

IPhone 4S with iPhone 4 design, leaked by iTunes - avirambm
http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/01/iphone-4s-with-iphone-4-design-dual-mode-capability-leaked-by-itunes/

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ugh
Can’t we postpone all this crap 70 hours and go on what will then be
definitive facts?

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wtn
HN is all about speculation and gossip about other people's money, so the
answer to your question is "no".

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dmix
I new thinner/larger design would be nice, but I'm totally happy with the
iPhone 4 at the moment. It's one of the best built and best looking devices I
own.

My friends have various android phones with huge screens. The size is nice but
they feel like cheap plastic.

A hardware upgrade with CDMA and maybe NFC with the same design is welcome.

I can wait another year for a new design with the iPhone 5.

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jonknee
The only change I'd make is getting rid of the rear glass. It sounded like a
bad idea and I have confirmed (twice) that it is a bad idea in practice. It
compromises the device for style.

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__david__
I agree. It's _so_ pretty, but my oh my is it slippery. Of course the old 3g
and 3gs were pretty slick too. I wish they'd make the apple logo rubber or
something just to give it a little more friction. As it is it ends up sliding
off of anything that's not exactly level.

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watmough
My iPhone 4 has a couple of velcro strips (sewing section in WalMart) stuck on
the back. This really helps with identifying back and front, and not sliding
off sofa arms, and also lets me put it down quietly.

Plus it's useful if I want to attach it to things. Just arrange some velcro
tie-wraps, and the iPhone will stick right on. Super convenient.

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spiralganglion
This comment is going to ruin my average, but I just had to say: I love it.
That is _so_ clever. Hats off to you, sir.

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guygurari
iTunes has a new iPhone 4S entry, but it shows a picture of the existing
iPhone 4. What does it mean?

"Unless Apple still has the CDMA iPhone 4 as a placeholder image ... we’re
fairly confident that the iPhone 4S will pack the CDMA iPhone design."

That's a big "unless".

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frou_dh
I wouldn't agree that it's a big "unless". The 3GS has set precedent for an
"S" version meaning nothing more than suped-up internals.

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saurik
I find it highly unlikely, however, that they would use the exact same image:
they would change /something/ about it, whether it just be what the wallpaper
is, to the angles of the shots. Given that this is actually the same filename
being shared from the other product, it seems much more likely that they
haven't put the final images in place yet.

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glhaynes
I dunno - do the 3G and 3GS use identical-looking images? If so, is it
actually the same file?

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jamesaguilar
I'm slightly disappointed. The iPhone 4 is a beautiful and high quality
device, but I have never liked the way the square edges feel in my hand. I
would love to see a return to the 3G/S curved back design.

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onedognight
I disliked the square design until I started using FaceTime regularly. The
perpendicular edges make it trivial to prop the phone up vertically for a
call. I don't think it's a coincidence that the design changed when FaceTime
was added.

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vegardx
I would disagree, why is this not the case with the iPad then?

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spiralganglion
Smart Cover

Imagine how thick an iPad would need to be to stand solidly on its side,
unsupported. Bad idea for a tablet, great idea for a phone.

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jsz0
I feel bad for Tim Cook if he has to go out and re-announce a 14 month old
product with a spec bump. Not a terribly exciting way to publicly start his
new job. They also tried this before with mixed results. The 3GS sold
fantastically for the first 6 months or so but it was the Q1/Q2 2010 time-
frame where Android phones really took off in part because they simply had
better hardware. It's possible that will happen again. There are already some
higher resolution displays out there, probably quad-core processors by the end
of the year or early next year, and LTE support. I can't help but feel like
the 4S is going to look very last-generation in a few months and it won't help
if it physically re-enforces this by looking last-generation also. It's a
risky move when there's so much competition out there.

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loire280
The hardware in an iPhone really isn't that important as long as the interface
is responsive. Apple has consistently made choices that ensure that
performance can be squeezed out of slower hardware. These include restrictions
on iOS development (less abstraction in interface elements because of limited
aspect ratios, restrictions on background processes and aggressive memory
management) and hardware acceleration and optimization that comes from very
limited hardware profiles. That's why an iPhone 4, with it's single 800mhz
core, in most instances feels as fast as the dual core, higher-clocked Android
phones that have come out since its introduction.

