5 ms·

Marginal upgrades to the camera and processor, with a new app for voice commands, and they can't even make them fast enough. Seriously, I'm just at a loss. I

by bsphil 15y ago

Marginal upgrades to the camera and processor, with a new app for voice commands, and they can't even make them fast enough. Seriously, I'm just at a loss. I honestly don't get Apple. I've used their products and just don't see what others do. What am I missing?

sunchild 15y ago
This is likely due to pent-up demand in anticipation of any upgrade announcement. iPhone has carved out a massive space in the cultural zeitgeist. IMO, this is still about the inertia that iPhone generated in its early days when the idea of a touch interface was still magic. That kind of inertia translates to an irrational need to have the latest/greatest, regardless of the technical merits of a particular iteration. EDIT: Also, I've yet to see any mobile device that is as polished in terms of lag, responsiveness, usability, etc.
- bbgm 15y ago
  I think your edit nailed it. There are a lot of good options now, but if there is one thing that years of product management have taught me is that the moment you start thinking in terms of features and specifications, you are generally thinking about products the wrong way. Apple's almost going the tick-tock model with their iPhones, or at least they seem to be, where the tock is mostly internals, improved OS, etc.
henrikschroder 15y ago
You have to remember that a lot of people bought phones on contract and are stuck in a two-year upgrade cycle, which means that a lot of 3GS owners are looking to upgrade, and a lot of people were holding out on buying the 4 for the next version, whatever it was going to be, so you have a lot of pent-up demand for it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- minikomi 15y ago
  In Japan the main provider of iPhones (Softbank) is attempting to prevent people jumping carriers to AU who have better reception by offering to waive the remaining payments of 3GS owners who upgrade. Good plan - and gets iPhones into the hands of younger siblings / wives of early adopters to get them hooked for iPhone 5s imminent release in the near future.
- epo 15y ago
  But the same would apply to other phones which do not seem to have this "pent-up demand". Perhaps the iPhone is simply better and more desirable than other phones.
czhiddy 15y ago
2x the CPU speed and 7x the GPU speed, all with equal or better battery life = marginal? I'm curious what what your idea of a "substantial" upgrade would be.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > 2x the CPU speed and 7x the GPU speed The camera upgrades are anything bug marginal as well (high reduction in noise, significantly higher quality especially in lower light conditions, much lower deformations in corners, and the capture speed improvements, from off and from a previous picture, is extremely significant both relatively to the iPhone 4 and in absolute terms of usage and usability)
- viscanti 15y ago
  I wondered the same thing when the iPad 2 was labeled as a "marginal" upgrade. Any time you more than double the performance of something, that's hardly a marginal upgrade. No one would consider doubling the horsepower in their car a marginal upgrade. I'm not sure why we see it applied to iOS devices. Maybe it's because the performance numbers are abstracted away so much more for mobile devices. Most mobile phone buyers probably view their phone as a black box. It does what it's supposed to do (hopefully) and that's about it. They don't know or care about the internals, so the outside gets so much more attention. If the outside isn't updated then it seems like it's a marginal update.
  - wiredfool 15y ago
    I find the ipad2 to be a marginal upgrade. I've got both, and really, the biggest difference is that the 2 is white. Safari is a bit snappier, but it's not 2x faster. It's got a camera, but, eh, I can't say I get much use out of it. (I wasn't planning on getting the 2, but I won a coding contest. So, not looking a prize in the mouth and all that)
- rkalla 15y ago
  If they had changed the "4S" to "5" with identical hardware I think he would have been happy ;) The camera updates alone were brilliant.
kenjackson 15y ago
There are several things at play here. I said when it was announced that it was an underwhelming release (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3072514 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3072514) and it is. With that said it's an improvement on what is widely considered the best phone on the market. The iPhone 4s is certainly no worse than the iPhone4. It continues to be what will generally be considered the best phone on the market. Couple this with the fact that a lot of people were likely holding off on iPhone purchases until this announcement. And unless this new iPhone was a complete stinker, they were going to get one. It's not a stinker and so you have all this pent up demand from the past 4 months -- and the fact that the smartphone market is growing each day. So I don't think it's inconsistent that this is a somewhat disappointing rev, yet will likely be their best-selling phone to date.
deleted 15y ago
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deleted 15y ago
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mattmanser 15y ago
