I find myself in line for an iPhone every year since 2007. For 3 out of 5 new iPhones, I was 1st in line at the store. A lot of people who review new Apple products are like me. How in the hell can you trust what we have to say over a new piece of technology when we lined up for over 10 hours to fork over hundreds of bucks for a device we have never used. Of course our review will be positive! Very few people have buyer’s remorse after spending $400 and sleeping in front of an Apple Store. This is why I feel so guilty writing these reviews.
This review is not for everyone. It’s for the people who currently own an iPhone 4 running Apple’s iOS 5 and want to know if they should get an iPhone 4S. The reason I’m writing it like this is for three reasons.
- Over half of the iPhones sold from 2007-2011 are iPhone 4 (75 Million)
- I only want geeks to read this. Sorry but I’m writing this for geeks and therefore I assume that all geeks reading this have the iPhone 4
- Owners of iPhone 1 through iPhone 3GS have absolutely no reason NOT to get the iPhone 4S. Upgrade already! Why are you still using that old piece of crap now that your contract with AT&T or Verizon is over? Stop reading this review and just buy an iPhone 4S.
Since anyone that owns an iPhone prior to the 4 has no reason NOT to upgrade, this leaves iPhone 4 holding geeks who are debating upgrading. That upgrade path isn’t simple.You are still in a contract with AT&T or Verizon and either spend full price on a new iPhone 4S (over $500) or your follow my path which is to pay the early termination fee on your current iPhone and switch carriers. I paid $110 to AT&T to cancel my contract early, then walked into a Verizon store the same day and bought a new phone under a new 2-year contract. My 64 gigabyte iPhone didn’t cost $399. It cost $399+$110 but that’s how us geeks do things when it comes to the latest gear. Following that path is probably your best bet. You can pay $649 to upgrade to iPhone 4S early (16GB) or pay $199-399 + ETF to switch carriers and get the same phone (AT&T to Verizon) ETF fees will vary but call up first or send a reply to your carrier on Twitter to ask them.
The iPhone 4S is reminiscent to the iPhone 3GS (from 3G). Faster, better camera and other improvements but nothing that warrants a complete freak out where you stop eating in order to afford it. You’re a geek so upgrading is a no-brainer and you’re willing to skip Taco Bell for a month to get it. I understand that completely. I camped out for 13 hours at a local Verizon store to get mine and was happy to swipe $399 + $110 to AT&T for the privilege of owning a phone that looked identical to the one I had last year. If you’re thinking of doing the same thing. This review is for you.
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iPhone 4S – It’s Faster, Better Camera, More Storage, Carrier Choices, World Phone capable and Siri. That’s the sales pitch Apple made because iOS 5 is available for iPhone 3GS and 4 users. The software you get with iPhone 4S is identical to that of an iPhone 4 aside from Siri which, at this time isn’t that impressive. Siri is useful in some ways but mostly a novelty that will improve over time.
Faster: Reviewers said the speed increase was marginal for those moving from 4 to 4S. I disagree. If you edit movies, photos or documents on your iPhone or if you play games, use the camera or scroll through pages of text using Reeder or Safari, you’ll benefit from the speed of the 4S. Twice as fast (CPU) and Seven times as fast (GPU) is not easy to ignore. I launched Tweetbot just to get rid of a notification for a reply. Opening, loading tweets and scrolling to the top of the page felt instantaneous. It was remarkable how fast it was. I had just performed a clean install of iOS4 on my iPhone 4 so I compared speeds of the clean install of iPhone 4 versus the restored from backup installation of iOS5 on my iPhone 4S. There was no comparison. Applying a filter in Camera+, taking 10 photos and then switching to light board and seeing their previews already displayed and then saving those images to my camera roll….it was ALL instant. Even the painful process of encoding a movie from camera roll to YouTube took a fourth of the time from 4 to 4S. This iPhone screams. If you do anything beyond reply to emails and make calls, you’ll feel the speed in every aspect of the OS. Remember that painful wait between downloading a new app from the App Store and watching the status, “Installing…”? Yeah, that’s gone. Installing an app takes less than a second once the download is done. There’s no way to explain just how fast this phone is. You have to try it! I don’t play games on the iPhone but more games will be optimized for the iPhone 4S and you’re going to want to have this device if you play games regularly.
