Apple Introduces the iPhone 4S

Ken — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:02:14 +0000

Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage along to introduce the newest iPhone, dubbed the "iPhone 4S". The important new specs: a significantly faster A5 dual-core processor; an 8 megapixel camera with improved sensor and optics (f2.4 aperture!); HD video recording; Siri voice-recognition assistant; dual-mode CDMA and GSM radio; and availability on Sprint as well as AT&T and Verizon.

There seems to be widespread disappointment that Apple didn't announce a radically new iPhone 5. I'm not sure I understand this. Perhaps if Apple had called it an iPhone 5 and given it a new case design, people would have been happier?

I mean honestly, exactly what features do people believe are missing? I guess some people were hoping for a bigger screen, but the cost of that would have been lower pixel density, application compatibility issues, increased power consumption, poorer display quality, or some combination of those factors. LTE? I'd rather not sacrifice the battery life for a network with limited coverage and availability. I personally would have liked to have seen a near-field radio chip, but I can see that the infrastructure isn't there to support it yet. So really, what's missing?

It's an incremental improvement on an already-great phone. It has a best-in-class camera, display, processor, graphics chip, operating system, and application ecosystem. Oh, and there's Siri, which looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie. And still people complain.

The most ridiculous complaints come from people who own the iPhone 4, saying "it's not worth the upgrade". Well you know, most iPhone 4 owners aren't eligible for the carrier-subsidized price yet anyway. No, the 4S is mainly targeted at people like me, who have the 3GS and have been waiting for this upgrade opportunity, or for first-time iPhone buyers who would have bought the 4 this summer if not for the pending upgrade. There's a big pent-up demand, and the iPhone 4S is just what we were waiting for.

I'll be pre-ordering two on Friday.