Not sure you deserve the d/v's. You want to know what it is? Firstly the difference between the iPhone and any phone when it came out was phenomenal. It was 3-5 years ahead of any other phone. I am not exaggerating at all. It was incredible, a true game changer. That Google managed to change Android's direction and produce a touch phone OS so quickly was an impressive feat and also showed how switched on whoever was running that project was. On the other hand calling it an homage to the iOS is being very generous. I was always surprised that Apple didn't go after them straight away with copyright it was that much of a ripoff. The iPhone was ahead in every degree. The UI was awesome where every other phone was awful. It had a touch screen, no other mainstream phone had one. There were a lot of other details that were amazing at the time but have now faded into the recesses of my brain. And it looked incredible. All other phones looked like they'd been designed by Homer compared to the iPhone. The difference between todays iPhone and all the others are pretty much the same but with less pronounced effects. There's a good reason Apple are suing Samsung over the design of their phone. No phones looked like that before the iPhone, it is a rip-off, we've just got used to all phone being iPhone clones, getting as close to ripping off Apple as they can without getting sued. As for iOS vs Android? The UI is better. Not a little bit. A lot. It's smooth, it's thought out, it's a joy to use. Android pretty much copied the entire interface and still it's nowhere near as good. It's just not got the Apple attention to detail. The MS phone 7 one is the only other genuinely innovative product out there. I'm not even a fan boy. I like Google most of the time. I respect the skill with which they brought out Android. It's still a knock off and you get what you pay for, knock offs are lower quality. They're not innovators, they're copiers and copies don't outshine originals. Apple have vision while Android just slavishly copies them. Siri is a perfect example of this. They didn't make it but as soon as they saw it they knew it was what they wanted, where they wanted to take it. It's the only apple tech I own, but I'm sticking with iPhones for now. They rock.
- rahoulb 15y ago
  Simple example: pre-iPhone for the vast majority of people if you wanted to put your phone into silent you had to choose the correct "profile" (is it quiet? or is it meeting? what's the difference?). Post iPhone, you flick the hardware switch that you can reach while the phone is still in your pocket.
edge17 15y ago
frankly, there's a lot of innovation and value that gets created by the developers and how they utilize sensors, compute, and new features. Apple gives developers some blocks to work with, and developers can use their own imaginations to organize them. That is to say, a lot of the value creation happens after Apple releases their product, and developers put things back into the ecosystem. Samsung or other competitors haven't done a great job with this (and of course it's not an easy thing to pull off). Mainstream reporting doesn't have the technical chops to have the imagination, and it's also (maybe unfortunately) not their job to do so. It's probably some sort of failing of communication between engineers and media and mainstream audiences. What you're missing is that much of Apple's value creation and pushing the envelope happens through the ecosystem (that's not an esoteric statement, their ecosystem creates real jobs and real money). We're living in a mobile world, the tools and the distribution are in front of you. I prefer that over an ecosystem where the masses are only given the option to be consumers rather than also participators.
ugh 15y ago
This is a serious question, no sarcasm: What would not have been a marginal update? I’m not quite sure myself. The iPhone 4 was clearly a major update compared to the iPhone 3GS: On the outside the design and materials improved. The resolution of the screen quadrupled and they switched screen technologies to IPS. They improved the camera, added a gyroscope, doubled the RAM and improved the processor. All that at no loss or improvement of battery life. The iPhone 4S does three (or maybe four, depending on whether the RAM was doubled) of the same things. That’s certainly less major. But what could they have done? They could have changed the design. That said, one thing I like about Apple is that they are willing to stick to a design if they like it. Maybe they should have tried to make the phone thinner or lighter (with an otherwise unchanged design), though that would likely have cost battery life. Increasing the resolution of the screen was in no way practical. That’s for all intents and purposes a done project. The pixels are invisible to the human eye and that’s that. Apple would only quadruple the resolution anyway and that’s clearly not practical. Switching technologies would also have been an option, but whether you prefer OLED or (IPS) LCD is more a question of taste than opinion. They could have increased the screen size but I again think that’s more a question of preference. A larger screen is not automatically better and Apple clearly thinks that consistency is worth more than a marginally larger screen. Could they have added sensors? I honestly don’t know. Maybe NFC? Maybe they prefer Bluetooth? They could have switched to 4G but I don’t think that would have been practical. It would just cost too much battery life for too little benefit. Getting everything out of 3G (which they did) is, I think, for now good enough. Yes, this update was less major than the last, but maybe that’s to be expected. I’m not sure whether I would want to call it minor and I don’t think that jumps like from 3GS to 4 are possible every year. Maybe the next update will be of similar scale than the 3GS to 4 jump: They will probably at least switch to 4G.

