Is the iPhone 4S Worth it?

In the aftermath of the iPhone 4S announcement, the general feeling was one of underwhelming enthusiasm.  People were happy that Apple finally released a new phone, but what they saw appeared to be nothing more than another iPhone 4.  People expected some radically new form factor, another game changing handset.  Instead, the iPhone 4S’ enhancements are all internal.  Outwardly, there is no way to tell the device from its predecessor.  So, should you drop the $200 to $400 on this new phone, given that it’s not the groundbreaking phone we were expecting?

It is important to first consider what people were expecting from this iPhone.  Believed to be the iPhone 5, the phone would sport the A5 processor, a larger screen, better cameras, a redesigned radio system, and a new aluminum unibody design meant to be impeccably thin.  A lot of this did not come to pass.  To be fair, I was always skeptical of the rumored design just because it seemed so ridiculously thin.  It would be hard to squeeze in the electronics and a decent battery.  A lack of significant 4G was also depressing.  However, we did get a large amount of these desired improvements.  The 4S has the A5, better cameras, and new radio gear.  So really, the only thing not delivered on was a wholly new package for all these features.

Many critics feel that Apple has been lazy in this choice.  The reality of the situation is that Apple invested a lot in the design of the iPhone 4, and it is today still one of the most precise and well-built phones on the market.  After a year it may seem old news, but you’d be hard pressed to find another handset on the market that is built with the same level of quality materials and precision design.  Much of the design choices also centers around the display.  Screen size is important because that is what determined form factor for this iPhone.

If we compared the iPhone 4S to a high-profile phone like the Samsung Galaxy S II, we find that the iPhone “loses” on screen size.  The GSII has a larger 4.3″ S-AMOLED+ display – arguably the best display technology available today in terms of color accuracy and vibrancy.  However, the resolution is 800×480, compared to the iPhone’s 960×640 resolution in the retina display.  Display size is the big question regarding the 4S.  A lot of people (including myself) were hoping for a larger 4″ screen, better for watching movies or typing.  However, this decreases the ppi of the retina display unless Apple boosted the display resolution again.  That’s a difficult thing for developers to cope with as they have to re-tune apps for the higher resolution.  So Apple believes  having retina display sharpness is more important than actual screen size.  I’m not saying that this gives Apple a pass, but it does offers some explanation as to their choice.  Next year Apple can boost the screen size and resolution as new displays reach the market in affordable amounts.

Since we are comparing the iPhone 4S to the Galaxy S II in screen size, let’s go ahead and size up the rest of their specs.  Both are dual core, both have 8MP cameras and a front camera, and both are impeccably thin (the GSII wins by a sliver).  In many ways, the iPhone 4S goes toe-to-toe with the best of Android.  Really, the only place I see logical complaint about the iPhone 4S is in that people are disappointed that it looks too much like the last generation.  Has Apple become lazy?  I don’t think so.  But even Apple can’t be expected to consistently, year over year, revolutionize the industry.  Apple’s great leaps come in waves, but there have to be lulls between these surges.

Honestly, I have a growing problem with comparing iPhones to Android competitors or Windows Phone etc.  The mobile phone market is not, and should not be, like the PC market, where we feel compelled to compare products together at whim.  The PC market, even Apple’s hallowed corner of it, is commoditized and homogenous.  Every PC uses an Intel processor or an AMD processor and an AMD graphics chip or Nvidia.  There’s very little room for great innovations in form factor or performance.  The smart phone market is approaching that existence but still has a few tricks up its sleeve.  OEMs can still push great innovations out with new phones.  Software is rapidly evolving and differentiating.  I have an issue comparing an iPhone to an Android phone because their software is different.  Yes, they can often run similar applications but I doubt anyone is complaining about the performance of Foursquare on either platform.  I only see the benefit in comparing devices of the same OS.  Mac OS X and Windows are far closer in design and application than iOS and Android.  With that in mind, the iPhone 4S is the best iOS phone ever released.  If you want to remain in the iOS ecosystem, this the the phone to get.

