Are You Siri-us?!
Are You Siri-us?!
An Analysis from a non-expert fanboy on the iPhone 4S
BY: Josue “Josh” Alvarez Mapp (a.k.a. DJ Mappquest)
For those who don’t know, which I’m not sure where you have been, but it must be a great resort, Apple had a conference on October 4th, 2011, unveiling various stuff, and recapping other stuff – all Apple gadgetry.
This was the biggest hyped conference so far since the rumors were as big as California, or even the Steve Jobs legacy. Possible TWO iPhones released in ONE event. All sorts of rumors on design looks, iPhone 5 cases that were “shipped”, people hacking into factories for details and stuff. It was huge.
The event started with blah blah blah details about how awesome Apple is. These are facts. Though the numbers are nice, you could have saved me about 30 minutes of my life otherwise. They recapped iOS 5.0 which was announced in June. Nothing was really new except “Find My Friend” app, which is a cool concept to know where your friends and family are at, and the “Cards” app, which makes sending birthday cards and etc, that much easier and more impersonal. But for those who may have forgot and needed to “gitrdone,” well the Cards app can help.
They also announced updates to the iPod Nano and Touch. Nothing huge really. Not physical changes, just software aesthetics (sort of). Nothing too big. Really the only possible touch they could have done would be to make the iPod Touch with an A5 processor chip (if they aren’t doing so. Nothing conclusively said they were). They could have also implemented the same camera system that is in the iPhone 4S (the new phone I will talk about soon), in the iPod Touch. But they didn’t. Probably a business move but whatever. Some slight touch ups and thats it.
Then came the good stuff – the iPhone. Note: singular. People thought there would be two phones but that would be unprecedented and unlike Apple. They have yet to produce two iPhones at once, and using the old iPhones as a cheaper model has worked so far, so why make a “cheaper model” when the iPhone 4 could be that “cheaper model”. Apple has given precedence for an iPhone and than an S model, thanks in part to the 3G to the 3GS. It can be expected for the future that one year will be revolutionary in design and hardware, while the other year will not change design, but possibly (hopefully) hardware. This year was their “lazy” year, as some would say.
I would argue that the iPhone 4S is definite upgrade in comparison to changes from the iPad to the iPad 2, and iPhone 3G to the iPhone 3GS (especially the latter).
So here’s the quick rundown. The iPhone 4S now has the A5 dual chip processor, an 8.0 Megapixel camera (with an approved camera itself to be even better than a standard 8.0 Megapixel camera), improved graphics card (that is also dual processing now), improved battery life, and now a new and improved AI assistant called Siri.
There are plenty of articles out there that explain what Siri does, plus I’m sure Apple.com has a page dedicated to it too.
The problem is, people are mad that it has the same look as the iPhone 4, that it’s not a “big change”, and they are so disappointed in Apple, and so forth and so on. There is a million of them. You can easily view terse versions of complains on Twitter. But I don’t care what you say, this new iPhone impressed me. The problem, I think, with everyone else, is that everyone ate up that bajillion rumors like a pizookie from BJ’s Restaurant and Brewery; people ate rumors as if eating was going out of style. And thus their hopes were much higher than ever before, and higher than it should be.
If you think you can make a better phone, go work for Samsung or Motorola. They might appreciate your help. Otherwise appreciate that this is a much more worth while upgrade compared to the past upgrades Apple has shown. However, I don’t recommend the upgrade if you have an iPhone 4.
The iPhone 4S comes up for pre-order Friday, October 7th, and then is released and sold October 14th. Enjoy.
As I retweeted yesterday, “Urgent news: Apple has released a product that you don’t need, but you won’t look trendy without.”
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