News iPhone 4S announced

according to apple store the iphone4s sim free, will cost £499 iphone4 £429, and 3gs £319



there is no-one with contract prices for the iphone4s yet

 

Not sure whether to upgrade or not tbh (from 3GS). meh, I'll probably stick to my current phone until they drop it from the upgrade table.

 

The fact that this is just a spec bump is disappointing but at the end of the day with apple it is all about the software and anything new that comes out always comes out first on the app store and any 3rd party accessories are usually for the iphone.

My iPhone 4 is out of contract and ill probably get this just to get the 64Gb version because 32Gb isn't enough for me.

So why fight it?

 

with all iOS devices, also only end up with 2 platforms. A8 and A9. all on Apple's custom design, not spread across 4 companies (you forgot nvidia tegra). there are no problem if you want your iOS application to be usable on all phone sized devices, just build one at 480x320 and it will auto scale to retina display. that is the reason they have gone for 960x640. in fact, building 480x320 applications doesn't look bad at all because iOS automatically sharpens text.

ONLY special version is for the tablet, which is the same case for Android, except iOS could have universal app that could run natively on both (like twitter app).

the game, Infinity Blade 2, will be playable on all devices, but they will take advantage of A5 processor. this is not mandatory for app developers to do and programming for 3GS is all that is needed to have an app that runs on all phone sized devices.

 

only thing that interests me is the Siri announcement, and that only because its the closest thing I've ever seen to a very usable and fluid voice interface.

I know voice commands for android has been out for a bit, but even after a couple days of trying it on a friend's phone it just never had the fluidity and ease of use the siri software supposedly does.

we'll have to see, I think if Siri is really as good as it looks then apple might have a hidden goldmine there but only if they break their normal software release conventions. selling a windows application to communicate with imessage and a win/mac version of siri could potentially earn them some big money, but would break some of that traditional platform exclusivity (though making a device more usable between different users usually doesn't hurt)

 

Yesterday my coworker was lamenting about how he can't wait to get a new phone. Apparently his Android phone doesn't hold a charge anymore and he's having problems rooting it. He's always complaining about the interface. Why am I posting this? I'm posting this to demonstrate that everyone has a hardware story of some kind, and no single product (device, OS, whatever) is perfect.

I'm happy the new iPhone is out. My iPhone 3G is starting to show its age, so I'm looking to get a newly discounted iPhone 4.

 

Are you going to one of those stood outside an Apple shop at 5 in the morning waiting for the new vastly improved 4s (that last bit was sarcasm)

 

To be honest I think everyones being a bit harsh on apple, they can make a completely new product every year. People are still going to buy it because it's apple and because of it's os. This is more aimed at people who didn't get the iPhone 4 but now their two year contract has run out and they want a new apple product.

 

with your quote, im guessing you are asking me.

no, im not getting it since my 4 is still going great, it will get leash of new life with iOS 5. but would love to try out Siri and try to make it trip over.

 

Was that aimed at me or wuyanxu ? If me, then nope. I got my Desire HD, iPod Touch 4th gen 8GB and today the Samsung Omnia7, so i got the developer devices for iOS and WP7 and got my main Android phone (acting as a developer device as well).

 

Most of you know I have not got much time for apple but if they just called this phone the iphone 5 it would be an absolute craze like when the 3g came out

 

You are forgetting Nvidia based droid phones like my X2.

 

Face it, it's going to sell like hotcakes. End of discussion.

 

I guess it was pretty inevitable that this was going to be an emotive thread, but wow! I never quite understand the polarisation of opinions whenever a new Apple product comes along. The anti-Apple brigade tend to mock Apple "fanbois" (seriously where did the 'i' come from? What is this, an Avril Lavigne song?) for blindly defending Apple, but recently it's the people slamming the 4S because it doesn't have x, y or z new feature who look ridiculous. No it doesn't have a 4"+ screen, no it doesn't have a quad core processor or an OLED screen or NFC, and no it wasn't hand-carved by Leonardo Da Vinci out of diamond and virgin's tears. So what? It's an incremental upgrade on a fantastic piece of hardware. The reason it doesn't depart radically from the iPhone 4 is because the iPhone 4 was (antenna issue aside, and that's been fixed) bloody excellent.

Apple has proved time and again that the hardware specs are only a small part of the puzzle - I don't think anyone is suggesting that the iPhone 4S is the latest and greatest in every possible metric - there are handsets with faster CPUs, and larger / OLED screens, expandable memory and HDMI sockets and interchangeable batteries and whatever else, and sure by the time the 4S reaches the market (let alone its end of life) it will be surpassed in pure numbers by still faster and higher specced phones with lower price tags. But none of them will sell even a fraction of the number of units, because the iPhone "experience", the complete package, just annihilates the competition. The build quality is second to none; accept the walled garden and the App Store is great, as are the iTunes Music and Video Stores; biggest choice of Apps; an amazing high res IPS screen, still (IMO) the most intuitive interface, probably the best camera ever fitted to a mobile phone, and now over the air updates, iMessage, iCloud and Siri. You kind of have to allow yourself to be folded into Apple's big controlling arms and accept the Cupertino grand plan for world domination, but once you do that it's a pretty comfortable place to be. Some people don't want that, and that's a legitimate choice, but a subset of those people, either through ignorance or jealousy, seem to think it's acceptable to crap on those that choose the Apple way, and that's just silly.

And now, having said all of the above, I'm going to prove I'm not a blind follower of the cult of Apple by showing my cynicism about Siri being exclusive to 4S - given (as I understand it) all of the smart processing is done on an Apple server somewhere, all the handset does is digitise your voice, send it over Wi-fi or 3G, then perform the scripted actions it gets back, why is Siri not available to iPhone 4 and 3GS owners as part of iOS 5? I don't believe there is any reason the older hardware can't handle it.

 

Where's XXXX? Australia?

Actually (after a bit of looking on Google Maps), it's in Arizona, USA: http://g.co/maps/arbpf

 

US price sounds wrong, given previous iPhones have always started at $599 no contract. Hell, if it was $399 I wouldn't even consider a contract.

 

I doubt apple fanboys would go around telling " Hey it looks the same but its different inside !" . They are quite used to a phone every year that "LOOKS" different with a few magical features thrown in for bragging rights.

 

apple fanboys have a problem with the 4S

 

^^^ Speak for yourself.