by bsphil 15y ago

sunchild 15y ago

This is likely due to pent-up demand in anticipation of any upgrade announcement. iPhone has carved out a massive space in the cultural zeitgeist. IMO, this is still about the inertia that iPhone generated in its early days when the idea of a touch interface was still magic. That kind of inertia translates to an irrational need to have the latest/greatest, regardless of the technical merits of a particular iteration. EDIT: Also, I've yet to see any mobile device that is as polished in terms of lag, responsiveness, usability, etc.

bbgm 15y ago
I think your edit nailed it. There are a lot of good options now, but if there is one thing that years of product management have taught me is that the moment you start thinking in terms of features and specifications, you are generally thinking about products the wrong way. Apple's almost going the tick-tock model with their iPhones, or at least they seem to be, where the tock is mostly internals, improved OS, etc.

henrikschroder 15y ago

You have to remember that a lot of people bought phones on contract and are stuck in a two-year upgrade cycle, which means that a lot of 3GS owners are looking to upgrade, and a lot of people were holding out on buying the 4 for the next version, whatever it was going to be, so you have a lot of pent-up demand for it.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
minikomi 15y ago
In Japan the main provider of iPhones (Softbank) is attempting to prevent people jumping carriers to AU who have better reception by offering to waive the remaining payments of 3GS owners who upgrade. Good plan - and gets iPhones into the hands of younger siblings / wives of early adopters to get them hooked for iPhone 5s imminent release in the near future.
epo 15y ago
But the same would apply to other phones which do not seem to have this "pent-up demand". Perhaps the iPhone is simply better and more desirable than other phones.

czhiddy 15y ago

2x the CPU speed and 7x the GPU speed, all with equal or better battery life = marginal? I'm curious what what your idea of a "substantial" upgrade would be.

masklinn 15y ago
> 2x the CPU speed and 7x the GPU speed The camera upgrades are anything bug marginal as well (high reduction in noise, significantly higher quality especially in lower light conditions, much lower deformations in corners, and the capture speed improvements, from off and from a previous picture, is extremely significant both relatively to the iPhone 4 and in absolute terms of usage and usability)
viscanti 15y ago
I wondered the same thing when the iPad 2 was labeled as a "marginal" upgrade. Any time you more than double the performance of something, that's hardly a marginal upgrade. No one would consider doubling the horsepower in their car a marginal upgrade. I'm not sure why we see it applied to iOS devices. Maybe it's because the performance numbers are abstracted away so much more for mobile devices. Most mobile phone buyers probably view their phone as a black box. It does what it's supposed to do (hopefully) and that's about it. They don't know or care about the internals, so the outside gets so much more attention. If the outside isn't updated then it seems like it's a marginal update.
- wiredfool 15y ago
  I find the ipad2 to be a marginal upgrade. I've got both, and really, the biggest difference is that the 2 is white. Safari is a bit snappier, but it's not 2x faster. It's got a camera, but, eh, I can't say I get much use out of it. (I wasn't planning on getting the 2, but I won a coding contest. So, not looking a prize in the mouth and all that)
rkalla 15y ago
If they had changed the "4S" to "5" with identical hardware I think he would have been happy ;) The camera updates alone were brilliant.

kenjackson 15y ago

There are several things at play here. I said when it was announced that it was an underwhelming release (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3072514 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3072514) and it is. With that said it's an improvement on what is widely considered the best phone on the market. The iPhone 4s is certainly no worse than the iPhone4. It continues to be what will generally be considered the best phone on the market. Couple this with the fact that a lot of people were likely holding off on iPhone purchases until this announcement. And unless this new iPhone was a complete stinker, they were going to get one. It's not a stinker and so you have all this pent up demand from the past 4 months -- and the fact that the smartphone market is growing each day. So I don't think it's inconsistent that this is a somewhat disappointing rev, yet will likely be their best-selling phone to date.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mattmanser 15y ago

