Iphone 4S not what people wants

[alyarb]

stay with ios4 kev. get the features you need via JB but if history tells us anything, IOS5 will be somewhat deliberately slow on the older hardware.

 

[Ns1]

I see what you are saying but...

I doubt that AnandTech is Apple's target demographic.
People on AnandTech are "geeks". "Geeks" generally weigh specs over functionality. Specs are how "geeks" compare penis size.

:thumbsup:

 

[Spicedaddy]

Keeping my iPhone 4 until next year when I can get another subsidized phone, so more money in my pocket. 🙂

People were expecting too much because it's 4 months late. Had they announced this in June, it would've made perfect sense.

 

[Mopetar]

I think it was fairly unreasonable to expect a larger screen. It would have made the production ramp difficult due to many other components changing. Also adding a larger SoC like the A5 probably made the design challenging enough without making other major changes.

We'll probably see a major design overhaul when the iPhone 5 comes out. The big question is whether that will be next year's model or if it will come in two years after a 4GS model that adds LTE/WiMax.

I'm also interested in how this will affect Apple's update cycle. Will their next model release be scheduled for the regular July timeframe, or have they permanently moved to an October release schedule.

My guess is that they originally wanted to release the iPhone 5 around July, but ran into design issues and decided that there was no way they could get production to ramp up in time. The 4S provided a more gradual transition, making the design process easier and ensuring that they would be able to manufacture enough phones to meet early demand.

 

[Ns1]

I think it was fairly unreasonable to expect a larger screen. It would have made the production ramp difficult due to many other components changing.

they had 18 months (or w/e) to figure it out!

 

[Mopetar]

Keeping my iPhone 4 until next year when I can get another subsidized phone, so more money in my pocket. 🙂

People were expecting too much because it's 4 months late. Had they announced this in June, it would've made perfect sense.

It's an Apple product. People are always expecting it to do everything and the frothing-at-the-mouth-mad bloggers fueling the rumor mill don't help. If you don't expect the moon, you might not be disappointed.

This is why I think that the 4S will sell exceptionally well, even if everyone on this forum thinks otherwise. The mainstream public doesn't pay attention to these rumors and most probably didn't know that a new iPhone was coming soon anyways, but they'll see the nice commercials and decide to buy one.

 

[_Aurel_]

I honestly don't understand why Apple didn't choose to update the chassis and screen. For starters, they could have bumped up the screen size from 3.5" to 3.7" or even 4.0" without compromising much in overall size, which for a lot of people would have addressed usability issues on having the screen being too small to use (and capture some of Android's market with larger touch screens). Also, there's no denying that having a glass back is a major design flaw that lends to the phone easily cracking/breaking when dropped. A metallic back at the last would have cut that down significantly.

The hardware upgrade is significant, and it probably puts the iPhone in the top-tier, or even at the very top, in terms of gaming and application performance, but the fact that a 3gs is still being made in factories and sold off to people means that few developers will take advantage of that capability because they'll want to make games that are catered to the lowest common denominator.

EDIT: One more thing, but $399 for a top-tier model (64 gb), on a contract, is just plain ridiculous. How is it that Apple couldn't get the price down to $299? At where I work, hardly anyone ever picks out the 32gb, and apple must be nuts if they expect to move the $399 version in any amount of reasonable quantity.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

i thought theyd miss a beat without steve in charge but this is pathetic....

 

[ew915]

I honestly don't understand why Apple didn't choose to update the chassis and screen. For starters, they could have bumped up the screen size from 3.5" to 3.7" or even 4.0" without compromising much in overall size, which for a lot of people would have addressed usability issues on having the screen being too small to use (and capture some of Android's market with larger touch screens). Also, there's no denying that having a glass back is a major design flaw that lends to the phone easily cracking/breaking when dropped. A metallic back at the last would have cut that down significantly.

The hardware upgrade is significant, and it probably puts the iPhone in the top-tier, or even at the very top, in terms of gaming and application performance, but the fact that a 3gs is still being made in factories and sold off to people means that few developers will take advantage of that capability because they'll want to make games that are catered to the lowest common denominator.

EDIT: One more thing, but $399 for a top-tier model (64 gb), on a contract, is just plain ridiculous. How is it that Apple couldn't get the price down to $299? At where I work, hardly anyone ever picks out the 32gb, and apple must be nuts if they expect to move the $399 version in any amount of reasonable quantity.

