Apple's iPhone 4S Disappoints

Apple’s iPhone 4S Disappoints

7 Comments 04 October 2011

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The build up to Apple’s ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ keynote was monumental. For months the web has been flooded with rumors and alleged leaked photos of the iPhone 5. On the heels of Steve Jobs retirement as Apple CEO many tech enthusiast were hoping for an unveiling of the iPhone 5 as a indicator that the company was still on track as an innovator under the leadership of Tim Cook.

With the announcement of the iPhone 4S, Apple has put all that chatter to rest. There will be no iPhone 5 this year. Instead Apple has opted to upgrade the iPhone 4 in every way imaginable.

iPhone 4S

From the outside no discernible difference can be made between the iPhone 4 and4S. However, internally they are two different animals all together. The 4S will now feature a dual CDMA/GSM chip that works across multiple carrier networks. In a move that is sure to anger hardcore Apple fans, the 4S is yet another iPhone that has not adopted the 4G data standard that is now the norm for Android devices.

While the iPhone 4s won’t take advantage of the fastest mobile internet networks available, they have vastly improved the overall speed of the phone with an all new A5 dual core processor that promises to be 2x faster the A4 predecessor and a dual core graphics processor with up to 7x faster graphics. To show off the graphic prowess of the iPhone 4s, Apple demoed the visually impressive role playing fantasy game Infinite Blade 2 from Epic Games.

For all the iPhone photographers out there, the 4S will feature an all new 8 megapixel camera with 60 percent more pixels than the previous iPhone 4 and will be able to record HD video in 1080p. The new camera will also feature facial recognition technology while shooting in order to better focus on and evenly capture all the faces in a photo. Fans of HDR photography will now be able shoot exposures in sets of 3s, this feature captures 3 light exposure ranges, thus producing higher quality HDR shots.

iPhone 4S Facial Recognition

Lastly, the saving grace of the keynote was the announcement of voice recognition assistant ‘Siri’. The built in app will serve as a personal assistant that answers your questions via direct integration with the Wolfram Alpha semantic search engine. If you asked it to “find me an Italian restaurant in North Beach” then Siri would send the voice query to Wolfram Alpha and instantly bring you back the most relevant results.

While these new features and updates to iOS 5 are all great improvements in their own right, the combination of them still fall short of making the iPhone 4s a must have device. In this case Apple is a victim of its own success, the hype leading up to this event could only be satisfied with an all new designed iPhone 5. Today Apple was unable to deliver.

Let me know your thoughts on the iPhone 4S, do these new feature make it a must buy or a pass until the iPhone 5?

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http://genyrants.com Justice Wordlaw IV

This is a device that I don’t see long lines or people waiting three days in line just to purchase. As a Iphone 4 user currently I don’t see much of this as new or a WOW moment at all. If their was integrating 4G then it would be something worth while or the early upgrade. But, with the Android phones offering 4G now on all the various networks and for Apple to still not offer it with the ranting that has been going on makes this presentation today seem like a waste of much needed keynote slides.
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  The lack of 4G is a big turn off for me also. I can’t stand the load times on AT&T. The loser in this whole thing could be Sprint, they are the last to get the iPhone 4 and this updated 4S edition isn’t enough to make existing iPhone users switch carriers.
  - http://genyrants.com Justice Wordlaw IV
    
    Yeah, if this $20 Billion dollar deal really went through Sprint just made a terrible investment and should ask for their money back or placed a section within that gives them rights to the Iphone 5 for at least two years or this won’t be good for them. My Iphone is with Verizon and the load times are pretty good but I don’t like how I can’t use voice/data at the same time though.
ashutosh nigam

nice post….thanks for sharing with us…….
http://www.wonderoftech.com Carolyn Nicander Mohr

I think if Apple had named this phone the iPhone 5, people would have been a lot happier. Apple missed the boat in naming this product. On AT&T, the iPhone 4S will be twice as fast as the iPhone 4, so people might be pleasantly surprised.

The iPad 2 wasn’t much of an upgrade from the iPad 1, but people still stood in long lines to get one and Apple couldn’t keep up with demand.

What’s ironic is that people were craving the Verizon iPhone for years, but when it was launched in February, there were no lines.

Let’s see what happens on the 14th!
http://www.dragonblogger.com Justin Germino

I am curious how the phone says it supports 14.4mbps but not 4G LTE, can CDMA or 3G even deliver that speed on any carrier? Also I think this is more in line with Sprint rumors they will get iPhone and now it is a complete World phone, this probably more aligns with expansion to other carriers and worldwide than simply a mass upgrade.

The thing is Apple doesn’t release new devices as frequently as say Samsung which has a new phone every month it seems, therefore when Samsung releases 20 new phones a year each with slightly more features than previous nobody makes a big deal. We have come to expect that Apple release the next “big thing” every time they do a release/conference and so they are a victim of expectations they themselves have set.
My guess is all the carriers are scared to get iPhone on 4G because once it comes out it could saturate their networks quickly and they may not be prepared.
13wiccan

How typical of some techno critic to slam an item that no one has even gotten yet. shame on you for putting out negative feedback just because you get paid by other companies who want apples business. I for one will stick with att and iphone.