iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#91

Post by rkudeshi » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:16 PM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #79

doe88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite disappointed (disclosure: I mainly develop iOS applications) not because of the specs, but I'm disappointed because Apple on this one appears to be even more greedy [1] than before. I don't necessarily want change for change but when you reuse components or design you are expected to lower the price a bit. I find the current release pattern very similar to the Intel Tick-Tock model [2] where the Tick would…

You're right about the Tick-Tock, but since Apple hasn't announced it as a policy, people expect every release to be a Tick. I think you're wrong about Apple being greedy. Didn't they double the RAM? 16/32/64 for the price of 8/16/32 in the past? Also, the camera, processor and radio chips are all new from the original iPhone 4. The form factor is the same, but the antenna are a new design. And I think they are still…

They haven't doubled the storage (at the same price) for 2 years now.

iPhone 3GS: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299.

iPhone 4: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299.

iPhone 4S: 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#92

Post by wmeredith » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:17 PM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #79

doe88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite disappointed (disclosure: I mainly develop iOS applications) not because of the specs, but I'm disappointed because Apple on this one appears to be even more greedy [1] than before. I don't necessarily want change for change but when you reuse components or design you are expected to lower the price a bit. I find the current release pattern very similar to the Intel Tick-Tock model [2] where the Tick would…

You're right about the Tick-Tock, but since Apple hasn't announced it as a policy, people expect every release to be a Tick. I think you're wrong about Apple being greedy. Didn't they double the RAM? 16/32/64 for the price of 8/16/32 in the past? Also, the camera, processor and radio chips are all new from the original iPhone 4. The form factor is the same, but the antenna are a new design. And I think they are still…

The only people expecting a tick-tick-tick release model haven't been paying attention to what Apple has almost always done.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#93

Post by juliano_q » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

Anechoic wrote: post #18

juliano_q wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we can't judge if this product is disappointing or not by the sales number. I am not saying that the 4S is not a good phone, but the sales are obviously heavily influenced by the Steve Jobs death. Many of my friends who weren't considering a new phone are now going to buy it because it is the last iPhone launched with Jobs alive.

> the sales are obviously heavily influenced by the Steve Jobs death It's not obvious to me at all. Aside from your friends experience, what are you basing this on?

Sorry, I misused the term obvious. It just makes a lot of sense to me.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#94

Post by CJefferson » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:22 PM UTC

jstedfast wrote: post #58

CJefferson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really can't imagine why anyone might prefer the Samsung Galaxy S II (for example) to an iPhone? How about (straight off the top of my head) Better Linux connectivity. Ability to easily copy files on and off the phone. Ability to sync podcasts directly on the phone, without having to connect to a computer with iTunes (not used an iPhone for a while, they might have finally fixed this). Ability to run software App…

> Better Linux connectivity. Very few people actually run Linux on their desktops. If you are one of those people, then yes, I can see this being an advantage. Otherwise... not so much. I'm a Linux guy and when I had an iPhone, I used to just reboot to my Windows partition to sync my phone. I'd do it ~once per week or so (to sync up with the latest podcasts). > Ability to easily copy files on and off the phone. To be…

Just one comment on Jailbreaking.

Just this week, I happened to get an iPad at work. Turns out, the only way I can jailbreak it is by a "tethered" jailbreak, which means (as far as I understand) my iPad has to be attached to my computer whenever I reboot it, else it won't work properly.

We also have a 3G iPad 2, and it seems that can't be jailbroken at all at the moment.

So jailbreaking really doesn't seem to be the "magic solution" to the Apple walled garden. Also, note I don't have to jailbreak to run software Google doesn't like, just go to the webpage and download the package, rather than get it through google market. You can also jailbreak for root access, but I've never felt a need.

I will admit, the argument between Android and Apple is slim, but personally I see it mostly as a "one or the other", not "Apple is superior to Android in every way", as the opening poster seemed to claim.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#95

Post by andrewljohnson » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:26 PM UTC

Me and the rest of the developer community laugh at the contrary blog posts, all the way to the bank. This weekend, there will be hundreds of thousands more iPhone owners, and the developer community will make a fortune.

I applaud Apple for focusing on what's important - speed and sex, not features and fapping. Because when they do, all my apps get faster and all my customers get happier, and I don't have to do much work at all. Integrating with new APIs and hardware is a necessary evil, but we just want the devices to keep getting smaller and faster, as do the consumers.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#96

Post by iaskwhy » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:43 PM UTC

ugh wrote: post #51

iaskwhy wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say they were expecting the iPhone 5 because Apple did not upgrade the iPhone 4 in the summer like they did with the iPhone 3G and also because iOS 5 was already announced. Now about what would they expect from the iPhone 5, that's more complicated. Look, they created an amazing smartphone out of nowhere, then they did the iPad and then they even did the cheaper MacBook Air. I guess people could be expecting some…

I don’t understand you. Are you suggesting that Apple should ditch iOS?

Ditch? No, it's a success! What I am saying it that smartphones probably won't change much its hardware format for some more years (with just tiny differences) so if I had to guess I'd say software is pretty much everything on this race in the medium term.

