
IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition - rads
http://www.apple.com/iphone/#4s
======
kenjackson
This is a pretty underwhelming release. At least for waiting 16 months since
the last phone.

I sincerely hope Apple isn't about to do a replay of the Mac. Great
introduction with incredible technology. But a few years into it, begins to
stagnate.

HW wise this nothing like the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 was a far superior device
over the Galaxy S phones. The Galaxy S II though is pretty close to this. In
terms of the raw HW I think I might call it a draw now. The camera is superior
on the iPhone I suspect, but the small screen size negates that win.

Based on this trend, unless Apple has some aces in its sleeve, over the next
year we'll see Android phones clearly pull ahead in HW.

SW though iOS still kills Android. Mango and iOS seem to be the ones that have
the fundamentals down. I almost think someone needs to throw Android out and
start from scratch. The inability for that OS to be stable and the fact that
its still sometimes jerky on SGII HW is embarrassing.

~~~
jberryman
Sorry, what is mango?

~~~
Toddward
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Phone_7.5>

------
thematt
Anybody else getting "Access Denied"?

 _You don't have permission to access "<http://www.apple.com/> on this server.
Reference #18.770d50c0.1317755591.9fc5eb4_

~~~
RealGeek
Yes, but I was able to access through Google cache. I clicked around other
links on that page; the error disappeared.

------
Greenisus
I was hoping for an iPhone 5 with a new design, but I'm still very excited
about this. The extra processing power combined with the low level speed
improvements in iOS 5 are going to be HUGE for app developers.

The only letdown for me is seeing Apple do things that compete with their app
developers: the new Cards app, Reminders, etc.

~~~
gwright
I've been having a hard time understanding all the clamor for a new form
factor. The 3G to 3GS bump was all about performance and software. It makes
sense for the 4 to 4S to also be about performance and software. The next form
factor change will be the iPhone 5 in the same way that the iPhone 4 was a
form-factor change.

This seems like a reasonable allocation of R&D dollars to me. I don't think
the form factor has to change every year.

Apple's next earnings call will be interesting. I'm curious as to why the
product cycle for the iPhone changed this time around with the fall intro
rather than summer. Was it component supply? engineering delays? market timing
strategy with the holidays? milking the existing iPhone 4 demand? all of the
above?

~~~
masklinn
> This seems like a reasonable allocation of R&D dollars to me. I don't think
> the form factor has to change every year.

Even more so because their audience cycles with 2-years contract (or so they
believe, at any rate), so it makes sense to keep designs for 2 years.

~~~
Greenisus
you guys make a good point on the design not needing to change. the iPhone 4
chassis design is essentially perfect as far as I'm concerned. the letdown, i
think, is in the excitement of something that _looks_ new, just like the
excitement of seeing the original iPhone and seeing the iPhone 4 for the first
time.

however, aside from aesthetics, i think the case is in need of some new
features. for one, the home button is overloaded in ways that multi-touch
could fix. double tap on the lock screen to get the fast camera button, double
tap when unlocked for fast app switching, etc.

fast app switching is awkward and not easily discoverable; it would be much
nicer if i could swipe left or right on the bottom bezel to switch apps. also,
with the new Notification Center, it would be nice if i could swipe from the
top bezel instead of the screen, thus causing less interruption to third party
apps.

as far as people wanting a bigger screen, i disagree. the Retina Display was
brilliant in that it kept the exact same aspect ratio as the original iPhone.
no app had to change to support it (aside from offering larger graphics
assets).

anyway, that's my $0.02 :)

------
schiffern
People seem to be missing the point about Siri. When compared to the free app
released two years ago, it's been neutered.

Where's OpenTable? StubHub? TaxiMagic? We've seen WolframAlpha and Yelp, but
that's it. Wikipedia still has a full list. I count 19 services.
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Siri_%28softw...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Siri_%28software%29)

Siri promised to organize not just your phone, but the world outside your
phone. Apple has integrated first-party apps beautifully, but heard not a peep
about third-party services. Neither web services nor native apps can disclose
their offerings to Siri.

The easy answer is that Apple doesn't want Siri competing with their app
market.

I don't think it's so simple, and I don't think Apple is so short-sighted.
After all, if someone's going to make your business obsolete, you want it to
be you. Everyone and their grandmother has an app store now. What makes
Apple's store distinctive is not only the quality of the apps, but the depth
of the apps. Fart apps are obviously shallow (they're semantically non-
existent), but a native port of a web service is pretty shallow too. How many
verbs are required to interface with craigslist? How many kinds of nouns exist
on Yelp? These apps have the capacity to be supplanted by Siri integration,
but Apple missed the boat.

