The wait is over as Apple spilled the beans on its iPhone 4s and as expected, it was a case of evolution over innovation while iCloud and iOS 5 provided much needed features.
By Leo Stiles
For once, there were no surprises, no last minute additions and no single killer feature that will have Apple’s rivals playing catch-up. From the moment that Apple’s newly-minted CEO Tim Cook took to the stage, the focus of the ‘Let’s Talk iPhone’ event was evolution rather than revolution.
Obviously the news that everyone was waiting for was the final revelation of what the new iPhone would be, but when the iPhone 4s was finally announced, few people could claim to be shocked and it seems that for now, innovation has taken a backseat at Apple in favor of evolution.
The big exclusive feature of the iPhone 4s is Siri, the voice recognition interface that had been widely leaked in the days prior to the press conference. Leak or not, Siri still managed to be hugely impressive and demonstrations gave a convincing illusion of an artificial intelligence built into the phone.
Of course, there is no fear of having a mini SkyNet in your pocket as Siri is an advanced speech recognition application that, thanks to its deep integration within the OS can help you navigate your iPhone with everyday language.
In real terms this means that you can ask your phone to send a message to a contact and the phone will respond and send your message word-for-word. This is the one feature of the 4S that will differentiate the phone in an increasingly competitive market and while we’re not sure that there is longterm appeal for Siri, it certainly has potential and is sure to be highly useful for in-car operation and disabled users.
Much like the shift from the 3G to the 3GS, the 4S is mostly an internal upgrade, with the new handset housing the same A5 dual-core processor as the iPad2 and Apple claim that this has resulted in a seven fold increase in power. This upgrade isn’t earth-shattering but it does bring the iPhone in line with the competition and the demo of Infinity Blade 2 was impressive.
The major hardware upgrade is the camera, which is now boosted to the industry standard of 8 megapixels and Apple claim to have enhanced this further with a widening of the aperture and the addition of an extra lens and a more capable sensor. The camera also now films in 1080p.
As far as we are concerned, the biggest surprise of the event was the massive global roll out of the 4S, with the device launching in seven countries, including the US and the UK, on October 14 with a further 22 countries, including Ireland getting the new phone on October 28. No EU or Irish pricing was announced but expect the networks to be rolling out their iPhone 4 offerings in the coming weeks.
However, it’s easy to be disappointed by the 4S as it is an basic upgrade of the iPhone 4. Many of the features offered by the phone are unremarkable, with the exception of Siri, and when measured against leading Android handsets that offer similar features.
However, Apple’s track record of offering joined up and intuitive services may make iCloud, iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S a greater whole than just the sum of their parts. On October 28 we’ll be finding out if Apple is still the one to watch or if the time has come to jump ship to Google.
iCloud ready to go
It seems like an age ago when iCloud was announced at Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event in the Summer but the big news this time is that the service is ready to go and will be available to all iOS and OSX Lion users from October 12.
The significance of the service for users is the automatic backup and transfer of all your photos and documents to the cloud service and between all your Apple devices. Take a photo on your iPhone and it automatically saves to the cloud, then when you turn on your Mac the photo syncs to you library.
The first 5GB of space will be free to all users but if you need more space then there will be packages available on a yearly subscription
iTunes Match is the other major facet of the service and unfortunately licensing deals are not in place for Ireland to allow the service to roll out this year. iTunes Match lets users upload the details of their music libraries to iTunes and then matches any songs in your collection to the iTunes library.
Any matches that are made results in the song being available for you to re-download at anytime across your Mac or your iOS devices. Any songs the service can’t match are uploaded to the servers.
Apple are charging US users $25 a year for this service but licensing issues are likely to hold up the Irish launch of iTunes Match for some time.
iOS 5 roll-out
A new iPhone means a new version of the operating system that drives it and while we knew most of the details from before this week, we did at last get a definite release date and list of supported devices.
iOS 5 will go live for download on October 12 and will be a free update for all users. The headline additions among more than 200 improvements include Wi-Fi Sync, Air Play mirroring (previously an iPad 2 only feature), improved notifications, Newsstand magazine store, Reminders, full Twitter integration, iMessage and Find my Friends for keeping tabs on your mates and loved ones.
The update will be available for iPhone 4, 3Gs, both iPads and the third and fourth generations of the iPod Touch. We won’t go into the finer details of the update just yet and instead we’ll give you a full verdict on all the new stuff next week when the update goes live.
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