That said, should you get one?  This question needs to be answered for three types of people.  Person 1: the consumer with an iPhone 3GS or earlier.  Yes, you should get this.  The 4S is better than the 3GS in every possible way.  Person 2: the iPhone 4 owner.  Probably not, unless you are a huge user of camera phones or a major gamer that will take advantage of the extra hardware.  The iPhone 4 has a lot of the same end-user features of the iPhone 4S (minus the possibly game changing Siri).  The retina display, front camera, a form factor remain the same and that’s what will matter for most consumers.  Plus, the iPhone 4’s A4 chip still seems to hold its own on most tasks.  So if you have that extra year or 6 months of a contract left, let it run out and wait for the iPhone 6.  Person 3: the Android user wanting to switch.  Maybe.  Android and iOS are fundamentally different in many ways, from application accessibility to basic UI design.  Android has become quite good over the year (remember, Ice Cream Sandwich is coming up) but if iOS 5 and Siri have you excited, this might be the time to switch.  You can’t lose either way.

As a closing, AT&T announced that the iPhone 4S has just set a record of 1 million pre orders.  This thing will do just fine.

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The Wait is Over: Apple Announces New iPhone

The long and winding road to the next generation iPhone is finally over.  After months and months of grueling speculation and rumors, we now have firm confirmation of the new device.  But was it worth the wait?  Sort of.  I give you: the iPhone 4S:

Apple Announces iPhone Event October 4th

Apple says we should “talk iPhone” and I’m inclined to agree. Lord knows at this point what device or devices will be announced on that day. I’m just glad the company is finally ready to debut a new handset. It’s only a week away!

Where’s the iPhone 5 and What’s Taking So Long??

This is a question I am getting asked a lot amongst my friends.  As the resident tech expert and the only one really plugged into the rumor mill with a blog, I guess I’m their most reliable source.  Still, the question plagues me daily and I must admit my frustration at the lack of a new Apple handset is reaching its fever pitch as well.  Apple usually unleashes a new mobile phone in June or July.  Yet here we are in mid-September already with nigh a sign of the iPhone 5’s release.  Current rumors place the iOS 5 Gold Master release at September 23rd, meaning the iPhone 5’s introduction will have to come some point after that.  I’m hopeful for an October 5th release (or at least announcement of the device) but no one has hard confirmation.  Ok, so we get that Apple is trying to move the iPhone into the fall lineup of device releases, probably to boost their holiday season numbers and allow iPad releases to take over the spring.  But still, this is taking forever!  Why?

I’ve got a few theories that are just crazy enough to be true.

What the iPhone 5 Needs to Win

Maybe?

So we’ve talked about iOS 5 and the features I feel it needs to compete against Android, but that’s only part of the equation. As much as software defines the iPhone, hardware plays an equally important role. Over the past few months, Android handset makers have become acutely aware that the key to success requires slaving over a new handset that stands out from the crowd. New show stoppers like the HTC Incredible S, Samsung Galaxy S II, and Motorola Atrix show much stronger attention to detail in their design than previous generations of Android handsets. The iPhone 4, for the gorgeous slab it was in 2010 and remains today, still seems a bit long in the tooth for this market. It’s time for an update in a major way. Here’s the checklist for Apple’s iPhone 5 or 4S or whatever it’s called. This stuff should happen now, not in a later model.

What iOS 5 Needs To Win

This year’s WWDC will be all about the software.  OS X Lion will be a major revamp of Apple’s desktop software as the company tries to reunify its two operating systems.  We’ve seen good glimpses of the new OS from several developer previews over the past few months.  While the final pieces of Lion will be provided at WWDC, Apple’s going to have to unveil everything about iOS 5 at the event.  We know nothing about Apple’s fifth iteration of the popular mobile operating system beyond speculation and rumor.  Still, maybe that’s enough.  iOS is a great OS that still needs a lot of work in order to go toe-to-toe with Android.  A more elegant interface and experience cannot hold off its feature deficiency for long against Android’s rapid improvements.  So, here are the features iOS 5 needs in order to bring the fight to Google.

State of the Telecoms: Devices

Last year, in a vain attempt to create some sort of quarterly feature, I published the “State of the Telecoms” accessing each of the four major carriers and their pros and cons.  I think it was a pretty dry post.  So instead, I’ve decided this year to focus in on what you guys really want. Specifically, the phones that really stand out from each carrier.  In the end, that’s what draw people to carriers now.  So here’s how this breaks down, I will list no less than 3, but no more than 6 phones from each carrier.  They cannot all have the same operating system and can’t all be essentially the same phone.  There has to be some kind of diversity for a phone to make the “recommended list”.  So for example, the Samsung Continuum won’t make the list for Verizon because it’s basically a Galaxy S, which Verizon already has a version of.  The point of this break down is to highlight the best phones from each carrier and show the diversity in their line up.  And it’s only going to be smart phones.