I'm comforted by Apple's admission that this is "beta" software. iOS didn't
ship with any SDK (despite the obvious potential), and the reason turned out
to be as innocuous as "it wasn't ready."

We've glimpsed the post-app world. Don't mess it up, Apple.

------
seanalltogether
"And iPhone 4S is a world phone, so you can use it almost anywhere. Whether
you’re a GSM or CDMA customer, you can roam GSM networks in 200 countries
around the world."

The term 'roam' is throwing me off there, does that mean you can't swap in
your own sim card? That you have to use the roaming feature on whatever your
current carrier is?

~~~
jesseendahl
Well, so far there is no pricing available for an unlocked version of the
iPhone 4S, and I assume the contract versions will carrier locked within the
USA :(

~~~
masklinn
Unlocked phones are available in most countries which are not the US.

They're... not cheap. On the french store, the unlocked 4S is advertised as
starting from 629€ (which would be for the 16GB version)

~~~
jesseendahl
Yeah, I realize they are available in most other countries, just not
historically the U.S. Which is why I was super excited when they finally
started selling unlocked iPhone 4's in the U.S. this past summer. I seriously
hope they don't go back to only selling locked phones again. Thankfully, it
does look like an unlocked version will be available. If you go to the Apple
Store Online, then to the iPhone 4 page, on the right hand side you see a
section titled "Get answers before you buy," and below that "About the
unlocked iPhone." Clicking on that gets you to this page:
[http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iph...](http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone/iphone4/about_unlocked)
which reads: "The unlocked iPhone includes all the features of iPhone but
without a contract commitment. You can activate and use it on the supported
GSM wireless network of your choice, such as AT&T in the United States.* The
unlocked iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S will not work with CDMA-based carriers such as
Verizon Wireless or Sprint."

------
WiseWeasel
I'm a 32GB 3GS owner on a lapsed ATT contract, and I'll be pre-ordering a
Verizon 32GB 4S model on Friday. Two things bother me, but weren't deal-
breakers:

1) It sucks that it still has the iPhone 4's flawed design, with glass going
right up to the edge of the front and back, requiring a case so it can survive
a fall. I've always preferred to keep my iPhones naked.

2) $400 for the 64GB model with two-year contract? Really? No storage capacity
upgrade since last year's model (the entry level $200 model still ships with
16GB storage), with memory capacities ever-increasing and prices falling,
feels like nickel-and-diming. I guess I didn't really need 64GB after all.

Other than that, the new Siri Voice Assistant looks sweet, the 8MP/1080p
camera also looks nice, and I'm looking forward to the improved performance.

~~~
tptacek
I drop my iPhone onto hardwood floors at least once a week. I have a small
visible scratch in the middle of the front and that's it.

I know the phones do shatter, and I've seen it happen, but I'm rough on mine
and it has not been fragile.

The 64GB pricing is nickel-and-diming; storage is their pricing segmentation
mechanism, so taking the highest storage option is never going to feel good;
you're opting for the "I'm price insensitive" bucket.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Wood is softer than glass, and it's normal that the glass doesn't shatter in
that case.

------
IanDrake
It was up for a second...

*Update: There it's back. This is the first iphone that made me go "meh".

~~~
bjtitus
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the speed bump. I believe everyone
is underestimating just how fast the A5 is going to make this phone.

~~~
gravitronic
How does it impact battery life? To be honest I find the existing generation
fast enough (and while I do enjoy gaming on my ipod touch 4g, I find 3d
graphics completely overkill) but really the battery life is what's abysmal...

~~~
pohl
Good question. The results in mobile devices seems to be counter-intuitive, to
me. A faster processor often means that, according to usage patterns, the work
gets done faster and the machine can go into one of the many power-saving
states more quickly, leading to better battery life. That probably varies by
what you're trying to do, but for a smart phone the sooner it's done and back
in your pocket, the better.

~~~
gte910h
The CPU bound processes in most apps are tiny portions of the entire app.

~~~
pohl
Don't take my "back in your pocket" comment too literally. The CPU is going to
go into low-power states quite frequently while you're using these I/O bound
applications you describe, and the sooner it can, the better.

I don't think what I'm saying is controversial in the mobile industry. For
example, here's an old article that has a quote about the effects of Intel's
Quick Start technology from back in the year 2000 that captures what I'm
saying:

<http://www.anandtech.com/show/2782/2>

 _“"Intel has figured out that it is best to use full CPU power for a split
second to finish a task and then put the CPU to idle as this conserves battery
life the best. Although one may suspect that when running complex operations
the CPU would not have time to go idle, this is not the case. To illustrate
this point, Intel used an example of DVD playback. Very stressful on the
system as a whole, Intel's quick start technology allows the CPU to "hurry up"
and perform the DVD decoding operations and then go idle until the frame is
displayed to screen and the next scene needs to be calculated. This saves
battery life because, although the system may require 3 watts or so to "hurry
up", the power consumption goes down near .25 watts when idle. By averaging
these two numbers, one can quickly see how quick start can extend battery
life."”_

