Why is no one else disappointed the new iphone doesn't use 4G?

[Potatochobit]

it seems like I am in the minority here
sure, it is not that big a deal, 3G is everywhere I need to be
but with all this 4G marketing, and this phone is supposed to be 'state of the art' why the cheap solution?

if you are not using the 4G network, what exactly is the point of switching to verizon again?
I dont really want to stick with ATT, but looking at the 3G numbers, I dont really see any compelling reason to switch carriers, and I dont really want to stay with ATT.

 

[Intell]

By marketing definition, it's a 4G phone. By technical definition, no mobile is 4G.

 

[knownikko]

* It will be at least a year before anything resembling "4G" is available in my area.

* Wifi is ubiquitous and nearly always available.

* I'd rather have a phone that I didn't need to charge on my lunch hour than one with an extra "G"

* I can't come up with many (any?) personal use cases where the difference between ~7mbps and ~20mbps download speeds would be a great benefit to me on a phone.

 

[ECUpirate44]

I'd rather my phone's battery get me through the day.

 

[jca24]

By marketing definition, it's a 4G phone. By technical definition, no mobile is 4G.

Correct, none of the carriers latest offerings are true 4G. It is all a marketing gimmick. Google it

 

[troop231]

Because 4G doesn't cover enough people yet. Also the 4G being marketed by AT&T at the moment should really be called FauxG (aka 3G Rev 2).

 

[Darthdingo]

But ATT's HSPA+ is pretty damned fast for 3G, why couldn't Apple throw that radio in the iPhone4S, along with an LED Notification light. Still thinking today is April fools day, and will wake up and tomorrow we get the "One more thing" reveal of the iPhone5 they should have released.

 

[danpass]

because they still do a download limit over 3G in apps (20mb?) and video is purposely handicapped (youtube, netflix and forget FaceTime) so what's the point of having a faster connection?

and the best I've seen in a 3G (purported to be 7.2mbps) speedtest is ~3.5mbps

 

[bpeeps]

Probably because the market saturation of 4G right is horrible and the majority of people don't have access to it. There are some places that don't even have 3G yet!

 

[ToddH]

With the new chip and faster download speeds, the 4s is just as fast as the other 4g phones at 3G speed, It was mentioned in the keynote. Check it out.

 

[knownikko]

With the new chip and faster download speeds, the 4s is just as fast as the other 4g phones at 3G speed, It was mentioned in the keynote. Check it out.

As long as you're not in the US that is. The 14.4mbps HSDPA standard is not currently supported by AT&T as far as I know.

 

[awadeee]

Because 4G doesn't cover enough people yet. Also the 4G being marketed by AT&T at the moment should really be called FauxG (aka 3G Rev 2).

FauxG. I like that!

 

[zipster]

Because 4G sucks battery life and that is one of the hallmarks of Apple products.

Also, most iPhone users are on AT&T and 4G is virtually non-existant.

It really doesn't matter. In real world use, I'm sure the 4S will stand just as tall next to current Android phones. For people who look at spec sheets, though, they are running mad.

 

[Jman13]

For me, 4G couldn't matter less. I can't think of any time when a solid 3G connection seemed slow to me. I typically get 3 MBps down on my iPhone 4, and have gotten up to 6 before. For what I do, what do I need ultra fast speeds for? I don't tether, and you can't download anything larger than 20MB on 3G anyway, so what's the big deal?

I also don't really purchase music anymore, as I use Rdio on my phone for all my music (where 3G is more than enough for a solid stream) and MeCanto as my cloud streamer for music that isn't available on Rdio (Beatles, personal recordings, etc).

 

[phaggard]

The 4S will give Apple about another year until the LTE networks come on line more and then they can release the Iphone 5 with LTE.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

If you're on the AT&T network, it's truly no big deal. 3G on AT&T is blazing fast. However if you're on Verizon (or Sprint) I can see why you'd be disappointed. EVDO crawls at a snail's pace compared to HSPDA, plus the whole "call or data, not both" problem.

However battery life is a huge issue with LTE, so that would not be a wholly satisfactory solution either.

If local coverage options prohibit you from using AT&T, you're not going to get nearly the utility out of an iPhone that I and other AT&T users get. That's unfortunate but there just is no good solution until better LTE chips are available.