Note: I was in the middle of writing this post when the news broke of Steve Job. Rather than wait, I think he would’ve wanted us to continue with our lives and support the continuing innovation.
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It’s unfortunate for Tim Cook to take over just prior to the release of the iPhone 4S. With the delay of the annual release of the iPhone, there was pent up demand for a major overhaul of the iPhone 4 design. After problems with the antennae in the iPhone 4 release, people were expecting a new design to come out, something similar to a miniaturized iPad.
However, after reviewing the keynote, I believe that the iPhone 4S is a major breakthrough. The antennae has been enhanced to support intelligent switching between the two to get the best signal possible. It has a dual-core A5 processor, same as the iPad 2. The same processor that runs the iPad is now crammed into the iPhone. We should expect games of the same quality as Xbox’s and Playstation’s.
The iPhone 4S also comes with a brand new 8MP camera with all new lenses and more light captured per pixel. I’m not a photographer so I can’t speak to the specs. That said, this phone’s camera is better than the point and shoot I carry around on trips. That’s one less device to carry.
The camera also captures 1080P HD video. Goodbye already dead Flip Mino. Again, advanced hardware coupled with software will make this little phone an amazing alternative to video cameras.
Couple all of this with iOS5, SIRI, and iCloud and you have a really powerful phone.
Sure, if you compare specs, there are phones with larger screens, faster processors, etc. However, none of them offer the same user experience as the iPhone 4S. No other system out there offers the end to end integration from desktop to laptop to tablet to phone. iCloud ties these systems together seamlessly.
As all the pundits bash on Apple, I believe we’ll look back and say that the iPhone has and always did and will have the best experience bar none.