I think they wanted to make a radical change with lte

Sent from my ADR6400L

 

[Ravynmagi]

I'm disappointed and surprised. But I don't want to use words "fail" or "pathetic".

I think the rumor sites did a really good job at making up an iPhone 5 device that apparently didn't exist and that iPhone 5 they created with the 4 inch display and very thin body looked like a really impressive design.

If it wasn't for those iPhone 5 rumors I imagine there would be a lot less disappointment with the iPhone 4S. It's pretty impressive if you weren't expecting a 4 inch display and new sleek design.

Think Apple just got wounded by the hype machine that had served it so well in the past.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Biggest disappointment is the storage capacities.

iPhone 4 16GB should be at 99$, not 8GB...

iPhone 4S should come with 32GB or 64GB at the 199$/299$ price points.

Nobody's going to pay 399$ for a phone on a contract.

 

[SpicyTime]

I honestly don't understand why Apple didn't choose to update the chassis and screen. For starters, they could have bumped up the screen size from 3.5" to 3.7" or even 4.0" without compromising much in overall size, which for a lot of people would have addressed usability issues on having the screen being too small to use (and capture some of Android's market with larger touch screens).

A lot of people seem to be complaining about this fact. However, you need to realize that it sounds simple to bump up the screen size, but it's actually a huge undertaking.

First, Apple would need to design entirely new machine processes to manufacture a new 4" phone shell. This in and of itself is already expensive and time-consuming. Plus, Apple products have very tight tolerances, so it makes it that much harder. This means you want to reuse mechanical designs wherever possible.

Second, the antenna on the iPhone 4 is the piece of metal that wraps around the phone. Lengthening the antenna to fit a new 4" phone frame is another huge overhaul, since antenna frequencies are directly related to its geometry. It might not even be possible to use that metal piece as an antenna anymore, so you'd have to stick with a traditional antenna inside the phone itself.

I'm sure there are tons more issues to think about, but just addressing these two means an entirely new phone design from scratch. From a business perspective, it makes sense to re-use their iPhone 4 mechanical design and milk it as much as they can. It brings it more revenue AND gives you more time to design a completely new phone, one that actually could be 4".

 

[purbeast0]

best part about this is the majority of the people really calling it a 'fail' and complaining about it are the people in the android camp who wouldn't switch to an iphone to save their dying mother.

 

[TheStu]

Biggest disappointment is the storage capacities.

iPhone 4 16GB should be at 99$, not 8GB...

iPhone 4S should come with 32GB or 64GB at the 199$/299$ price points.

Nobody's going to pay 399$ for a phone on a contract.

My assumption is that 64GB single chip NAND is still prohibitively expensive, even with Apple's buying power. Pricing it at $399 means that they can maintain their profit margins, and ensures that not too many people buy it (which would also help in the event that the yields on 64GB NAND are insufficient).

 

[Mopetar]

they had 18 months (or w/e) to figure it out!

It's not as though immediately after the iPhone 4 that they'd already immediately conceived of and perfected the next design. If they want to change the hardware, they need to work with other companies to see what's feasible to manufacture in large quantities. Never mind taking time to thoroughly test things to make sure that they work well before committing to purchasing massive quantities of components.

They probably tried several different designs, as evident from the leaked photographs and mockups. For whatever reason they either decided that the design wasn't polished enough or that there wasn't any way to get the components that they needed in the quantity that they needed.

If I had to guess, I'd say the biggest issue would be putting a large SoC inside of a slimmer body while trying to add a bigger screen at the same time and expecting to have good battery life. Once they can get 28 nm SoCs and baseband chips, such a design might actually be feasible.

 

[sagrada]

I doubt a screen size will happen for Apple - it doesn't fit in their mantra of form over function, and a large part of their target demographic is certainly women, where bigger phones aren't going to work well. My Evo I'm 100% used to now, but I can see why people with smaller hands would have difficulties

I like the galaxy S2, but man I would feel dirty purchasing it. They are such an unimaginative, copycat company. They don't innovate at all.

Seeing the top 10 "new" features of iOS5... I now know who is the copycat company.

Epic fail.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I honestly don't understand why Apple didn't choose to update the chassis and screen. For starters, they could have bumped up the screen size from 3.5" to 3.7" or even 4.0" without compromising much in overall size, which for a lot of people would have addressed usability issues on having the screen being too small to use (and capture some of Android's market with larger touch screens). Also, there's no denying that having a glass back is a major design flaw that lends to the phone easily cracking/breaking when dropped. A metallic back at the last would have cut that down significantly.

