

The lunacy of the "iPhone 4S is a disappointment" crowd - optiplex
http://www.edibleapple.com/2011/10/11/the-lunacy-of-the-iphone-4s-is-a-disappointment-crowd/

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steverb
What the heck, I'll bite.

I'm underwhelmed by the 4S, just as I was underwhelmed by the iPAD. I don't
see the appeal of either of those at the price point at which they are
offered. In my opinion they're not significantly better than the technology we
had in 2000 (although the battery life is tons better). There's very little I
can do on those devices that I couldn't do on my iPAQ, or on my tablet
computer back then.

I'm happy a lot of people are thrilled with them though, as that means that
the state of the art will eventually move to a point where I get to see the
value. Now, please, go enjoy whatever it is you enjoy and stop trying to
justify your decision to the rest of us.

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smackfu
"a measly iPhone 4S with an A5 chip, an amazing camera, voice recognition, iOS
5, and 1080p HD video recording."

Well, even looking at his list from the perspective of an iPhone 4 user...

A5 chip: I don't think my iPhone 4 is slow in anything I do. I guess the 4S is
better at playing FPS that are terrible on a phone anyways.

Amazing camera: Nice feature, but the iPhone 4 camera is pretty good already.
I doubt this is as dramatic as the 3GS to 4 camera upgrade.

Voice recognition: Might use it in the car sometimes. This used to be
available for the iPhone anyways, and no one used it.

iOS 5: I get this on my iPhone 4.

1080p HD video recording: iPhone 4 already does 720p and I've never felt it
lacking.

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gwright
Perhaps you weren't the target marget. Look at the 4S compared to the 3GS.
iPhone 4 owners are still under contract while 3GS owners are at the end of
their contract.

As a business strategy, the goal would be to encourage 3GS owners to upgrade.
Similarly the iPhone 5 will be positioned to entice iPhone 4 owners to
upgrade.

~~~
smackfu
True, but by that logic, it would almost make sense for Apple to go to a
2-year upgrade cycle, since the 3GS to 4 upgrade is also definitely worthwhile
for those users. The main reasons they didn't already upgrade are not being
off contract yet, and waiting for the iPhone 5 release.

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enyalius
I agree with the tone of the people posting comments here: The hardware
refresh is nice, but it's nothing special.

If this were an Android phone, that would be OK as the next super-device would
be no more than a month away. As it's the iPhone, though, this means that
people are stuck with a device that is only just on par with current Android
devices for the next year.

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TomOfTTB
I was firmly in the "there's nothing disappointing in this release" camp
before reading this. But I have to say this sounds a LOT like what people used
to say about the Mac pre-Jobs' return. As Windows was slowly catching up you'd
hear about the elegance of the Mac and how features weren't as important as
usability. And it was true but it was also true that Windows was gaining on
the Mac far faster than the Mac was improving.

I do think there are some neat things in the 4S but there's no doubt that
Android phones have made a leap in the next year while the iPhone just made a
step. So while I'd still put the iPhone in the lead I think there's an
argument to be made for the 4S being a disappointment.

(and for the record I bought one for full price because I've needed a 64G
iPhone to fit all my music for years now so I'm not an Android fanboy)

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lomegor
Nobody said the iPhone 4S wouldn't sell nor that it was a bad phone. Just that
we were hoping more from Apple, and that the company didn't do anything
innovative this year. I still think the same, but I'm hoping Siri will prove
me wrong (because it would be really cool), but I don't count on it.

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Rhymenocerus
Don't they realize that the point of buying the new iWhatever is to let
everyone know how elite you are? iFans are more impressed with the color
something comes in than whats inside it.

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Drakeman
Yeah, I think the problem with the 4S is that it's a fairly minor update. Look
at the difference between the "smartphones" before the original iPhone and
after, the iPhone and the iPhone 3G(S), and then the iPhone 4. Each was a
significant upgrade in both technical prowess and on-board features. However,
the consumer market has already seen -everything- the 4S with this year's
Motorola, HTC, and Samsung offerings.

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drivebyacct2
What is the point of this article? The iPhone 4s was a slight improvement over
the iPhone 4, and frankly I'm still shocked to hear things like the RAM is the
same and the processor still clocks at barely 800Mhz. For Apple, this is fine.
But saying that my iPhone 3gs-holding-friend shouldn't be disappointed _just
because Apple is selling millions of them_ , is just silly. He's disappointed
because I'm about to have a 1.5Ghz dual core phone with 1GB of memory and a
resolution higher than the computer I used in highschool just 4 years ago in a
thinner form factor than his phone. He will love his iPhone 4s and I will love
my phone, but I don't understand the tone of this article. Is it really so
unreasonable to want LTE given the available phones on the market that have
LTE? Or a form factor that is more competitive.

I guess from where I'm sitting, I'm used to Apple kicking everyone in the
nards from a tech specs perspective, and I don't think that's the case this
go-around.

~~~
gwright
Yes it is unreasonable to expect LTE. The current chips wouldn't fit in the
iPhone 4 form factor and would use more power (i.e. less battery life). And of
course LTE coverage is a lot less than 3G coverage.

So the tradeoff doesn't seem reasonable to me at this point in time. Next
summer there will be different chips, a redesigned form factor (probably) and
better LTE coverage and so the tradeoff will go the other way.

~~~
drivebyacct2
Phones on the market and phones that will be on the market in 23 days beg to
differ on those claims. Thinner chassis, LTE, at-least-tolerable battery life,
twice the ram, twice the proc speed (and dual core), etc.

~~~
gwright
I was thinking in the context of Apple. Redesigning the form factor every
12-15 months has a cost. For this reason, redesigning the _iPhone_ to
incorporate the LTE chips wouldn't make sense since Apple seems to aim for a
24-28 month refresh on the form factor.

I wasn't suggesting that it was impossible if you were designing from scratch.

Battery life is important. So yes you can sacrifice battery life for more
power hungry 1st generation chips but it isn't _wrong_ to decide that the
battery life is more important.

Seems like the effective CPU+GPU capability of the iPhone 4S is at the head of
the pack. When you add in the overhead that Android software has I don't think
it is necessary for Apple to goose the processor specs in order to get
fantastic end-user experience. This also saves power. Again tradeoffs that
have to be made and the ones Apple picked seem entirely reasonable to lots of
customers (based on pre-sales orders).

~~~
vetinari
CPU+GPU wise iPhone 4S is lacking. There are phones on the market right now
with Exynos at 1.2 GHz (Exynos is basically A5 minus Apple logo), which is in
part reason for the disappointment with 4S.