~~~
gte910h
While what you're saying about CPUs is correct, that is not the main battery
hog in smartphones (additionally why Apple is staying so far from LTE at the
moment)

The biggest demon is by FAR the radios. The amount apps and the phone use that
is mostly determined 1> by how much the user wants notifications (which are
basically implemented by constant polling, even in background notifications),
or 2> how network intensive the apps are that a person is using. Additionally,
stuff like having bad connections to your cell provider make the radio
receiver power have to be turned up (as well as broadcast, but the receiver is
the worst part usually), and constantly using bluetooth will kill you as well.
The bad thing about the radios, especially if you have stuff like lots of apps
doing push notifications, as well as a fast polling interval for your mail, is
that you're doing this even when the phone is in your pocket.

Second to the radios is technically another radio, but people only do 1 way
comms with it and don't really think of it as a radio: THE GPS SYSTEM. Apple
vastly improved this (it used to pretty much leave the system on, now it
pulses it on and off unless your app requires the older mode for some reason,
such as Navigon type turn by turn navigation). Again, this is a part of the
phone that optimization did help with (as often time the GPS radio doesn't
come on if the phone can figure out your location from other mechanisms), but
still, you're generally speaking going to see most GPS heavy apps running
while the user is using them. Sure driving faster will get the phone in their
pocket faster, but I'm not sure an added hour of battery life is worth unsafe
driving.

I'm not saying graphics and the like don't eat up huge chunks of power, I'm
just saying that a vast majority of people eat most of their power on much
more pedestrian things than Infinity Blade.

~~~
pohl
True. I didn't mention radios (or the backlight, for that matter) because I
was replying to a specific question regarding the effect of the speed bump.

------
joebadmo
As an Android user and admitted Google fanboy, there's a secret part of me
that always hopes the new iPhone will be so much and so unequivocably better
that I'll want to switch.

I really like the iPhone 4/4s ID, but I am a bit disappointed that there's not
a shiny new chassis with something to blow me away.

No doubt the camera (now even more so) is better than anything on any Android
device, probably by a lot. The pixel density, contrast, and surface proximity
of the screen is fantastic. Hardware-wise, the only thing I can ask for is LTE
(hell on the battery, I know) and a bigger screen (impossible to maintain
pixel density, I know, but I love the 4.3" screen on my Droid X, I don't think
I could go back).

Software-wise, with the new notification system, I think the only major
feature I want now is something like Locale or Tasker, background apps that
allow me change phone settings according to different criteria, e.g. when I'm
at home, my ringer and wifi turns on, when I leave home they turn off.

~~~
masklinn
> I want now is something like Locale or Tasker, background apps that allow me
> change phone settings according to different criteria, e.g. when I'm at
> home, my ringer and wifi turns on, when I leave home they turn off.

Yeah a more integrated Reminder, which can handle switching settings: it has
geofenced tasks and todos, system hooks would be pretty cool.

~~~
joebadmo
Yes, exactly. But, unfortunately, it's the kind of fiddly sort of feature that
I don't expect to be high priority for Apple. I.e. the lack of it in no way
stops me from recommending the iPhone to the vast majority of people that ask
me which phone to get.

------
protomyth
The A5, camera, and increased storage are worth the upgrade. I do wonder if
the camera API will change based on the keynote.

------
MrFoof
For those in the US curious about their upgrade eligibility, use this link:
[https://buyiphone.apple.com/WebObjects/IPACustomer.woa/wa/IP...](https://buyiphone.apple.com/WebObjects/IPACustomer.woa/wa/IPAToolAction/springboard)

I'm finding that I'm eligible for the fully subsidized price after only about
17 months from getting my iPhone 4.

------
zokier
8 megapixels, but on how large sensor? Not surprisingly, all sample images are
taken in bright sunlight. I doubt that the camera will perform anywhere near
Nokias N8, or reasonably priced point'n'shoot. Well, I guess that people
should be lucky that Apple didn't put in something silly like 16MP 1/2.3"
sensor in it.

~~~
zokier
Argh, I hate when I get downvotes without explanation.

