in mind that the chips inside don't know they are inside a case that looks the same as last years. They're just focused on doing what they're made to do: Kick ass processing power.

The 4S is a huge upgrade, similar to how the 3GS was a massive upgrade. The 3GS is still kicking today because it was such a leap forward, and it runs iOS5 flawlessly. The iPhone 4 and 3GS are almost identical capability wise.

The 4S is in another category completely (Major architecture and capability advancements). Remember Apple keeps giving you more and more features as time goes on, and the phones with the capability to run the new stuff get updated.

 

[samcraig]

Let me ask you a question:

If I took an old laptop running windows XP and put the insides in a new shiny sleek case, is it an upgrade?

What if I take the case and put an intel core i7 in there, new ram, etc? Is that an upgrade? Even though the laptop looks the same?

Look I'm just as disappointed as anyone there was not a significant exterior redesign. but keep in mind that the chips inside don't know they are inside a case that looks the same as last years. They're just focused on doing what they're made to do: Kick ass processing power.

The 4S is a huge upgrade, similar to how the 3GS was a massive upgrade. The 3GS is still kicking today because it was such a leap forward, and it runs iOS5 flawlessly. The iPhone 4 and 3GS are almost identical capability wise.

The 4S is in another category completely (Major architecture and capability advancements). Remember Apple keeps giving you more and more features as time goes on, and the phones with the capability to run the new stuff get updated.

I don't think this is just about case design for some.

I think that the updates just don't excite many people because the iPhone 4 already has great specs - and works fast enough for most people (except maybe gamers).

The new speed/etc won't matter to many who just use their devices for surfing, email, texts, and other apps that don't really need the extra power.

I think the feature people who get the 4S will probably love most is the camera. But the iPhone 4 already takes great pics.

The truth is iOS 5 is more compelling of a release and it brings new functionality.

Unlike the front facing camera and (I assume upcoming NFC) - there's not too too much you can now add to specs that really are going to wow people except maybe a bigger screen.

 

[JCCL]

Dude don't compare the performance difference between the 3G and 3GS to the 4 and 4S. the 3GS was a much more dramatic improvement. Most people will notice minimal difference on common tasks between a 4 and a 4s (except for gaming if game is optimized ot use the new benefits). One the 3GS, the difference was very noticeable. The 3G struggled a little bit to run iPhone OS 3.0, the iPhone 4 runs iOS 5 flawlessly, even better than iOS 4 (been using all betas and now GM). I am comparing a 4 to and iPad 2, which should perform very similar to a 4S, and really the difference is nowhere near as big as it was in 2009 between the two iPhone models......

 

[El3ctronics]

Let me ask you a question:

If I took an old laptop running windows XP and put the insides in a new shiny sleek case, is it an upgrade?

What if I take the case and put an intel core i7 in there, new ram, etc? Is that an upgrade? Even though the laptop looks the same?

Look I'm just as disappointed as anyone there was not a significant exterior redesign. but keep in mind that the chips inside don't know they are inside a case that looks the same as last years. They're just focused on doing what they're made to do: Kick ass processing power.

The 4S is a huge upgrade, similar to how the 3GS was a massive upgrade. The 3GS is still kicking today because it was such a leap forward, and it runs iOS5 flawlessly. The iPhone 4 and 3GS are almost identical capability wise.

The 4S is in another category completely (Major architecture and capability advancements). Remember Apple keeps giving you more and more features as time goes on, and the phones with the capability to run the new stuff get updated.

If you gave me an old Dell Inspiron with Windows 8, a quad core i7 chip inside with 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD I STILL wouldn't use it. So to answer you question...design to some people is just as important as internal hardware specs. Mmm k?

 

[beamer8912]

Let me ask you a question:
The 4S is a huge upgrade, similar to how the 3GS was a massive upgrade. The 3GS is still kicking today because it was such a leap forward, and it runs iOS5 flawlessly. The iPhone 4 and 3GS are almost identical capability wise.

Fail.

The 4 and 4S are much closer capability-wise than the 4 and 3GS.

Retina Display, gyroscope, front facing camera, facetime, HD video recording....3GS has none of that.

4S has 1080p over 720p HD, Siri and HSPA+.

The 3GS was a good upgrade because the speed boost was very significant. Apple was so proud of it that they posted actual load times to show the difference. Did you notice how they didn't do that this time around? Instead they threw around the same numbers Intel and AMD do when they update their processors. 7x times this, 2x that....when in actuality you'll see maybe a 30% boost.

3GS webpages loaded literally twice as fast as 3G pages. Based on the hands-on articles posted all over the web, the hardware is faster sure, but not nearly what the 3G to 3GS upgrade brought.