Better Camera: I don’t take photos with my iPhone. I think I took 2 photos and 3 screen shots using my iPhone since purchasing it Friday at 8AM. The camera app is buried in a folder so I’m not the right person to ask when it comes to photos. I didn’t upgrade because it can shoot in 1080P HD video or that the camera has improved low light performance. I’m not even going to test it despite this is probably the killer app reason that people will upgrade. Sorry, it’s just not my thing. If you want photo advice, go buy an SLR or Micro Four-Thirds camera and I’ll help you get started. The camera is better but I could care less. I assume though that you DO take a lot of photos with your iPhone and if you take more photos using the iPhone than you do a dedicated camera, upgrading makes a lot of sense. Do you want your photos to look better and you’re too lazy or stupid to carry a real camera on you? Then, upgrade. Sorry, I just don’t care. Most reviewers agree the camera is improved. It probably is.
More Storage: I thought I needed 64 Gigabytes of storage in my pocket. I wrote this last month in my post laying out what I saw in the next iPhone:
Let’s talk about storage. If the next iPhone has 32 gigabytes of ram at the max, I won’t be surprised. The iPhone has been maxed at 32 GBs since the 3GS was released in 2009 so it’s really hard to realize that, in 2012 we’ll still be at the same ceiling. However, I believe iCloud and iTunes in the cloud will mean storage is re imagined on our iOS devices. Already, I don’t use all 64 gigabytes of storage that’s available on my iPad and it’s nice having all of your music with you but it’s not that important anymore when you can fire up iTunes or Spotify and play any song every made via the web. I may be wrong but Apple is enjoying the cost savings of that $5 in Flash price built into every iPhone compared to the pennies it costs them to deliver data via the web. 32 Gigabytes is great for a mobile phone. I got by with a 64 gigabyte SSD on my MacBook Air and iPad and, once you realize that you don’t have to have EVERYTHING with you, 32/64 Gbs feels HUGE.
What’s remarkable is not that Apple increased the storage ceiling in the iPhone 4S. It’s that I actually bought the 64 gigabyte model and now I feel like an idiot. I don’t watch video or play games on my iPhone and only have 40 apps installed that all have minimal storage requirements. The iPad has actually become the place where I store videos, games and magazines. It’s my consumption device and the iPhone is my communication device. Twitter and Email don’t take up much space. I still keep 250 Gigabyte iPod classic around because I like having my entire 150 gigabyte iTunes library with me at all times. However, after switching to Spotify in July, I’ve shifted to where my iPhone doesn’t sync any media with iTunes and instead syncs with Spotify. I have dozens of playlists syncing offline with Spotify so I can listen to them in places like the gym where I don’t have cell service or on the drive home where service drops in an out. My 32 Gigabyte iPhone 4 was constantly holding about 2 gigabytes of app data and the rest was taken up by Spotify. I’d get to 0 kilobytes available pretty often while syncing new playlists so I thought 64 gigabytes was something I needed. It turned out there’s an offline limit in Spotify. About 500 songs above what I could store on my iPhone 32GB, Spotify let me know that I had hit the maximum amount of offline tracks that I could download. Now, I have an iPhone 4S with 20 gigabytes of free space and I have no clue what I’m going to use that space for. It bothers me to have so much free space but there’s nothing else I want to put on it except for more Spotify tracks and I can’t because of the limit.
iCloud takes care of the rest so the 32 gigabyte is probably more than anyone needs and the 64 gigabyte is nice sometimes but mostly overkill. I can’t believe I’m saying that but it really is overkill. However, if I didn’t have the iPad, I probably would store more on the iPhone so maybe it’s not so bad to have that much offline storage. Decide what’s best for you and remember that you’re going to spend an average of $2400 over the course of 2 years just to your cellular carrier for the phone service. Spending an extra $100 to double your storage isn’t that much money in the scheme of things.
