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I 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.

by jsz0 15y ago

I 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 ago
To 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 ago
The 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...

by jsz0 15y ago

gurkendoktor 15y ago

To 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 ago

The 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...