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IPhone 4S with iPhone 4 design, leaked by iTunes
- dmix 15y agoI new thinner/larger design would be nice, but I'm totally happy with the iPhone 4 at the moment. It's one of the best built and best looking devices I own. My friends have various android phones with huge screens. The size is nice but they feel like cheap plastic. A hardware upgrade with CDMA and maybe NFC with the same design is welcome. I can wait another year for a new design with the iPhone 5.
- jonknee 15y agoThe only change I'd make is getting rid of the rear glass. It sounded like a bad idea and I have confirmed (twice) that it is a bad idea in practice. It compromises the device for style.
- __david__ 15y agoI agree. It's so pretty, but my oh my is it slippery. Of course the old 3g and 3gs were pretty slick too. I wish they'd make the apple logo rubber or something just to give it a little more friction. As it is it ends up sliding off of anything that's not exactly level.
- watmough 15y agoMy iPhone 4 has a couple of velcro strips (sewing section in WalMart) stuck on the back. This really helps with identifying back and front, and not sliding off sofa arms, and also lets me put it down quietly. Plus it's useful if I want to attach it to things. Just arrange some velcro tie-wraps, and the iPhone will stick right on. Super convenient.
- spiralganglion 15y agoThis comment is going to ruin my average, but I just had to say: I love it. That is so clever. Hats off to you, sir.
- rtrunck 15y agoMy bet is they skip NFC and go straight to Bluetooth 4.0, which includes Bluetooth low energy. They already went that direction with the new airs and minis.
- guygurari 15y agoiTunes has a new iPhone 4S entry, but it shows a picture of the existing iPhone 4. What does it mean? "Unless Apple still has the CDMA iPhone 4 as a placeholder image ... we’re fairly confident that the iPhone 4S will pack the CDMA iPhone design." That's a big "unless".
- frou_dh 15y agoI wouldn't agree that it's a big "unless". The 3GS has set precedent for an "S" version meaning nothing more than suped-up internals.
- saurik 15y agoI find it highly unlikely, however, that they would use the exact same image: they would change /something/ about it, whether it just be what the wallpaper is, to the angles of the shots. Given that this is actually the same filename being shared from the other product, it seems much more likely that they haven't put the final images in place yet.
- glhaynes 15y agoI dunno - do the 3G and 3GS use identical-looking images? If so, is it actually the same file?
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- wlesieutre 15y agoAt least for the computer icon in Mac OS, they haven't historically changed without visible design differences. I doubt they would handle iPhones differently.
- Pheter 15y agoNote that the iPhone is running iOS5
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- sp332 15y agoThe new case designs have already been leaked, so we already know that it's going to have a different form factor. It won't be the same as iPhone 4.
- kenjackson 15y agoThat assumes there's only one new phone. Isn't there still talk of an iPhone 5 too or is that a dead rumor now?
- sp332 15y agoOh, I didn't realize they were separate. I thought iPhone 4S == iPhone 5.
- kenjackson 15y agoIt might be. From John Gruber: I don’t know what the new iPhone looks like. I don’t even know whether there’s only one new iPhone. http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/teardrop_skepticism http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/teardrop_skepticism And he goes on to talk about the iPhone 4s and the iPhone 5. Apple, as usual, keeps everyone on the edge of their seats. My personal take is that Apple should just do the iPhone 4s. In head to head sales, the iPhone 4 still kills everyone else. I'd let it get a little staler -- and then drop the iPhone 5 say in June of next year. They can do the tick-tock, like Intel. One year, new design, next year use better components. And they can have the iPad and iPhone tick/tock on opposing years.
- tejaswiy 15y agoThis kind of sucks for me because my upgrade schedule is synced to the "S" versions.
- CamperBob 15y agoIf they plan to ship one or two phone models and upgrade them every two years, they had better have lots of patents, because they certainly won't be able to compete in a fair marketplace.
- jamesaguilar 15y agoI'm slightly disappointed. The iPhone 4 is a beautiful and high quality device, but I have never liked the way the square edges feel in my hand. I would love to see a return to the 3G/S curved back design.
- onedognight 15y agoI disliked the square design until I started using FaceTime regularly. The perpendicular edges make it trivial to prop the phone up vertically for a call. I don't think it's a coincidence that the design changed when FaceTime was added.
- vegardx 15y agoI would disagree, why is this not the case with the iPad then?