Rumor: iPhone Nano?

The official stance of Digital Gravitas is that I don’t comment on rumors or speculation…. unless it’s about Apple products!  I mean come on, they’re so juicy!  But really, it’s because no matter how much one tries to ignore rumors on Apple products, they come out of the woodwork.  So I might as well comment on it myself.

This rumors comes to us from The Wall Street Journal, which has a scary-accurate track record of correctly guessing new Apple products.  According to them, Apple will release a new, small iPhone along with the expected iPhone 5.  Since the advent of the iPhone 3GS, Apple has also sold their last generation iPhone at $99 in 8GB models.  Earlier this year, Apple reduced the price of the 3GS even further to $50 on contract along with the more expensive iPhone 4.  It is to be expected that the iPhone 4 will also be subjugated to the budget price once the more powerful iPhone 5 arrives.  However…. somethings are murky with that.  As of right now the iPhone 4 costs around $175 to make, and though carrier subsidy can help, that is a lot more expensive than the costs to build the 3GS.  $50 could be too low for Apple to maintain margins on the iPhone 4.

So here enters the concept for the iPhone Nano.  Apple may in fact release 3 iPhone models in June.  The iPhone 5 will become the new flagship – dual core processing, better camera, perhaps 64GB of storage.  The iPhone 4 becomes a midrange model sold for $99 with the same specs we currently see and storage at either 8GB or ideally 16GB.  The iPhone Nano I believe, will take the hardware of the 3GS – 600Mhz A8, SGX535, 256MB of RAM – into a cost-saving, new form factor.  I expect a smaller screen or significantly reduced flash storage.  Some even believe the phone will be cloud-based, with all data backing up to a free version of MobileMe being released later this year.

The best part?  This phone could be free on contract.  Getting a slice of iOS for free would be a major boon to Apple’s market share.  While having a more diverse selection of phones is also a way to reach every segment of the market.  The issue of fragmentation does arise, seeing as how the iPhone 5 will most likely be vastly more powerful than the 4, let alone the 3GS.  That said, with the exception of 3D games, there are few apps that push even the 3GS to its limits and any person buying something referred to as “Nano” should know that it’s not for major gaming.

Guess we’ll find out at WWDC 2011.

Your Wait is Over: iPhone Coming to Verizon

At college, I find often that conversations amongst friends and casual acquaintances will at one point or another turn towards the status of their smart phones (because at GW, you’re no one without at least a Blackberry).  It’s a familiar background noise every morning at my corner Starbucks.  As I wait in a line of endless college students asking for their skinny, soy chai lattes with extra foam (all I want is a damn cup of coffee!) I can see them with their smart phone of choice, comparing BBMs (after all I go to GW), talking about their Droids (more often than not just an Android phone and not an actual Droid branded phone) or gushing over one lucky co-ed’s iPhone.  It seems that despite the growing power of Android, Windows Phone and even the small resurgence of Blackberry, the iPhone is holding the desires of young adults and teens.  But in that gushing, I often hear the following: “Yeah, the iPhone is great but I hate AT&T.  Don’t worry though, I’m getting it in January when it comes to Verizon.”   I love how these naive people speak with such authority about the coming Verizon iPhone, like they have an inside scoop on something that is nothing more than speculation.

Well, it’s not speculation anymore.  Today Verizon has announced their CDMA version of the iPhone with Apple COO Tim Cook making a special appearance to promote the device.  It’s about time!  After three years on AT&T”s network exclusively, the iPhone has saturated its available consumer base.  Most people who want one on AT&T have one, but anyone else on the other big telecoms are left high and dry.  And as Android has surged, we have seen the iPhone start to level off at around 25% of the US smartphone market (to Android’s ~27%).  If Apple is to ever increase their market share further, they must tap into the rest of the US market.  Now, with access to the Verizon network, Apple has a whole new market to infest.  An estimated 10 million Verizon users will flock to Apple’s phone in the next year.

