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IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

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Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#71
post #61

This is a pretty underwhelming release. At least for waiting 16 months since the last phone. I sincerely hope Apple isn't about to do a replay of the Mac. Great introduction with incredible technology. But a few years into it, begins to stagnate. HW wise this nothing like the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 was a far superior device over the Galaxy S phones. The Galaxy S II though is pretty close to this. In terms of the raw…

The iPhone 4 is (apparently) Apple's most successful product launch ever. It has been for me their most useful product ever. I am rarely without it. It's my phone, my music player, my camera, my alarm clock, my kitchen timer, my only game system, and often my web browser. It is also the most solid-feeling, elegant, understated thing Apple has ever sold me. Apart from "faster", "better at connectivity", and "better at…

Apart from "faster", "better at connectivity", and "better at taking pictures", where does Apple have to go with this thing? A new chassis design? Why?

And that's my fear. The first decade of the 2000s' Apple would answer this question with something you didn't think you needed. But it was a gamechanger.

I could imagine Steve Jobs walking out on stage and saying:

"We did the Retina Display. We changed displays forever. The iPhone4 is the best display on any phone, and it's been almost a year and a half since we released it. But there's a huge glaring problem with it -- it's 2D." At this point you begin to hear the audience pick up in anticipation.

"The world isn't in 2D. You can't appreciate the vibrance of a 3D world fully when projected onto a 2D surface. People have tried 3D though." Steve pulls out a the red/blue paper glasses from his pocket. Tosses it on the floor. The modern 3D TV glasses from his pocket, tosses it on the floor. Pulls out an EVO 3D. Looks at it for a second. Tosses it on the floor.

"You don't do something, unless you can do it right. We figured out how to do 3D right."

Maybe next year.

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#72

This is a pretty underwhelming release. At least for waiting 16 months since the last phone. I sincerely hope Apple isn't about to do a replay of the Mac. Great introduction with incredible technology. But a few years into it, begins to stagnate. HW wise this nothing like the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 was a far superior device over the Galaxy S phones. The Galaxy S II though is pretty close to this. In terms of the raw…

With Apple, it's not about specs, it never has been. It's about the UX and I've not seen anything on Android that can match the iPhone 4 much less the 4S. The iPhone 4's specs may be 16 months old, but the iPhone 4 UX is from 2015.

Hi,

You are completely right.

You have not tried a 4S, so you're just making stuff up. Like your comment about time travel. I'm sure that time travel can not be done by the apple people, unless they know Michael J Fox. Which I guess they may know him, considering Steveo (he hates it when I call him that) wears a black turtle neck some times. He also really loved a drink before, but not so much now after that whole incident with the 12 livers he had to take from interns.

In summary, your prophetic ideas are astounding and wise past your years. Well, wise past the years of anyone in our generation, and the previous five generations before.

One more thing...

Steve does wear cool specs though. I think the success of apple is at least 46.34% to do with the CEOs specs. The new vice president in the video didn't put on a good pair for this showing. They were kind of too thin, and not thick and black enough. Really, he should take some fashion classes, because he would have gotten a D- for his outfit this time.

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#73
post #17
post #4

Any word on when the real iphone5 will arrive? The 4S seems like a rather pitiful flagship by apple standards.

2 year release cycles - you've got 12 months to sit tight my friend. in consolation the iPad 3 (the real successor to the iPad) should be out within 6m.

> you've got 12 months to sit tight my friend.

8~9 is more likely, this year's delay was due to iCloud (and maybe a bit iOS5), not iPhone. It's not unlikely they'll snap back to June-July next year, so that the release of the new iPad and the new iOS don't drift 6 months apart.

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#74
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me at Mango and iOS being in the same category - and then you want to "throw Android out and start from scratch"?... what? Android is not quite iOS but its a very close second and better than what anyone else has been capable of creating.

There was an article posted here a while back comparing Android's screen painting to IOS. Basically, Android behaves like every other OS's screen painting API, where when the screen needs to scroll, the whole thing must be re-rendered, but iOS renders the whole screen and uses a view camera to pan the screen beneath, hence fast scrolling. (Please forgive my poor use of terminology. I'm sure someone else can do a much…

You're pretty much right. Apple renders their entire UI to OpenGL textures, and uses their nice GPU and scene manipulation to get the incredibly smooth feel. Android, up until Honeycomb, renders the UI in software, which ties up the UI thread with redraw events as well as input detection.

You'll see the limitations of Apple's model in mobile Safari: scrolling too fast gets you to unrendered sections of the page, which must be rendered and filled in software; as well as pinch zooming, where you get a blurry zoomed texture for a moment or two while the software re-renders the page and updates the texture.

