Quick Look: The iPhone 4S
Today was the big day – the launch of the iPhone 4S, which, for the first time, was available on three nationwide carriers at once in the U.S. Pre-orders were last Friday, and Apple has sold more than 1 million units in less than 24 hours. After much anticipation, people began to receive their handsets today (or earlier in the week, depending on where they are).
I received my iPhone 4S from UPS around 12:30 p.m. PDT and already love it.
Yes, I am writing as an iPhone 4 user that upgraded to an iPhone 4S, despite what some may call a “minor” upgrade. It was also cheaper for me to jump ship from AT&T (upgrade was due for November 25) and go to Sprint, who is now the only one in the U.S. that offers unlimited data for iPhones.
And the end result is that I am very satisfied with my purchase, and here’s why.
Siri
Obviously, the biggest selling point of the iPhone 4S over the last generation iPhone 4 is Siri, the exclusive virtual assistant that can make your life easier.
I was a bit surprised when I first got my 4S and tried to activate Siri by pressing down the home button. To my dismay, Voice Control came up. A quick Internet search made me learn that you will have to enable Siri in Settings>General>Siri. Once I did this, it was good to go.
I tried out Siri for a good while, speaking naturally, and in my normal voice tone. I had no problems with getting Siri to recognize what I was saying, as she would always interpret what I said perfectly on the screen.
If you have used Voice Control on previous iPhones, then you can expect Siri to do the same types of things as that, such as playing a song from Music, calling someone, and more. However, since this is the virtual assistant, Siri can actually do tasks for you, rather than just giving you a shortcut to the app you want.
Sometimes, it may actually be easier to go into the app you want and do it yourself, for example, sending a quick text message (especially if you type fast). But for other tasks, such as creating alarms, calendar events, and reminders, I found Siri to be a huge advantage, and definitely the reason to get a 4S alone.
Simply speaking “create an alarm for tomorrow at 6 a.m.” will automatically create a new alarm for you, no questions asked. If you don’t need your alarms, just say “disable all alarms,” and Siri will comply. No need to check each one off by themselves – Siri takes care of all of that for you.
My favorite way to use Siri is for creating new calendar events. Previously, you would have to go in to the Calendar app, tap on New, then enter in your details, one text field at a time. There is no support for natural language input for the Calendar, but now there is, thanks to Siri. Telling Siri “Lunch tomorrow at 12 p.m. at In-N-Out” will create the new event in your calendar, with some confirmation first. You can also tell Siri to pull up certain events, saving the hassle of doing it yourself.
The natural language input is exceptional when using Siri. It made it feel as if I wasn’t talking to my iPhone; it felt like I was having a conversation with it. It’s your assistant, and should be treated as such, right?
However, since Siri is still technically a beta product, it wouldn’t understand some things I asked it. Trying again, perhaps rephrasing, will eventually work, though by that point, you may have gotten the information faster if you did it yourself. An example was when I asked Siri to “locate Casa de Luna (a coffee shop I frequent),” where I was greeted with “Sorry, I cannot locate stuff in Germany.”
Even with her little flaws, I find Siri to be extremely smart and invaluable. I tried it while driving, and it was great to get a phone call through, even send a quick text message.
The Siri servers did fail a few times today, due to what seems like overwhelming demand for the iPhone 4S. However, when Siri works, it’s a pretty amazing feature.
In all honesty, I believe that Siri alone makes the iPhone 4S worth an upgrade. Life is much easier when you have a virtual assistant.
Camera
During my time with the iPhone 4, I found the camera on it to be great, especially for a phone. However, I was still disappointed sometimes, because my shots would appear darker than they should be and I would always have to readjust the focus and exposure points.
Now the iPhone 4S has the 8 megapixel camera and f/2.4 aperture, which allows more light into the photo. In addition to this, the camera now features better backside illumination sensor, white balance, advanced color accuracy, face detection, and reduced motion blur.
While I played with the camera a fair bit today, I have to say that it’s already a huge improvement over the iPhone 4. While megapixels may not matter as much (unless you print your images on large canvases), the improved aperture really makes a difference. Images appeared clearer immediately, and not as dark as on the iPhone 4.
During my initial use, I found the Face Detection feature to work as advertised. When there is a face in the viewfinder, the iPhone 4S will show a light green box on the face to focus on. This happens immediately, and can focus on up to 10 faces, which is nice.
It’s not about the megapixels, but the other improvements to the camera. Even if you have an iPhone 4, if you care about anything related to iPhone photography, you will definitely appreciate the vastly improved camera specs.
Video
In addition to more megapixels and improved apertures is the ability to take video in 1080p resolution and built-in image stabilization.
Personally, I don’t take too much video. But from my testing today, I found that video taken on an iPhone 4S is much more stable than those taken with an iPhone 4. You won’t be able to see the resolution difference unless you view it on a capable screen, but the image stabilization is very noticeable.
Previously, the iPhone would record video, but it would often result in camera shaking. Image stabilization solves that digitally by slightly zooming in and cropping the footage, so that there isn’t the “home movie camera shake.”
The video recording capabilities on the 4S make it worthy of being your new, standalone camcorder. It will be with you all the time, and won’t require any additional equipment to lug around – it’s definitely a winner.
The Dual-core A5 Chip
Even though the iPhone 4 is a fast phone, the 4S just outdoes it. I noticed a significant increase in speed on the 4S when I did pretty much anything. This increase in speed and processing power is especially noticeable when it comes to playing games on the device.
Big fans of iOS gaming will appreciate this performance boost.
Conclusion
Overall, I found the iPhone 4S to be an excellent upgrade, even from an iPhone 4. The camera and Siri were the big draws for me, and I’m glad that I got it.
Even though some may still think of Siri as impractical, I believe the feature is invaluable and it is the way of the future. I just hope that Siri’s AI doesn’t turn against us anytime soon.