Not sure you deserve the d/v's. You want to know what it is? Firstly the difference between the iPhone and any phone when it came out was phenomenal. It was 3-5 years ahead of any other phone. I am not exaggerating at all. It was incredible, a true game changer. That Google managed to change Android's direction and produce a touch phone OS so quickly was an impressive feat and also showed how switched on whoever was running that project was. On the other hand calling it an homage to the iOS is being very generous. I was always surprised that Apple didn't go after them straight away with copyright it was that much of a ripoff. The iPhone was ahead in every degree. The UI was awesome where every other phone was awful. It had a touch screen, no other mainstream phone had one. There were a lot of other details that were amazing at the time but have now faded into the recesses of my brain. And it looked incredible. All other phones looked like they'd been designed by Homer compared to the iPhone. The difference between todays iPhone and all the others are pretty much the same but with less pronounced effects. There's a good reason Apple are suing Samsung over the design of their phone. No phones looked like that before the iPhone, it is a rip-off, we've just got used to all phone being iPhone clones, getting as close to ripping off Apple as they can without getting sued. As for iOS vs Android? The UI is better. Not a little bit. A lot. It's smooth, it's thought out, it's a joy to use. Android pretty much copied the entire interface and still it's nowhere near as good. It's just not got the Apple attention to detail. The MS phone 7 one is the only other genuinely innovative product out there. I'm not even a fan boy. I like Google most of the time. I respect the skill with which they brought out Android. It's still a knock off and you get what you pay for, knock offs are lower quality. They're not innovators, they're copiers and copies don't outshine originals. Apple have vision while Android just slavishly copies them. Siri is a perfect example of this. They didn't make it but as soon as they saw it they knew it was what they wanted, where they wanted to take it. It's the only apple tech I own, but I'm sticking with iPhones for now. They rock.

rahoulb 15y ago
Simple example: pre-iPhone for the vast majority of people if you wanted to put your phone into silent you had to choose the correct "profile" (is it quiet? or is it meeting? what's the difference?). Post iPhone, you flick the hardware switch that you can reach while the phone is still in your pocket.

edge17 15y ago

frankly, there's a lot of innovation and value that gets created by the developers and how they utilize sensors, compute, and new features. Apple gives developers some blocks to work with, and developers can use their own imaginations to organize them. That is to say, a lot of the value creation happens after Apple releases their product, and developers put things back into the ecosystem. Samsung or other competitors haven't done a great job with this (and of course it's not an easy thing to pull off). Mainstream reporting doesn't have the technical chops to have the imagination, and it's also (maybe unfortunately) not their job to do so. It's probably some sort of failing of communication between engineers and media and mainstream audiences. What you're missing is that much of Apple's value creation and pushing the envelope happens through the ecosystem (that's not an esoteric statement, their ecosystem creates real jobs and real money). We're living in a mobile world, the tools and the distribution are in front of you. I prefer that over an ecosystem where the masses are only given the option to be consumers rather than also participators.

ugh 15y ago

This is a serious question, no sarcasm: What would not have been a marginal update? I’m not quite sure myself. The iPhone 4 was clearly a major update compared to the iPhone 3GS: On the outside the design and materials improved. The resolution of the screen quadrupled and they switched screen technologies to IPS. They improved the camera, added a gyroscope, doubled the RAM and improved the processor. All that at no loss or improvement of battery life. The iPhone 4S does three (or maybe four, depending on whether the RAM was doubled) of the same things. That’s certainly less major. But what could they have done? They could have changed the design. That said, one thing I like about Apple is that they are willing to stick to a design if they like it. Maybe they should have tried to make the phone thinner or lighter (with an otherwise unchanged design), though that would likely have cost battery life. Increasing the resolution of the screen was in no way practical. That’s for all intents and purposes a done project. The pixels are invisible to the human eye and that’s that. Apple would only quadruple the resolution anyway and that’s clearly not practical. Switching technologies would also have been an option, but whether you prefer OLED or (IPS) LCD is more a question of taste than opinion. They could have increased the screen size but I again think that’s more a question of preference. A larger screen is not automatically better and Apple clearly thinks that consistency is worth more than a marginally larger screen. Could they have added sensors? I honestly don’t know. Maybe NFC? Maybe they prefer Bluetooth? They could have switched to 4G but I don’t think that would have been practical. It would just cost too much battery life for too little benefit. Getting everything out of 3G (which they did) is, I think, for now good enough. Yes, this update was less major than the last, but maybe that’s to be expected. I’m not sure whether I would want to call it minor and I don’t think that jumps like from 3GS to 4 are possible every year. Maybe the next update will be of similar scale than the 3GS to 4 jump: They will probably at least switch to 4G.