The fact is that sensor size affects image quality as much, if not more than
megapixel count, and if the camera is marketed with statements such as "With 8
megapixels and all-new optics, this just might be the best camera ever on a
mobile phone." I feel that both inquiring a major factor of image quality and
comparison to current market leader are justified.

------
alexg0
AT&T has consistently let it's best customers upgrade to new iPhone releases
without enforcing the contract -- charging subsidized prices to upgrade to
newer iPhone models. Will Sprint and Verizon done the same, or is switching to
Sprint now will commit one to sit out next iPhone?

~~~
tptacek
Wait what? I've been AT&T since the original iPhone and AT&T has never let me
upgrade, despite the massive amount of money I spent on my mobile plan.

~~~
alexg0
Really, they let me upgrade from 3G to 3GS to 4. And I waited to get 3G few
month after it originally came out.

See this article on from 2009:
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10266781-37.html>

update: Based on my recollection, with 3G and 3GS, AT&T only asked for 1 year
contract, not two. When new iPhone was released, sometime in June or July,
anybody with contact renewal through October was marked as elegible to sign
new contract, and received contract pricing on the newly released model if
iPhone.

~~~
gwright
More information please. What does 'let me upgrade' mean?

You can _always_ upgrade it is just a matter of how much of a subsidy you
want. Near the end of your contract you'll get the full subsidy on the new
phone. One month into your contract you won't get any subsidy on the new
phone.

There seems to be some people here who think there is a super secret way to
purchased phones at subsidized prices without fulfilling (or nearly
fulfilling) the contract on their previous subsidized phone. I don't think so.
TANSTAFAAL

------
moe
Any word on when the real iphone5 will arrive?

The 4S seems like a rather pitiful flagship by apple standards.

~~~
guywithabike
I really don't get it. Why's everyone underwhelmed? Is a new case the only
thing people wanted?

~~~
kill-9
Because Apple did nothing to quash rumors of the iPhone 5. This makes me think
that the decision not to launch it was made very late. Usually Apple is better
about managing expectations.

~~~
tptacek
There is no end to the amount of noodling we can entertain about Apple's
"expectations-setting". "The orbital laser cannons must have been canceled at
the last minute!"

In the end, you have to evaluate the device on its own merits. The iPhone 4
may be Apple's most successful product ever, so perhaps this is just "if it
ain't broke"-ism. The iPhone 4 is holding its own against all the Android
competitors; is it the C.W. now that the 4S will do _worse_?

------
thematt
Anybody else getting "Access Denied"?

 _You don't have permission to access "<http://www.apple.com/> on this server.
Reference #18.770d50c0.1317755591.9fc5eb4_

~~~
samstave
I am still getting the same. I love shenanigans like this :)

EDIT: it is back up. :(

------
deweller
Any word on whether Nitro javascript acceleration will be allowed in local
webkit-based apps?

~~~
jcampbell1
The latest news was that iOS 5 only adds Nitro for homescreen web
applications. At least tabbed browsing is now in Safari, so there is less
reason to use 3rd party browsers, though that is little comfort to mobile app
developers using webkit.

------
rdl
How can I get a Verizon CDMA 4s which is gsm unlocked for international
travel?

------
functionoid
Apple's site is back up.

------
Kilimanjaro
A5, iOS5, why not iPhone5??? Huge marketing miss. Everything else being
perfect.

~~~
checker
Oct 4 ... besides that, I agree.

------
john2x
I'm confused. It's priced at $199. That's the same as the iPod Touch. Has it
really gone down that much? Or am I missing something?

And what's with the "Free" 3GS?

~~~
flyosity
That's the price if you sign up for a 2-year contract. This is typically how
they show the prices of iPhones since most consumers in the U.S. have no idea
what a phone costs before the subsidy is paid by the carrier (and wouldn't pay
it.)

~~~
john2x
:( aww.. Got a bit excited there.. I knew it was too good to be true.

But has the price gone down compared to previous releases?

~~~
jarek
No, new iPhone models have been introduced at $199 on contract for lowest disk
capacity since the 3G.

------
starnix17
Is their DNS hacked?

From whois apple.com:

APPLE.COM.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM APPLE.COM.WAS.PWNED.BY.M1CROSOFT.COM
APPLE.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM APPLE.COM.IS.OWN3D.BY.NAKEDJER.COM
APPLE.COM.IS.0WN3D.BY.GULLI.COM APPLE.COM.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
APPLE.COM.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM APPLE.COM

EDIT: This is completely false and untrue (well the DNS hack part).

See this Superuser thread for more details:
[http://superuser.com/questions/37954/how-to-use-command-
line...](http://superuser.com/questions/37954/how-to-use-command-line-whois-
for-spam-infected-domains-like-apple-com)

