October 16 2011, 1:44 PM
There are two ways to read the title of this post, and for the longest time I wasn’t entirely sure which I meant. Is the iPhone 4S a disappointment of such an enormous magnitude that one could describe the sheer level of disappointment as “amazing”? Or is the iPhone 4S a disappointment that still somehow remains an amazing device?
The list of changes is most remarkable by the list of items that have stayed the same. Same screen size, same resolution, same design, same overall feel. All of the things that seem to truly identify a true change simply aren’t present. Sit the 4S down next to an iPhone 4 and the overwhelming majority of users wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. No matter how you slice it, this is a disappointment. The phone simply doesn’t feel any different. And while there is an old adage that has something to do with books and covers, my experience is that perception is always more immediately telling than reality. In a world where high end phones are getting bigger and bigger, the iPhone is downright tiny. Where once the high PPI of the retina display was the be all, end all of mobile displays, qHD and more importunely Super AMOLED Plus have swept in and made for much more stunning screens. The iPhone 4S, the second the physical form was revealed, received a collective “meh” from the tech world. When is the last time that an Apple reveal had such a reaction?
But what about what has indeed changed? A dual core processor is a nice touch, and the A5 packs a lot of punch. Dual GPU is also worth a strong look at, as the level of graphical push this device has is very remarkable. However stale the lack of revolution makes the 4S, these performance upgrades are nothing to scoff at. As a matter of fact, the latest benchmarks show that the iPhone 4S has a significant performance advantage over any other handset on the market (including the Samsung Galaxy S2). With estimates saying that the 4S has somewhere in the area of 7x the graphical strength of the iPhone 4, that is surely something worth noting, isn't it?
But wait a second… How many people would complain that the iPhone 4 is slow? Out of the issues people have with the device, speed hasn’t been one of them. Each and every app, game, recording and playback functionality on the iPhone 4 is smooth. As a matter of fact, most apps don’t even talk full advantage of what the iPhone 4 brings to the table. If this is the case, why then do we need such an upgrade in the form of the 4S? It almost seems like Apple is trying to solve a problem that does’t exist. Why add all that extra horsepower, almost to the exclusivity of any other improvement, when it just doesn’t seem needed?
Of course there were other improvements than just GPU and CPU, right? Er… Hold on… Oh yes, an improved 8 megapixel camera! Well, that is actually a nice little gem. The iPhone 4 had a fairly decent camera to begin with, so this should revolutionize the business, right? Well… not exactly. The smartphone camera king still remains the Nokia N8 of all things, and nothing I’ve seen about the 4S seems to indicate it call top that. The iPhone model still lacks a dedicated camera key (though this can be overcome), and it remains to be seen just how it will compare to the upcoming HTC devices coming out with a higher megapixel count as well as Carl Zeiss optics.
But what about Siri? Siri is pretty interesting. A new way to use your phone, to acquire information, and navigate content. Well, newish anyway. The feature has existed on other platforms before (including iOS oddly enough), though Apple has made it… not better exactly… more idiot proof. Siri might very well be the most interesting feature that nobody will ever use. Well, not that many people anyway, once the novelty wears off. The iPhone 4 brought us FaceTime, which was cool (again, something already existing, but done differently). However, let’s call a spade a spade. FaceTime is a gimmick that few people use on a regular basis. Siri seems destined for the same category. Sure it’s cool, but how many people really want to stand on a street corner and have a conversation with their phone?
Where does that leave us then? Well, the iPhone 4S is undoubtably a disappointment. Considering the amount of time between the iPhone 4 and the 4S, it was almost inevitable. Outside of some pretty drastic revolution, there was going to be a level of disappointment involved. Add in the sheer amount of rumours that permeated before its announcement, and it was almost impossible for it to live up to the hype. The fact that zero change went into the design of the phone is enough to make this device underwhelming. For a company that deals so strongly in public perception and being on the cutting edge, having a year + old design for your flagship handset is shocking. It’s boring and gives the competition a great opportunity to cut away at Apple’s market share.
But you can’t argue with what the phone is capable of. It still has all of the Apple advantages that makes it the top handset available for the majority of the population. It adds in an incredibly amount of graphical power, and presents it in a package that has a metric ton of third party support. Other phones are going to be released that trump the numbers on the iPhone 4S (and in the very near future), but they still won’t be “better”. The iPhone 4S is going to be the real world performance king for a while yet, as other platforms haven’t been able to recreate the complete ecosystem that Apple brings, or the sheer profitability that exists. There’s a reason why Android handsets are only becoming a truly smooth experience in a dual core world, and that reason is part of the success of iOS. Making do with less and making that truly work is a testament of how tight the iOS code is when compared to some of the competition.
So while the iPhone 4S is a disappointment and truly a “meh” phone, it is still an amazing one. With sales rumoured at the 4 million mark, you cannot argue its success. It might not be the phone for me, but I would venture to say that it is the phone for the masses. I still want a different form factor, a bigger screen, and some true innovation. That being said, I think that we will be getting that sooner than we think.
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