iPhone 4S Mini Review

Having now had some hands on time with the iPhone 4S, I thought I would post a short review of my first impressions.

The biggest criticism of the iPhone 4S when it was first announced, was that it was not the iPhone 5. But what's in a name? When you consider the iPhone 4S specification and what was expected from the iPhone 5, you realise that all the important enhancements have been included.

For example, the iPhone 4S has the faster A5 dual core processor, it's available with 64GB of storage (up from 32GB), it has a new 8 megapixel camera (with a f/2.4 aperture) and it supports both GSM and CDMA (world phone), as well as Bluetooth 4.0. It also has a new antenna design, aiming to make the "antennagate" a thing of the past.

So what's missing? Well the rumoured iPhone 5 was expected to include a new case design and larger screen. However I think it's fair to say that the iPhone 4S is still one of the best looking smartphones on the market and in my opinion the legendary retina display is still the industry benchmark, in terms of colour, detail and viewing angles. I'm also a believer that the 3.5-inch display is the perfect balance between size and usability, with some other modern smartphones looking more like a tablet then a phone.

With that said, the iPhone 4S design is not perfect and I wish Apple would have added dual-band Wi-Fi and 4G capabilities (even though 4G is not supported in the UK yet). I'm also a little disappointed that Apple didn't take the opportunity to re-design the back glass, because although the front of the iPhone 4S is made out of sturdy Gorilla Glass, the back is not, making it prone to smashing when dropped.

So overall the iPhone 4S is looking in good shape on paper, but what about real world?

Performance

I'm happy to report that the iPhone 4S feels incredibly snappy to use. Switching between applications and opening the camera is flawless, with a noticeable performance improvement over the iPhone 4. I expect to see much bigger improvements when developers start to take full advantage of the Apple A5 chip (like the recently announced Infinity Blade 2). To help backup these findings AnandTech have posted their usual in-depth performance analysis of the iPhone 4S. Shown below are a couple of the key benchmarks.

The first benchmark shows JavaScript performance, using the industry standard SunSpider.

As you can see from the results the iPhone 4S (shown in green) is the fastest smartphone, convincingly beating all modern Android smartphones, including the newly released Samsung Galaxy S II. Another interesting point is the improvements gained by upgrading to iOS 5.0, for example the iPhone 3GS (shown in red) managed to leap up the performance charts. This tells us that the iPhone's new found speed is not just hardware based, but also through software optimisation.

The next benchmark from AnandTech takes into consideration the graphics performance.

As you can see the iPhone 4S shows a significant jump in performance (approximately 7x) over the iPhone 4. It also easily outperforms the current range of Android based smartphones. The only other thing worth noting is that the iPhone 4S did fall short of the iPad 2 performance, this is likely due to a throttled processor (800MHz down from 1GHz), presumably done to maintain battery life and reduce heat.

The New Camera

I'm not a photographer, therefore I'm probably not best placed to review the iPhone 4S camera. However as an average consumer, I can state that it makes an incredible "point and click" pocket camera. With the higher resolution, image quality enhancements and better light levels then the iPhone 4 (as highlighted in the image below), I can honestly say that the iPhone 4S now takes pictures on par (if not better) then my current £300 Sony CyberShot.

In fact it's so good that I will be using the iPhone 4S as my primary camera going forward.

The same comments can be applied to the video recording, which can now record at 1080p (up to 30fps). However in my opinion it's the new video stabalisation that makes the big difference. Once recorded you can edit directly from the iPhone and send via e-mail, message or upload to YouTube.

Siri - Your wish is it's command

I had previously written about Siri in my iPhone 4S introduction article and I'm pleased to report that it's every bit as good as advertised. Siri is able to answer your questions, activate iPhone functions or applications (like music), as well as manipulate your messages, e-mail and calendar, and this is just the start. During my testing I have thrown all sorts of crazy questions at Siri and watched in amazement as it handles each response with a scarily human logic. This is definitely one of those scenarios where you need to experience Siri for yourself to fully appreciate the brilliance behind the technology. Therefore instead of me trying to explain in words how well Siri works, I'll point you towards a MacWorld video that demonstrates Siri in action. 

Did I mention, Siri is amazing! Just like Apple described it's able to understand your meaning and not just your voice. This makes using Siri fast, painless and intuitive, something that has never been achieved before with a consumer device. Siri even has a personality of its own, sometime responding with joke answers and even sarcastically (I'll let you find this out for yourself).

The only negative comment I have is that some of Siri's features are currently only available in the US. For example, if you try and do an address search or ask for directions you get a disappointing "Only in the US" response. Apple have stated that these missing features will be made available in the UK from December.

Conclusion:

Some will argue that the iPhone 4S does not compete with modern Android smartphones, but I disagree. As always with Apple it has never been about specification or what the device can do on paper. Instead its strength is the unity between hardware and software, as Apple knows this is what makes a great user experience. The iPhone 4S continues this trend, offering phenomenal performance, as well as enhancing the user experience through Siri, which I think will just keep getting better and better.