- spiralganglion 15y agoSmart Cover Imagine how thick an iPad would need to be to stand solidly on its side, unsupported. Bad idea for a tablet, great idea for a phone.
- andrewflnr 15y agoThe iPad has the SmartCover to prop it up. Also, given its size, I don't think it would be a good idea to try to stand it on it's edge alone no matter how square it was.
- gte910h 15y agoI have found it 100x better in stands and the like, and really like the grip compared to the rounded edged phones (I have huge palms and short fingers, so that may be related to it).
- ugh 15y agoCan’t we postpone all this crap 70 hours and go on what will then be definitive facts?
- wtn 15y agoHN is all about speculation and gossip about other people's money, so the answer to your question is "no".
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- mikerg87 15y agoIf there is only the 4s which is just a souped up iPhone 4, then why did it take so long to provide so little?
- jamesbkel 15y agoWaiting until iOS 5 (including the cloud features announced earlier this year) is ready?
- jedberg 15y agoFrom what I hear from my insider friends, the next iPhone has actually been ready for months, they just didn't want to release it so close to the iPhone 4. In fact, they are almost done with the next next version of the phone, but don't expect to see it for at lest a year. Until someone provides some real competition to the iPhone, they really have no reason to rapidly release new models.
- dillon 15y agoiPhone 4s, with iOS5. Seems fit that they would come out with an iPhone 5. Anyways, we will see on Oct 3rd.
- awolf 15y agoThe Apple event is October 4th actually. Also, I think you mean "anyway".
- randallsquared 15y agoAlso, I think you mean "anyway". You object to his dialect, but not to his sentence fragment? :) There are some interesting discussions on "anyway", "anyways" and "anywise" out there, but all three forms have been around for centuries.
- czhiddy 15y ago3G, 3GS, 4, 4S Makes sense - Apple's using an Intel-like tick/tock release approach. Coming out with a brand new industrial design every year is expensive, since Apple opts for glass/aluminum nowadays rather than plastic.
- jsz0 15y agoI feel bad for Tim Cook if he has to go out and re-announce a 14 month old product with a spec bump. Not a terribly exciting way to publicly start his new job. They also tried this before with mixed results. The 3GS sold fantastically for the first 6 months or so but it was the Q1/Q2 2010 time-frame where Android phones really took off in part because they simply had better hardware. It's possible that will happen again. There are already some higher resolution displays out there, probably quad-core processors by the end of the year or early next year, and LTE support. I can't help but feel like the 4S is going to look very last-generation in a few months and it won't help if it physically re-enforces this by looking last-generation also. It's a risky move when there's so much competition out there.
- gurkendoktor 15y agoTo be fair, the practical difference between 3G and 3GS is huge, at least more so than between 2G and 3G. 3G and 3GS look the same, but the former barely got (insultingly bad) support for iOS4 and the latter one is happily running iOS5.
- loire280 15y agoThe hardware in an iPhone really isn't that important as long as the interface is responsive. Apple has consistently made choices that ensure that performance can be squeezed out of slower hardware. These include restrictions on iOS development (less abstraction in interface elements because of limited aspect ratios, restrictions on background processes and aggressive memory management) and hardware acceleration and optimization that comes from very limited hardware profiles. That's why an iPhone 4, with it's single 800mhz core, in most instances feels as fast as the dual core, higher-clocked Android phones that have come out since its introduction. "The 3GS sold fantastically for the first 6 months or so but it was the Q1/Q2 2010 time-frame where Android phones really took off in part because they simply had better hardware." That isn't borne out in sales numbers. Apple sales continued to grow during Q1/Q2 2010, and in Q2 2010 Apple sold more iPhones than any previous quarter, even with the (very publicly) impending launch of the iPhone 4. Android sales were also growing rapidly during that time, and that is the period where Android unit sales passed up iPhone unit sales. However, that is more likely due to the availability of competitive Android phones on all the rival networks (iPhone was still AT&T only at that point) during the time when smartphones hit mass popularity. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/apple-q22010-financial-results-record-march-quarter-revenue-and-profit-iphone-sales-more-than-double/8082 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/apple-q22010-financial-re...
- Thomaschaaf 15y agoMaybe Apple is segmenting iPhones into the cheaper and the more expensive version being iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S will be enough for most and may feature less space for music and apps (8GB) and the iPhone 5 will be the bigger devices (16, 32 & 64 GB).