Carrier Choices: AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. The three largest carriers in The US and this means more people can get an iPhone without switching carriers and more people can get iPhone who live in rural areas. You think AT&T service in San Francisco is bad? Imagine signing up to order a new iPhone through AT&T and getting a note telling you that you can’t upgrade your phone because your zip code isn’t supported. I switched to Verizon out of necessity. If Verizon and Sprint weren’t a choice, I wouldn’t be allowed to buy an iPhone 4S because AT&T wouldn’t let me buy a new phone.
Carriers matter to people. Phone numbers matter, family plans are established and set in stone and some people are grandfathered in to unlimited data plans that they don’t want to give up. These terms force people to stick with a carrier despite a desire to own an IPhone. I feel bad for those still stuck on T-Mobile but I’m sure their time is coming soon. Choice is important and now 3 out of 4 of the largest carriers in the US have iPhone. It’s a beautiful thing.
World Phone Capable: I’ve remained with AT&T because the nightmare of traveling to Europe with Verizon is as bad as you think it is. They’ll send you a loaner GSM phone tied to your account if you go overseas and charge you global roaming rates so Verizon lets you use their service overseas but you’re going to get a crappy phone and you’re still going to be charged an arm and a leg. This was never a problem for AT&T users and I can’t speak for Sprint’s travel policies. Now, the iPhone 4S that is CDMA (Verizon & Sprint) has a GSM antenna (which is the standard for everywhere outside of USA). You can travel overseas, roam and still have service with your iPhone. Yes, it’ll be expensive to your carrier but there are no longer phone switches or disconnects in service just because you decide to visit Tokyo or Mumbai. This isn’t a big deal to many customers but it is to many of us. CDMA is not a standard you find outside of The US so most of us had to go T-Mobile or AT&T. Not anymore.
Siri: She’s smart, always-on, humble, friendly and helpful. She’s Siri and she’s the result of an Apple acquisition earlier this year of a company that specialized in natural voice language technology and understanding what you needed based on common language. The problem with voice assistance on any device is that you have to issue a command that the AI understands. “Tell me the current weather in San Francisco, CA” then “Close this Window” then “Please tell me the 10-day weather for San Francisco California”. With Siri, you can say the first command and then say, “show me the 10 day weather” and then “should I bring an umbrella today?” and Siri understands you.
It’s not perfect and the product is in beta with only 3 countries supported but it’s going to improve fast. Siri is just getting started. I’m disappointed with the product right now. It’s fun to talk to Siri but I don’t find it very useful. The time it takes for Siri to process my request is too long even on home WiFi and I’m better off just doing the task myself. The only real advantage I’ve seen is dictating emails in the car. I’ve tried it and it’s still too hard but that’s my fault and not being comfortable with talking succinctly and giving commands like “period” or “new line”. I’m sure my interaction skills with Siri will improve and so will her ability to accept more commands. I’d love to offer 20 to-dos on my walk to the office from my car and have them done by the time I get inside. This just isn’t possible yet but it’ll happen.
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Summary: If you happen to have $300 laying around and you’re driven insane about not having the latest gadget, then go out and buy an iPhone 4S. It’s a fantastic upgrade for you. If it’s not something you can afford right now (the early termination fee, number porting and new device cost) then you don’t need to upgrade. Updating your iPhone 4 to iOS5 gives you most of what iPhone 4S users will be excited about. The device really does fade away and you’re using software that enhances your life and the only iOS5 feature not available for the iPhone 4 is Siri. Everything else carries over. The hardware enhancements are great and, for travelers, having world phone access on Verizon and Sprint is reason enough to upgrade because it is a hassle to get a loaner phone while overseas.
I am loving the iPhone 4S. It’s beautiful, fast and I finally have service at my house now that I made the switch to Verizon. You don’t have to upgrade but if you skip Taco Bell for a month and bite the bullet, you’ll be glad you did.