Why 4S is Good Enough For Me
There may soon be blood in the streets over the lack of an iPhone 5. The ThisIsMyNext crew (soon to be the Verge) went on record before the Apple event saying that they would be “extremely dissapointed” if Apple announced an iPhone 4S and nothing else. Other tech pundits seem to be dissapointed (even if they still plan to get the phone) with what Apple has put on offer. I think that they are missing the point, and I’ll tell you why.
A Rose In Any Other Casing
Apple could literally have taken the exact same phone, put it in a new case made of some other material, called it an iPhone 5, and most of the dissapointed masses would have been satisfied. The upgrades in the iPhone 4S are substantial, and are a marked improvement over the iPhone 4. While Apple may have signalled that they’re not ready to call this a next generation device, the spec bump alone is remarkable, and will make a big difference in day-to-day use for anyone with this phone. And since the design of the iPhone 4 is breathtaking already, why change what ain’t broke? *
Its the Software Stupid
Apple’s big differentiator has always been software. There are tons of Android phones with better specs than the iPhone 4, but Apple creates a better experience through tighly integrated hardware, and exceptional software. iOS 5 is the biggest update to the operating system since it was released. With that many changes to the sofware, a big hardware change isn’t needed to make this a remarkable improvement to an already great device.
Why Mess with Success?
The iPhone 4 is 15 months old and is still the best selling smartphone in the world. Something tells me that people are pretty happy with it as it is. With that much success in the market, obviously Apple didn’t see a pressing need to really mess with a winning formula. For all the pundits who claim to hate this development, I’m guessing there are 100 happy everyday consumers who will rush to get this as soon as possible.
I mean it comes with a Butler!
Apple’s awesome new assistant feature seems worth the price of admission all by itself. This is taking us one step closer to the world of Star Trek computing. With the iPhone, iPad, as great touchscreen experiences and now this excellent method of interacting through voice, you gotta figure there are some seroius Trekkies up in Cupertino. And who wants to bet on how long it’ll take for the assistant feature to show up in OS X?
So What I’m saying is
I like the iPhone 4S. I was decidedly *not* excited about the prospect of a Teaardrop shaped iPhone 5. A slightly bigger screen might have been nice, but not at the expense of text clarity, or compatibility with all those existing iPhone accessories. I’m gonna try and get this on day one, and no matter what number Apple has at the end of the name, this is a great (i)Phone.
*Except of course for that antenna issue which seems to have been addressed, even if it wasn’t that bad to begin with.
