Posts tagged iPhone 4S
Robin Williams’ Siri Impression
— Love this, very funny!
Apple iPhone 4S accounted for 42.8 per cent of all UK mobile phone sales in October
This clearly won’t be sustainable, but it highlights just how impressive Apple’s launch of the iPhone 4S has been. And, as the majority of this growth is from people upgrading, it emphasises how loyal iPhone users are.
iPhone 4S Becomes Second Most Popular Cameraphone on Flickr
It took just 5 weeks. The only one ahead of it? The iPhone 4.
By the way, numbers three and four? The iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS.
One Android phone did manage to beat the original iPhone though — the HTC EVO 4G, places a distant fifth. Let’s remember that the original iPhone is over 4 years old.
Wait, actually, looking at the data, Flickr isn’t even counting the original iPhone anymore. Maybe that’s because there are not a lot of pictures, but maybe not.
Regardless, the EVO did beat the iPod touch. I think. It’s not clear if they count that in the “smartphone” category.
It also boasts a 0.7 megapixel camera. Tough competition.
The most popular camera overall across all of Flickr? Still the iPhone 4. Soon to be dethroned by the iPhone 4S, no doubt.
Let’s also remember that the Flickr numbers don’t include Instagram photos because those are stripped of the metadata by iOS. In other words, the iPhone isn’t just beating every other smartphone out there when it comes to picture taking, it’s likely destroying them. And probably most point & shoots as well.
This really does beg the question: what do Android users do with their phones?? I’ve written before questioning whether many Android users have any clue they have a smartphone that does more than, you know, just handling calls and texts.
UPDATE:
Of course, a more relevant assessment would, I think, be pictures uploaded to Facebook.
Observations on the iPhone 4S battery life
When I first got my iPhone 4S last week I was, as you can imagine, delighted to have my new Apple toy. I was really happy with everything about it. Apart from just one thing: the battery.
From the outset I was noticing that the battery was draining significantly faster than I experienced with my iPhone 4.
As you do, I started to search around on Twitter and Google and quickly discovered that I wasn’t alone with this issue.
There were numerous suggestions for ways to reduce the speed of the battery drain. My issue with this though was that nearly all of them were suggestions to switch off things like push updates, location services, and notifications. I don’t want to have a phone with loads of amazing features but then have to switch them all off to get decent battery life!
I then came across one suggestion of doing a full restore of the iPhone. This meant plugging my phone into iTunes, choosing the ‘Restore’ option, waiting for the operating system to download afresh from Apple, installing that, and then restoring my iPhone from my backup.
And you know what? It did make a difference. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as my first impressions had hoped for, but the battery life was and is noticeably better as result. But, to be clear, it was still not on a par with what I was getting with the iPhone 4.
I kept my eye on Twitter for any other suggestions being shared and one popped up which talked about ‘calibrating’ the battery. This basically means charging the battery to 100% and then letting it completely drain to nothing before charging it again. (Incidentally, Apple recommends you do this once a month.)
I did this yesterday and this too has definitely led to another noticeable boost in battery life. And whilst my iPhone 4S is probably still not quite as good as the iPhone 4, I do think it is now pretty close.
Now clearly I shouldn’t have to do this at all. And for most users, they’re going to never know how to do this or have the inclination to do it. I suspect Apple may release a software update to address the issues meaning that these steps I’ve taken won’t be necessary. But if you are having battery issues and can’t wait for an update from Apple, then I can vouch for the above two steps making a significant difference.
Voice recognition: Which smartphone is the best listener?
Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC technology correspondent, tests out voice recognition on the new iPhone 4S and compares it with the voice recognition that comes with Android:
Both systems are far from perfect. But Android, which was far better than Apple’s old Voice Control system, now appears to have been leap-frogged by Siri.
To be clear, this is a major understatement by Rory. The results from Siri in the test he did were significantly better than what he got from Android via a Samsung Galaxy Tab.
Why Siri is another example of Apple getting something right that competitors consistently fail to
MG Siegler writing about ‘Siri’, Apple’s new intelligent assistant that comes with the iPhone 4S:
Google’s voice search and Siri may look comparable on paper. But in reality, one is something best used by a robot, the other is something best used by a human. And robots don’t buy phones — at least not yet.
In the bigger picture, this is something that Apple seems to understand time and time again that their rivals do not. Technology is an ever-important part of everyones’ lives, but the only way to make it truly accessible to the vast majority of users is to humanize it. That’s Siri. Google, Microsoft, etc — they all fail miserably at doing this.
I’m sure in a few weeks, we’re going to see Google come out and say, “wait, but look, we can do all of the stuff Siri can do too!” They’ll tweak their voice recognition to pick up more human phrases, etc. But it won’t matter. They already lost the mindshare battle. Yes, Android had better voice controls first, but if you ask anyone on the street right now which is the phone with the awesome voice controls, they’ll tell you it’s the iPhone.
The whole article is well worth the read. And MG Siegler is spot on in his analysis that Apple have managed to yet again take a technology and make it relevant the masses by humanising it.
A practical comparison of the Apple iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S II and Motorola Droid Bionic
The Next Web does a detailed benchmark breakdown of the current crop of top smartphones on the market.
The Galaxy S and iPhone hold up well against one another as good examples of the top of the line (at the moment) in iOS and Android devices. The Bionic is indisputably faster over the network and thus can operate as one of the zippiest hotspot devices, and it is built well. But it falls short when it comes to screen quality and especially camera quality.
If you’re interested in the best overall device as determined by benchmarks, the iPhone 4S knocks it out of the park in almost every category.
There are clearly a lot of other factors in play than just the kind of benchmarks involved in these tests, but it is interesting none-the-less. When you factor in the superiority of the Apple app store alongside iTunes and iCloud, the iPhone really is a compelling choice. Little surprise that the iPhone 4S is already the fastest selling iPhone ever and almost certainly going to become the best selling iPhone ever.
It’s official, the iPhone 4S is Christian!
From Joshua Topolsky’s review of the iPhone 4S:
Asking [Siri*] “what is the meaning of life?” will bring up a number of responses, both serious and not so serious. The first time I asked, Siri simply said “42.” If you ask Siri if there’s a god, the software points you in the direction of the nearest church (oddly, no synagogues, Buddhist temples, or mosques are suggested).
*Siri is the new intelligent assistant that comes with the iPhone 4S.
Disappointed with the iPhone 4S? You're crazy or stupid!
John Gruber writes up his thoughts on Apple’s iPhone 4S announcement:
People who claim to be disappointed that Apple’s 2011 new iPhone doesn’t have a bigger display or LTE are effectively arguing that the iPhone should be more like Android. Whereas in truth, the iOS and Android platforms are growing more different over time, not less.
This is a great post. It addresses lots of the issues people raise about the iPhone. For those of you who don’t (or refuse to) get what Apple is all about, this should help. :)
iPhone 4S, Siri and iCloud: what you need to know
This is a really nice breakdown of what Apple is bringing to the table in terms of both hardware and software.