So would I recommend an iPhone 4S for existing iPhone users? If you are currently using an iPhone 3G or 3GS then this is an obvious upgrade. When you combine the advantages of the iPhone 4 with the performance improvements and brilliance of Siri, the iPhone 4S upgrade will simply blow your mind. However, the story is not quite as straight forward if you already have an iPhone 4. It's clear that the iPhone 4S is a much better device, but that doesn't make the iPhone 4 any less good. Therefore I would recommend you ask yourself if the better camera or Siri is something that you would use. If the answer is no, then I would advise holding off. This recommendation might change once developers start taking advantage of the new A5 processor, but for now the day to day differences will be minimal.

What happened to the iPhone 5?

As I'm sure you've heard, last week Apple officially announced the launch of the next generation iPhone. However, prior to the event, there had been a lot of speculation that Apple would release two new devices, an iPhone 4S and an iPhone 5. This seemed plausible, due to the 15 months gap between the last iPhone and the sheer number of corroborating rumours. Instead we only got one device, the iPhone 4S, which on the outside is identical to its predecessor, but includes all new internals. So what happened to the mythical iPhone 5?

I think it’s clear that Apple had never planned to release the iPhone 5 at this time, however the number of similar rumours pointing towards a larger display and new "tear drop" design was a little difficult to ignore. It all started 6 months ago, with suggestions that Apple had lost a prototype iPhone from a Foxconn factory, of which the device specification and case design had been leaked. This prompted a number of media outlets and blogs to produce mock-ups, like the one from MacRumors shown below.

Due to the detail of the leak and the elegance of the design, everything seemed credible and even reliable industry sources such as Joshua Topolsky were reporting it as real. All of this "false evidence" seemed to validate the industries thoughts that this was indeed the iPhone 5. In fact, as a show of peoples confidence a number of case manufacturers went ahead and started creating cases based on this design.

So was there any truth in the iPhone 5 rumor? Unfortunately we will probably never know, however I believe, due to the number of corroborating rumours and their sources, that there was at least some truth. It is even possible that this was actually a prototype iPhone, as I am sure Apple are experimenting with a number of different designs and styles.

Will this be the iPhone 5? Probably not, even if this was an iPhone 5 prototype, with the release of the iPhone 4S we have to assume that it will be at least 8 months (June 2012) before Apple will announce the iPhone 5. That leaves plenty of time for additional development and design changes.

So for now we have the iPhone 4S, which itself is an amazing product and should hopefully be enough to keep people happy until the truth about the iPhone 5 is revealed.

Introducing the iPhone 4S

After months of speculation Apple finally unveiled the new iPhone.

Unsurprisingly most of the rumors (including my own) were proven false and Apple didn't give the world the iPhone 5, with an all new case design. Instead we got the iPhone 4S, which like the iPhone 3GS, retains the design of the previous model, but adds a number of new enhancements.

The full specification of the iPhone 4S can be seen below, courtesy of Engadget:

Besides the obvious faster processor, more memory and better camera, the iPhone 4S does have one truly unique selling point and that's Siri, your voice activated personal assistant.

Siri is actually based on technology that Apple acquired almost two years ago and it was previously available as an application from the AppStore. However, over the past two years Apple have been working hard to integrate it directly into iOS.

So what makes Siri so special? Well we've all used voice activated systems in the past and mostly found them to be simplistic and frustrating to use. Siri aims to change this experience by going beyond just understanding your voice, to actually understanding your meaning. This could, if it works, be a very big deal. 

For example, instead of having to speak a pre-defined command, such as "what will the weather be like today", you could instead ask "will I need an umbrella today". This is the same question, but phrased differently and is something that would normally cause a voice activated system to fail. It is this natural language processing that makes Siri so special and could be the first step towards consumer level artificial intelligence (similar to what you see in movies like Iron Man). To see Siri in action, check out the video from Apple below: 

As you can see from the video, Siri can answer your questions, activate iPhone functions or applications (like music), as well as manipulate your messages, e-mail and calendar. If Siri doesn't know the answer to a question then it will automatically query web services such as Wolfram Alpha.

In a slightly unusual move for Apple, they have currently stamped Siri as a beta product, however this might be due to the fact that it currently only works with a small number of languages - English (US, UK, and Australia), French and German. It is also important to note that Siri is only compatible with the iPhone 4S and not any previous iPhone models.

So is Siri and the specification bump enough to make me buy a new iPhone? Honestly, I'm not sure yet. Although the voice technology looks incredible (and a massive jump over the competition), I'm not sure how much I would actually use it. As a result I don't feel any pressure to jump to the iPhone 4S immediately and instead might wait until next year for the inevitable iPhone 5, which I assume will include a full re-design. If, however, you are sold, then you can pick up an iPhone 4S in the UK on the 14th October, with pre-orders starting on Friday.

Finally, Apple also announced that the 12th October will be the official launch date for iOS 5.0 and iCloud, with the Golden Master (GM) available to developers from today. So even if you don't fancy upgrading to an iPhone 4S, at least existing iPhone customers will have something new to play with next week.