The hardware upgrade is significant, and it probably puts the iPhone in the top-tier, or even at the very top, in terms of gaming and application performance, but the fact that a 3gs is still being made in factories and sold off to people means that few developers will take advantage of that capability because they'll want to make games that are catered to the lowest common denominator.

EDIT: One more thing, but $399 for a top-tier model (64 gb), on a contract, is just plain ridiculous. How is it that Apple couldn't get the price down to $299? At where I work, hardly anyone ever picks out the 32gb, and apple must be nuts if they expect to move the $399 version in any amount of reasonable quantity.

Regarding the screen size, I agree it should have been bigger, even just a little bit bigger, but it would have probably required a pretty major redesign. The iPhone 4 has tiny side bezels and enormous top and bottom bezels. They couldn't just make the screen taller; they'd have wanted to keep the resolution the same in order to maintain compatibility with existing apps, so they would have had to make it wider. Which still would have been worth it, but maybe the cost of doing that was too great.

I don't even know though. You'd think when you're selling the single most popular smartphone in the world, and you take an extra couple months to release the new version, you wouldn't get too hung up on something like changing the shape slightly to accommodate a larger screen.

As for the memory, it's just margin building. Of course 16 GB of flash memory only costs a couple bucks, but the iPhone has no SD card slot so they're banking on you overpaying for more capacity out of worry that you'll run out of space later. It's sort of like paying Apple out the ass for RAM upgrades, except you can't do the upgrade later on your own.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

steve must be turning in his grave at this announcement

 

[Kev]

AT&T version. White.

by version I meant hard drive size. I thought all these phones were going to work on both ATT and VZ

 

[trmiv]

I see what you are saying but...

I doubt that AnandTech is Apple's target demographic.
People on AnandTech are "geeks". "Geeks" generally weigh specs over functionality. Specs are how "geeks" compare penis size.

Apple's target demographic isn't "geeks". If it was "geeks" then it wouldn't be cracking down on jail breaking.

Aside from Siri and other iOS 5 features isn't that pretty much what Apple pumped today anyway? Specs? It was them talking about CPU performance, megapixels, etc. Most people don't give a shit about that stuff either. A lot of those types will get the 4 for $99 if buying new.

 

[Ns1]

Aside from Siri and other iOS 5 features isn't that pretty much what Apple pumped today anyway? Specs?

let me rephrase what you're saying here:

Except for the non-spec stuff they mentioned, all they mentioned was specs?

 

[Red Storm]

I was expecting a competitor to the Nexus Prime. Disappointing to say the least. I would buy the already released SGS2 over this rehash.

Looks like Samsung is going to get my money this round.

 

[trmiv]

let me rephrase what you're saying here:

Except for the non-spec stuff they mentioned, all they mentioned was specs?

Most of the things they mentioned are features of iOS 5 which you can get on your iPhone 4.

For the 4S they were pimping features like "30% more sharpness, and a f/2.3 aperture" "60% more pixels" "73% more light" "26% better auto white balance" "2X faster CPU" "7x faster graphics" etc. If a majority of people don't care about screen size as a spec, do they really care about all that? Aside from Siri what is the major advantage of a 4S to all of these "non-geeks" that don't give a shit about specs?

 

[Ns1]

Most of the things they mentioned are features of iOS 5 which you can get on your iPhone 4.

For the 4S they were pimping features like "30% more sharpness, and a f/2.3 aperture" "60% more pixels" "73% more light" "26% better auto white balance" "2X faster CPU" "7x faster graphics" etc. If a majority of people don't care about screen size as a spec, do they really care about all that? Aside from Siri what is the major advantage of a 4S to all of these "non-geeks" that don't give a shit about specs?

Pardon the obvious, but if we discount iOS5 (ie the software in a phone) then else is there to talk about on a phone besides specs?


All my GF is going to hear (coming from a 3GS) is better camera, faster, Siri

 

[s44]

Pardon the obvious, but if we discount iOS5 (ie the software in a phone) then what the fuck else is there to talk about on a phone besides specs?

Apple's magical design. The iOS thing would be big if it were a reveal... but it was all aired months ago.

All my GF is going to hear (coming from a 3GS) is better camera, faster, Siri

That's cause she hasn't listened to any other manufacturers. 😉