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#75
I'm a 32GB 3GS owner on a lapsed ATT contract, and I'll be pre-ordering a Verizon 32GB 4S model on Friday. Two things bother me, but weren't deal-breakers:

1) It sucks that it still has the iPhone 4's flawed design, with glass going right up to the edge of the front and back, requiring a case so it can survive a fall. I've always preferred to keep my iPhones naked.

2) $400 for the 64GB model with two-year contract? Really? No storage capacity upgrade since last year's model (the entry level $200 model still ships with 16GB storage), with memory capacities ever-increasing and prices falling, feels like nickel-and-diming. I guess I didn't really need 64GB after all.

Other than that, the new Siri Voice Assistant looks sweet, the 8MP/1080p camera also looks nice, and I'm looking forward to the improved performance.

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#76

This is a pretty underwhelming release. At least for waiting 16 months since the last phone. I sincerely hope Apple isn't about to do a replay of the Mac. Great introduction with incredible technology. But a few years into it, begins to stagnate. HW wise this nothing like the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 was a far superior device over the Galaxy S phones. The Galaxy S II though is pretty close to this. In terms of the raw…

I would guess they're banking on LTE for the iPhone 5... so in that step up you'll see a much bigger upgrade, but as a technology LTE is probably a bit immature for Apple's standards.

LTE is still ridiculously power hungry in every device that has it. I'd like to see them avoid it until it gets a bit more under control

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#77
post #66

I was hoping for an iPhone 5 with a new design, but I'm still very excited about this. The extra processing power combined with the low level speed improvements in iOS 5 are going to be HUGE for app developers. The only letdown for me is seeing Apple do things that compete with their app developers: the new Cards app, Reminders, etc.

I've been having a hard time understanding all the clamor for a new form factor. The 3G to 3GS bump was all about performance and software. It makes sense for the 4 to 4S to also be about performance and software. The next form factor change will be the iPhone 5 in the same way that the iPhone 4 was a form-factor change. This seems like a reasonable allocation of R&D dollars to me. I don't think the form factor has t…

> This seems like a reasonable allocation of R&D dollars to me. I don't think the form factor has to change every year.

Even more so because their audience cycles with 2-years contract (or so they believe, at any rate), so it makes sense to keep designs for 2 years.

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#78
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone 4 is (apparently) Apple's most successful product launch ever. It has been for me their most useful product ever. I am rarely without it. It's my phone, my music player, my camera, my alarm clock, my kitchen timer, my only game system, and often my web browser. It is also the most solid-feeling, elegant, understated thing Apple has ever sold me. Apart from "faster", "better at connectivity", and "better at…

Apart from "faster", "better at connectivity", and "better at taking pictures", where does Apple have to go with this thing? A new chassis design? Why? And that's my fear. The first decade of the 2000s' Apple would answer this question with something you didn't think you needed. But it was a gamechanger. I could imagine Steve Jobs walking out on stage and saying: "We did the Retina Display. We changed displays foreve…

So we're setting the bar for new Apple products at "3D cell phone". Got it. :)

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#79
post #64
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make sense. When you near the end of your 2-year contract AT&T will subsidize your purchase of your next phone (e.g. the $199, $299, $399 price points for the 4S announced today). If you aren't near the end of your 2-year contract then you are basically still paying off the purchase of your original phone and so AT&T (and other carriers) aren't going to give you the subsidy to purchase a new phone althou…

Yes, when I'm near the end of my contract, AT&T is happy to offer me subsidized iPhone pricing. But they haven't offered me any breaks earlier than that.

You seem to think that someone else got a break that you didn't get but then you describe a situation that sounds exactly like what everyone else has experienced.

I'm not sure why you have an expectation that any carrier would subsidize a new phone before you've effectively paid them for the previous phone. Obviously there is room to haggle on the margins of the contract but the entire business model of subsidized phones and 2-year contracts is designed around the idea that the 2-year contract is there to pay off the initial equipment subsidy. TANSTAAFL

Re: IPhone 4S: A5 chip, 8MP camera, and Siri voice recognition

#80
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me at Mango and iOS being in the same category - and then you want to "throw Android out and start from scratch"?... what? Android is not quite iOS but its a very close second and better than what anyone else has been capable of creating.

iOS and Mango are in the same class in fundamentals. Use a device with iOS, Mango, and Android. Honestly, try it. The iOS and Mango device respond very similarly to basic things like swipes, pinches, etc... Android is a lot more jittery, even on the SGII HW. The odd thing with Android is that it's not a LOT less jittery on the G1 (although it is). Android is second best in apps. And #1 in terms of market dominance. B…

Android was designed when mobile GPUs were an oddity and stylus input was the norm. As such, rendering is mostly done in software and both redraw events and input are handled by the CPU. Mango and iOS were designed with hardware acceleration in mind, and render everything to 3D textures so they can use the GPU to get that smooth feel.

The ICS reveal later this month will reveal whether Google has addressed this issue. Most of Honeycomb is already GPU-accelerated, but not all of the performance issues were fixed.

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