The story with the iPhone 4S is obviously all about the software, and while you might be bummed about not seeing a major external hardware revision, you should know that Apple has introduced some serious new features into the language of the iPhone.
Most notable of those features is the devices personal assistant, otherwise know as Siri, which is a voice-controlled secretary of sorts which translates commands and questions into human language answers and actions. I had a chance to use this feature during our brief demo, and if I wasnt blown away during Scott Forstalls presentation on stage, this definitely changed my mind.
Siri is unique in the fact that you can ask it familiar, natural language questions like show me movie theaters in the area and it will return a real, readable answer and a list sorted by proximity. You can also say things like wake me up at 6AM, and it will set your alarm. But basic tasks like that are only half the story.
Siri works on the idea of logic and context, so when you say you want it to wake you up, youre starting a conversation with the phone which it is actively following. If you want to sleep in a bit, you can say something like change my alarm time, and it knows what youre talking about it will prompt you for a new time.
Even more impressive is its ability to work out your calendar events. I asked the phone to schedule a meeting at 3:30 PM, only to be told that I already had a meeting at 4. And would I like to change my other meeting time? Yes Siri, I would.
Taken one by one, this might not sound like much, but in use I found it kind of staggering. I wasnt speaking slowly (as Scott did during the event) or even trying very hard to sound clear. There was background noise. But it really worked, and worked well. Some of my requests were more specific (Show me theaters that are playing Moneyball) and didnt return the results I wanted. Siri knew I said Moneyball and seemed to know it was a movie (it capitalized the title), but couldnt tell me where it was playing.
The software is still in beta, even at launch, so I expect connections like that will be made sooner or later.
Otherwise, the performance of the phone seemed very snappy compared with the older model, though I wouldnt say the iPhone 4S appears to be obviously faster if youre just darting around the homescreen and opening apps. Siri did seem to speedily pull up answers and forms for text messages and the like but it wasnt exactly blowing my mind.
Other iOS 5 improvements were obviously on-board, and they do make the iPhone feel significantly more modern. Particularly, the new notifications are a welcome break from the previous, annoying interstitials which iOS offered.
Everything I saw today, however, is the kind of feature which you need to live with to fully appreciate. At least, that was my strong impression. I think that in the forthcoming days and weeks, well have an opportunity to explore those features much more deeply. In the meantime, you should check out Paul Millers thoughts on Siri, and keep your browser tuned to TIMN for information that will be both exciting as well as mentally and spiritually enriching.
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