So, back to my iPhone roadmap, I can't see Apple releasing iOS 6 just after one year so iPhone 5, to be released in 2012, will still feature iOS 5 thus there won't be magical changes (the ones I was talking about on my previous post). Either Apple do something amazing hardware-wise or they hurry iOS 6 to be a major update to the platform in 2012 already.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#97

Post by mikeash » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:49 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #62

jstedfast wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Better Linux connectivity. Very few people actually run Linux on their desktops. If you are one of those people, then yes, I can see this being an advantage. Otherwise... not so much. I'm a Linux guy and when I had an iPhone, I used to just reboot to my Windows partition to sync my phone. I'd do it ~once per week or so (to sync up with the latest podcasts). > Ability to easily copy files on and off the phone. To be…

> Very few people actually run Linux on their desktops. But you forgot, the original post rhetorically questioned why the 'technocrati' pick another phone. There is a disproportional number of technocrati that run Linux on their Desktop perhaps?

I thought the original post was questioning why the "technorati" pick the iPhone as being worse for everyone. I don't think anyone takes issue with "I prefer an AndroidMark 42 to the iPhone 4S". What we take issue with is statements like, "Why would anyone buy an iPhone 4S instead of the AndroidMark 42, which is clearly superior in every way?"

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#98

Post by FireBeyond » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 5:53 PM UTC

jstedfast wrote: post #61

thatjoshguy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But 'regular' people are loving the Galaxy S 2, I guess because of it's large and vibrant screen, and it's thinner (to hold) compared to the iPhone 4[1]. I really like the Galaxy S 2 and I wish so hard that Android was actually polished to the degree that iOS is. My iPhone bores and I love the screen on the Galaxy S, yet I know I will miss out on OS updates and being able to smoothly rotate the screen. The day androi…

> But 'regular' people are loving the Galaxy S 2 Are you sure of that? I can't imagine it's true, or there would be a hell of a lot more sales of it than there are...

Do you think that might have something to do with the variety of models available? That people are more free to pick what hits their aesthetic desires, as well as form, functionality, features?

Whereas with the iPhone, you basically have "the iPhone". So of course sales are consolidated into that one model.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#99

Post by mikeash » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

hahaiamatwork wrote: post #28

dr_ wrote: post #14

Even before this announcement, it is beyond me how anyone can argue that this is not the best smartphone on the market. It has an incredibly fast processor, fantastic camera, one of the most popular music hubs (iTunes), the largest app store and probably the most advanced AI technology in a phone. When the technorati (and, to be honest, most bloggers have been supportive of the product) diss this phone, are they actu…

There's only really a couple of points in your post that are valid, so I'll go through each point you made. 1. Phones with the same class of processor have been available for some time now. Tegra 2 is a dual core 1ghz SoC and there are 1.2 and 1.5ghz dual cores from competitors, with a quad core 1.5ghz due from Nvidia within the next few months. 2. The camera may be excellent, but previous phones have applied some ba…

I used Siri quite a bit when it was still just a free app, and I found it to be pretty useful. Real-world stuff I actually used it for include:

1. Checking the weather forecast for a particular day. Just ask something like, "What's the weather tomorrow?" You can give it a specific city, or it will just use your current location. This is generally faster than using a weather site or app for places you haven't already set up a shortcut for.

2. Checking on movie times and availability while on the go. Just ask something like "movies near here" and it shows you what's available.

3. Setting up reminders when I spontaneously think of something while out and about. It's much easier to just say "remind me to water the dog tonight at 7" than to type something up into an e-mail or reminder app.

Ultimately, it didn't get as much use as perhaps it should, for two reasons. One, it's inconvenient to use as a standalone app. You have to unlock the phone, find the app icon, run it, wait for it to get started, press the button to activate voice input, then say what you want. Having it built in to iOS5 on the 4S should eliminate that problem completely. It looks like it's just a single button to go straight to voice mode.

Two, being an app, it doesn't integrate well with the rest of the phone. You can't use it to call people or e-mail them or send them text messages or modify your calendar or.... This limits the functionality greatly. I sometimes find myself using Dragon Dictation to bang out a quick e-mail, but it too is fairly cumbersome. Again, the integration into the system should solve this.

From my previous use, the Siri app was great but ultimately not all that useful, but I think the integrated one could end up being great. Of course, we will have to see how it really works once it ships.

Re: iPhone 4S Pre-Orders Top One Million in First 24 Hours

#100

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Oct 10, 2011, 6:15 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #84

rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are they actually suggesting someone would be better off with a Android, Blackberry or Windows 7 phone? It seems your comment is based on a flawed assumption that all these consumer devices should be evaluated in a vacuum where price, app markets, & previous corporate adoption doesn't matter. iPhones where historically really expensive devices. And price is one of the features of the device just like camera resolut…

> iPhones where historically really expensive devices. No. Smartphones are historically really expensive devices. Year before the iPhone was released, I had a Eseries Nokia phone, it was something like 500€ out of carriers (and few carriers had it, Eseries are enterprise/corporate phones), unsubsidized Nseries phones ("comsumer" smartphones, usually with a 10key and more multimedia features instead of the full qwerty…

> When the original iPhone was released, it was not expensive, it was unsubsidized.

Which made it 'seem' expensive to an average consumer. Yes, they end up spending that money by being locked into a contract for 2 years, but they at least see it as a cheaper option.