iPhone 5 a no-show at Apple's 'Let's talk iPhone' event Apple surprised nearly every pundit who was breathlessly following its "Let's talk iPhone" event – it didn't introduce an iPhone 5. The event, held on Apple's Cupertino campus in, spent over an hour and a half detailing iOS 5 and iCloud, which had both been described in great detail at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in …
"I expect that Siri could easily run on an iPhone 4, but damned if they'll let that happen."
It runs on an iPhone 4 right now. An earlier version of Siri has been available in the App Store for well over a year. I have it on my iPhone 4, and it works fine. I just gave it the same task Tim Cook used in his demo today, saying "Find me a Greek restaurant near here." It came up with a dozen, listing them in order of closeness, then mapped their locations and offered to call any one of them for me.
Siri is currently missing from the App Store, and when I launched my older copy today, it said "I've been replaced! The new Siri is even smarter and better looking than me, and waiting for you on the iPhone 4S. I'll be leaving for home Oct. 15th." I don't know what that last sentence means--this version will stop working? The new version will appear in the App Store? We'll have to wait and see.
Granted, it's *possible* that Apple will forbid the new Siri from running on older phones, but I'd be surprised if they did, since the old version has been doing just that for more than a year. In case it wasn't obvious, Siri's intelligence is all at the server end, not on your phone. Like Dragon Dictation for iOS, the Siri app just records your voice and passes it on; all the heavy lifting is done elsewhere. That means Siri doesn't need a lot of horsepower in the phone.
Because instead of telling me how much they love their iPhone the fanbois will now be able to have that conversation directly with the iPhone, thus leaving me out of the equation. This is by far the most excited I've been about a forthcoming iPhone feature for a long time!
The diversity antenna system is long overdue in an iPhone. But this is standard operating procedure for most handset designers... most smartphones have had this for, well, since there have been smartphones.
Apple's failure wasn't simply using a single antenna in a world where the performance of diversity antennas was long established for something held in a hand (and with the 4G folks moving to full MIMO), but the fact they chose form over function by making the antenna also the metal edge of the original iPhone 4. That was particularly stupid given that, with the glass backside of that device, they could have had any number of higher performance antennas under that glass with no attenuation.
Haha. Not so much a revolution, you'd hardly even call this an evolution. Apple are too ashamed themselves to call this the iphone5!
But who cares, just wait and see all the saps that queue up like sheep to dump their iphone4s for one with a faster chip and an S on the end.
Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank, I'll just be laughing :)
Firstly, historically, you had the 3G followed by the 3GS that looked the same but was somewhat souped up, so it's hardly surprising (cutting through the usual rumours and hype) that we have a 4S following the 4 that looks the same but soups up the specs.
Personally, I'm not a fan of phones getting even bigger - it doesn't make them better, just bulkier, so I'm fine with the size remaining the same.
As for last years looks? Funny how many handsets look remarkably similar. I don't mean that in a bad way - there's only so many ways you can peel an apple.
> Apple have produced what is probably going to be the fastest smartphone of the year
its a bit soon to start making prediction like that.
out in the competitive world where you have to try and find a way to win over customers, the remaining near 3 months left of 2011 is likely to see a whole new generation of models and speed improvements are most likely to be an area where there will be competition.
Still being the fastest model at the end of the day you were launched on ranks as a success, but its best not to set your sights unrealistically high.
Besides aren't all the predictions pointing to an iPhone5, surely that will be greater than the 4S.
Of course, why launch a 5 when you can persuade a sizeable chunk of your customer base to buy a 4S this week and then get them to buy 5 in a couple of months too. Gotta keep those green backs rolling in.
> its a bit soon to start making prediction like that.
In particular because there are already phones out with faster CPUs. The A5, despite the photo, contains dual ARM Cortex A9 cores. The iPad clocks them at 1GHz, possibly a bit lower. Now of course, Apple doesn't like to talk about these things, but in the past, the iPhone was downclocked a 100MHz or 2 from the iPad. So this may have wonderful battery life, but it's CPU-wise slower than any number of 1.3-1.5GHz phones, also based on the ARM Cortex A9 dual core, and already shipping.
CPU-wise, Apple's certainly ahead of the nVidia Tegra 2, but that's not a shock... the Tegra 2 itself is being replaced soon, and everything else coming out, from TI, Samsung, etc. is already faster than the Tegra 2. Apple's using a dual core PowerVR SGX 543... but of course, anyone can buy this core from Imagination Technologies, there's nothing "Apple" about it. And stack as deeply as MP16, if they like. The TI OMAP5430 and OMAP5432 (ok, the OMAP5 is also using the ARM Cortex A15.... maybe not the chip of choice for mobile, yet) use this GPU, for example... and the Sony Playstation Vita (2011 in Asia, 2012 here) sports the MP4 version (four core). And PowerVR is just one of the GPU makers.. the mobile GPU market is getting interesting.
Not everyone wants to carry around a huge slab of a phone. Not everyone is so geeky as to watch loads of videos in public when there are people around to talk to.
I can barely get my iPhone 4 into my trouser when I go out, not wanting to wear a coat in a nightclub I want to put it in my pocket with my keys and money. A bigger phone would just have to stay at home. I'm not going to wear a bum bag just for a phone.
The only company which insists on taking its website down to put in an update and when it finally does come back trying to go to http://www.apple.com/iphone/features results in:
Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www.apple.com/iphone/features" on this server.
I commented that the "Let's talk iPhone" tag line meant voice integration was the main feature of the announcement but got shot down for such a suggestion.
Apple are playing catchup with the rest of market now rather than innovating. The 4S is a stop-gap 'cos the 4 has fallen behind and the no-show of the 5 I'd guess means there's some problems with the real world delivery of the device. The iPhone 4 now feels like a generation behind something like the Galaxy S2, maybe this is all behind the litigation delaying tactics of the patent disputes.
One of the worst PR years for Apple in a long time?
I didn't shoot you down - I don't remember actually seeing your comment!
I wouldn't be so sure that the lack of anything "wondrous" was a problem with real world delivery of the 5 as much as the real world problem of nobody with any sense (yes I know this usually excludes Apple shoppers) would want to go spend iPhone 5 kinds of money on a new phone right now!
If they can keep moving the smoke and mirrors about and convincing their loyal shoppers that the 4S is the one everyone has to beat and take their wedge of cash from them, then why not. The fact there have been better phones than the iPhone option for several years doesn't seem to matter when you're facing with the Apple PR machine.
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