"The 3GS sold fantastically for the first 6 months or so but it was the Q1/Q2
2010 time-frame where Android phones really took off in part because they
simply had better hardware."

That isn't borne out in sales numbers. Apple sales continued to grow during
Q1/Q2 2010, and in Q2 2010 Apple sold more iPhones than any previous quarter,
even with the (very publicly) impending launch of the iPhone 4. Android sales
were also growing rapidly during that time, and that is the period where
Android unit sales passed up iPhone unit sales. However, that is more likely
due to the availability of competitive Android phones on all the rival
networks (iPhone was still AT&T only at that point) during the time when
smartphones hit mass popularity.

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/apple-q22010-financial-
re...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/apple-q22010-financial-results-
record-march-quarter-revenue-and-profit-iphone-sales-more-than-double/8082)

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czhiddy
3G, 3GS, 4, 4S

Makes sense - Apple's using an Intel-like tick/tock release approach. Coming
out with a brand new industrial design every year is expensive, since Apple
opts for glass/aluminum nowadays rather than plastic.

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mikerg87
If there is only the 4s which is just a souped up iPhone 4, then why did it
take so long to provide so little?

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jedberg
From what I hear from my insider friends, the next iPhone has actually been
ready for months, they just didn't want to release it so close to the iPhone
4. In fact, they are almost done with the next next version of the phone, but
don't expect to see it for at lest a year.

Until someone provides some real competition to the iPhone, they really have
no reason to rapidly release new models.

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Thomaschaaf
Maybe Apple is segmenting iPhones into the cheaper and the more expensive
version being iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S will be enough for most
and may feature less space for music and apps (8GB) and the iPhone 5 will be
the bigger devices (16, 32 & 64 GB).

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dillon
iPhone 4s, with iOS5. Seems fit that they would come out with an iPhone 5.
Anyways, we will see on Oct 3rd.

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awolf
The Apple event is October 4th actually. Also, I think you mean "anyway".

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randallsquared
_Also, I think you mean "anyway"._

You object to his dialect, but not to his sentence fragment? :) There are some
interesting discussions on "anyway", "anyways" and "anywise" out there, but
all three forms have been around for centuries.

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sp332
The new case designs have already been leaked, so we already know that it's
going to have a different form factor. It won't be the same as iPhone 4.

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kenjackson
That assumes there's only one new phone. Isn't there still talk of an iPhone 5
too or is that a dead rumor now?

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sp332
Oh, I didn't realize they were separate. I thought iPhone 4S == iPhone 5.

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kenjackson
It might be. From John Gruber: _I don’t know what the new iPhone looks like. I
don’t even know whether there’s only one new iPhone._

<http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/teardrop_skepticism>

And he goes on to talk about the iPhone 4s and the iPhone 5. Apple, as usual,
keeps everyone on the edge of their seats.

My personal take is that Apple should just do the iPhone 4s. In head to head
sales, the iPhone 4 still kills everyone else. I'd let it get a little staler
-- and then drop the iPhone 5 say in June of next year.

They can do the tick-tock, like Intel. One year, new design, next year use
better components. And they can have the iPad and iPhone tick/tock on opposing
years.

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CamperBob
If they plan to ship one or two phone models and upgrade them every two years,
they had better have lots of patents, because they certainly won't be able to
compete in a fair marketplace.

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kenjackson
John Dvorak has said something similar:

"The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any
company, there is no evidence that it can play it fast enough. These phones go
in and out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the
pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3
months."

"And its survival in the computer business relies on good margins. Those
margins cannot exist in the mobile handset business for more than 15 minutes."

The problem is -- he said it in 2007.

[http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-
plug-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-on-the-
iphone)

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potatolicious
Betting against John Dvorak seems like it might be a viable strategy.

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cpeterso
Betting against John Dvorak is always a good bet.

