This morning, In Cupertino, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the new iPhone 4s. Not 4Gs, because the previous iPhone wasn’t the iPhone 4G. It was the iPhone 4. 4G is a cellular data network. The reason the 3G was named thusly was because it was able to take advantage of AT&T’s 3G network. If anyone starts calling it the 4Gs in the comments, I will firebomb this motherfucker.
Now. Because I had to sit through like 75 minutes of crap to get to the one thing everyone wanted, I’ve decided that I’m not going to suffer alone. I’m going to go over EVERYTHING they talked about.
First, Tim Cook got up and did all this talking about how great Apple is. He was all, “Blah blah blah, OSX Lion took two weeks to reach 10% of the user base. Windows 7 took 20 weeks to reach that number.” Except, Apple’s user base is like 58 million (Apple’s stat), and Windows reaches like 700 million people. A lot of that number is businesses who can’t just jump on a new OS right when it comes out. Also, Lion is like $30. Windows 7 is like three times that. So, using my not-at-all-scientific reasoning, it took Apple two weeks to hit 5.8 million users, while it took Microsoft 20 weeks to hit 70 million users. Let’s see, carry the one… it took Microsoft two weeks to hit 7 million people. Wow. It sounds a lot less impressive when you say it that way.
Apple talked about new stores opening in places where none of us are (mostly China), so, whatever. Save this part for the shareholder’s meeting. Bring out the products! I want to hear about how your company will shape how I do normal everyday things like make a phone call or listen to music or send a greeting card.
Wait, what?
Yes. Send a greeting card. Apple announced some new card app where you tell them what you want, they make it, print it out, and mail it. You get an alert sent to your iPhone upon delivery. YAY! This is exactly what I’ve been waiting for! Now I have new ways to never send a card to anyone! The cards will cost $2.99 for domestic shipping, $4.99 international. That app will be out on Oct. 12th. Be sure to pick that up. If you want me to make fun of you.
Then, the spent like five days on stuff they already covered back in June with iOS 5. This was like the “Previously, on L O S T” section of the event. I’m not going to go through the list, but it was a bunch of stuff that I was supposed to be all excited about, when I just sat there and wondered why it wasn’t in iOS 1.0. Stupid stuff like over the air updates and tabbed browsing in Mobile Safari. Really? A browser with tabs? Is it 2003 already? I’ll be right back, I have to call South East Asia and warn them about a tsunami (I totally stole that joke from XKCD). iOS 5 drops on October 12.
Next on the agenda was iCloud. Once again, something covered in June. There’s a streaming music service and a free replacement for MobileMe. Frankly, I didn’t understand why MobileMe wasn’t free to begin with, but I bought it anyway so I could push calendar and email updates to all of my devices. It seemed stupid to pay a hundred bucks a year for that, but the work arounds were all pretty hokey. You also get 5GB of cloud storage for free. Not really enough for music, but more than plenty for syncing pics and documents to all of your iDevices wirelessly. That is also going live on October 12th.
iPods were next. They’ve embraced the idea that the Nano can be used as a watch (I actually really want to do this), so they designed some more clocks for it, including a Mickey Mouse face. Those are $129 for 8GB, $149 for 16GB. You can get those right now. The iPod touch doesn’t change much, but it gets iOS 5 and I think some Game Center improvements. Whoopee. For those of you who care for some unfathomable reason, they’re going to make it in white. The prices on those are $199 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB,and $399 for 64GB. That’s right – 64GB. The Shuffle and iPod Classic did not get mentioned, which gives a bit more fuel to the rumors that those are going to be discontinued. However, as of press time, they’re still in the Apple Store, and still in stock.
Now we get to the iPhone. It’s the 4s. It has Apple’s new A5 processor, which is dual-core, and also has a dual-core graphics chip, which they are saying is 7X faster than the iPhone 4. Because when I’m making a call or checking email or looking up directions, I needs me some faster graphics. They really seem geared towards marketing this thing as a gaming device as well. Maybe I’m just an Old, but the majority of my gaming on my phone is spent with Bejeweled. I have an X Box and PS3 for other stuff. I don’t want to play Splinter Cell on my phone. The battery is better, I guess. They gave some stats, but didn’t say how that improved on the previous phone’s battery performance. You’re still going to have to charge this thing every night, which I don’t think is too much to ask. It has what sounds like a diversity antenna system. There are two antennae, and it can switch back and forth between them. I don’t know if they both are transmit/receive, or one is transmit, and one is receive, but they say it’s going to make for better reception, which is fantastic. Last night, I was trying to look at the Yankee score (all of you shut up), and had no reception. I live in a metropolitan area with a population of 750,000. I found the fact that I couldn’t make a call outdoors, smack in the middle of that pretty ridiculous. Hopefully their new antenna voodoo helps.
The phone also has faster download speeds. Over the cellular network, it can hit 14.4 Mbps (the little b is bits). I guess the old one was 7 Mbps, or something. That sounds fantastic, but I never hit 7 Mbps on my phone in my life. Instead of displaying these completely useless numbers that are reached in a faraday cage five feet from a cell tower, with no other phones on the network, how about they take a guy outside and show you what the real-world speeds are? Because they say it’s twice as fast, but if anyone can actually download an app over 3G twice as fast with this phone, I will eat Fred’s cats.
Now is when they spent what felt like five hours on the camera. Does anybody really care about this? It’s a camera. Attached to a phone. You want a camera, BUY A CAMERA. It’s 8 mega pixels, has a backside illuminated sensor, 73% more light per pixel than the iPhone 4, has a five element lens…ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. Huh? What’s that? Sorry, I seemed to have dozed off for a second. What was I talking about? The camera? Oh yeah. It can go down to f/2.4ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.
It’s a camera attached to a phone. You’re going to take drunk pictures of your junk and text it to people. How sophisticated do you need that to be? The only interesting thing I heard about the camera was that it was the same one that Sony unveiled earlier in the year, and the reason the phone didn’t come out in June was because the Japanese quake and tsunami delayed production of it. But, I heard that on twitter from someone who I don’t know at all and have no idea as to their credentials. So, I’m going with that story.
Here’s the really cool part about the phone: Siri. Siri was a third party app that tried its hand at voice control. I never used it. Apple bought it, and then it disappeared. Well, now it’s back. In pog form.
On the 4s, Siri is integrated. It’s basically a voice activated personal assistant. They gave a limited demo, but it really looks fantastic. It understood normal questions — “Will I need a raincoat today?” was answered with the weather app and the reply “Looks like rain today.” It can read texts to you, and take your response by dictation. It can set appointments, find restaurants, give directions, define words, search wikipedia, do currency conversions, check the market, ALL VOICE ACTIVATED. This was the part in the announcement where I woke up and messed my pants. It’s fucking HAL in a phone. You know, minus killing the entire crew. At launch, it will understand English, French, and German. More languages will follow.
So, to recap my attitude today, Bullshit stats… Stupid products nobody will use… Stuff you covered in June… New Nano that I kind of want… White touches… Phone I was expecting, with only processor improvements… HOLY SHIT YOU CAN TELL YOUR PHONE WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR VOICE AND HAVE IT ANSWER YOU.
The iPhone 4s comes out on October 14, and runs $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB. You can still get the 4 for $99 for the 8GB version, and the 3Gs is free. All with a contract.
I’m still not going to buy it.
Image via Wikipedia.