Ironically enough, the iPhone was originally going to Verizon in the first place.  Before talking to AT&T, Apple went to Verizon as the possible exclusive carrier of their smartphone.  The deal, of course, fell through and the iPhone went to AT&T.  While the reasons for Verizon denying the iPhone are not clear, it was most likely a combination of monetary issues and a lack of control on the iPhone platform.  Remember, before the iPhone carriers really controlled every aspect of the phones they sold.  With the exception of Blackberries and Windows Mobile phones, most carriers installed their own ROMs on phones sold (using the BREW OS) and controlled the entire platform.  The iPhone changed that paradigm forever, allowing manufacturers to control the destiny of their phones in almost all regards.  Verizon, which back in 2007 was still promoting VCast and its other content delivery systems, did not want the manufacturer to have all that control.

Yet lo and behold, the iPhone turned out to be the future of smartphones.  Android, much like iOS, followed the same model of being mostly under the control of the device makers, with access to the Android market place instead of being limited to carrier “Media Malls”.  I say mostly because many Android devices still have greater control by carriers, often coming with preloaded software and relying on OTA updates from their network for new versions of the OS.  The discussion of Android is also vitally important to understanding where Verizon has come from.  After refusing the iPhone and seeing it explode into popularity, “Big Red” was left without a flagship phone to fight AT&T’s iPhone.  The company turned to RIM who released the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm as Verizon’s flagship smartphone in late 2008.  The phone and its sequel flopped.  Left with nothing to fight the iPhone with, Verizon turned to Motorola, who built the Droid on the Android 2.0 platform.  Thus, Verizon became one of the largest providers on Android phones in the US, and with some of the best devices around.  Today, Verizon is an incredibly appealing carrier not just for the excellent network coverage, but because they have such an excellent (and growing) selection of powerful Android phones.  So the question remains: is the iPhone too little, too late for a carrier that has fully embraced Android as its platform of the future?

Probably not.  From the excitement pouring out of the internet people really want this thing.  A good sign for Verizon and Apple. So, what does the Verizon iPhone bring to the table?  Basically, it’s the exact same iPhone 4 you know and love, with a slightly revised antenna for compatibility with Verizon’s CDMA/EV-DO network.  Apple so far denies that the antenna has been revised to correct the signal drop phenomenon.  We’ll have to wait for a “death-grip test” to confirm or deny this.  The hardware and OS are completely the same otherwise, with the exception of 3G WiFi Hotspot support!  This is a pretty big one and a staple of Android phones.  On Verizon’s network you can use the iPhone to generate a local WiFi connection using their 3G network (sorry guys, no LTE just yet) and connect 5 WiFi devices – something AT&T refuses to do.  This is a great new feature for the iPhone.

Now words of caution.  AT&T Users: super excited about the iPhone on Verizon and want to free your iPhone from the shackles of poor service by signing up for Verizon?  Sorry, not gonna fly.  Your AT&T iPhone is incompatible with Verizon’s network (CDMA doesn’t even have SIM card support).  Verizon iPhone users: you’re staying in America with your phone because CDMA is only used here.  Europe uses GSM, so no traveling for you.  People moving to Verizon: remember, Verizon’s network does not support simultaneous voice and data.  Either you’re on a call or you’re using the internet, never both.  That’s because Verizon does voice over 3G, unlike AT&T which still uses 2G for voice calls.  Also, things are going to slow down.  AT&T’s 3G tops out at 7.2Mbps – pretty quick.  Verizon’s 3G is only around 3Mbps, less than half the speed of AT&T.  You’re trading speed for reliability and coverage.  Once the LTE model comes out, however, we might see a combo AT&T-Verizon phone that can go international.

The Verizon iPhone will be out early next month.

Thoughts on the iPhone 4 Press Conference

It goes without saying that I and pretty much the entire world was pretty taken away with the iPhone 4 at its announcement in June. The device is drop dead gorgeous, pretty amazingly powerful, and rocking many late features needed to fight the competition.

And then “Antenna-gate” struck. The iPhone 4 uses a novel external antennae integrated into the steel band that forms the frame of the phone’s structure. This is intended to improve reception for the device, and by most accounts has indeed done so. Most reviews of the device detailed how reception, call clarity, and range has greatly improved for the device over its predecessor. However, there appears to be an inherent flaw with the device. Signal attenuation – a phenomenon that occurs with all mobile phones to some extent due to the conductivity of the human body – has been amplified with the iPhone due to the direct contact that is inherent in an external antennae. Once the media caught wind of this, the internet exploded in controversy.