The iPhone 4S: Faster, More Capable, And You Can Talk To It

What does the “S” stand for? When I ask Apple this, they’re vague in their response. They note that some people say it stands for “Special” or “Super”. Others say it’s for “Speed” — much like the iPhone 3GS, the successor to the iPhone 3G. Or maybe it’s “Storage” (this is the first iPhone with 64 GB option — and with iCloud storage). Or “Sprint” (this is the first iPhone to run on that network in the U.S.) Or perhaps it’s for “Speech” or “Siri”. Either of these last two would get my vote. The point is, the “S” can stand for any number of things depending on who is using the device. Here’s all I know for certain: this is the best iPhone yet. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of talk in the blogosphere following the unveiling of the iPhone 4S last week. Some pundits seemed underwhelmed by what was unveiled on stage. “Where’s the iPhone 5?,” many wondered. Arguing over names is silly — Apple could have easily called this device the “iPhone 5″. But I assume they chose not to for the same reason that some actually felt underwhelmed: the iPhone 4S looks exactly like the iPhone 4. Fair or not, if a device looks the same, many will assume it is largely the same. But that would be selling the iPhone 4S well short. While it does look the same as the iPhone 4, the 4S contains innards that are a significant upgrade over the previous model. The two biggest changes are the faster chip — the A5 over the A4 — and the much-improved camera. Combine those with the new iOS 5 software, and you have what will definitely be a worthwhile upgrade for many users. And when you throw in the amazing new voice-driven “intelligent assistant” Siri, it becomes a no-brainer, in my mind. These are the aspects I’m going to focus on.

The A5 First of all, the iPhone 4S blows away the iPhone 4 when it comes to speed. For the past week, I’ve been testing all of my most-used apps and the differences range from solid to awesome. At first glance, the speed difference may seem subtle. But over time, it adds up and becomes apparent. I would switch back to my iPhone 4 and get frustrated by the lag. Apps that used to take a longer time to perform a task — applying a filter in Camera+, for example — now work much faster. More generally, every app seems to load quite a bit faster. The best way to see this is to load the Settings app that is built into iOS. On the iPhone 4, it can take up to 3 seconds to load. On the iPhone 4S, it loads in less than a second. And the 4S is faster at switching between apps when multi-tasking. Better still is the performance boost that games get. Apple showcased Infinity Blade 2 during their demo last week, but the improvements to even less graphic-intensive games is impressive. Apple says that graphics can render up to seven times quicker thanks to the A5.

The Camera The camera is an even bigger deal to me. As I’ve been following for some time, and Apple noted last week, the iPhone has become the most popular camera in the world if you go by the images uploaded to Flickr. And it’s not even close. This new camera in the iPhone 4S goes above and beyond. And it’s going to push that lead even further. If the point-and-shoot market wasn’t in trouble before, it will be now. Much will be made about the upgrade from 5 megapixels to 8 megapixels with the iPhone 4S. But the bigger difference is the engineering behind the new camera. Apple notes with pride that their engineers were able to completely re-architect this tiny camera to produce images that are on par with the nicest point-and-shoots available. They credit five “precision elements” to record incoming light (versus four in the already excellent iPhone 4 camera) and the inclusion of a larger f/2.4 aperture to bring in more light. I was actually in London last week when I got the 4S. For the trip, I brought my Canon S95, a $400 point-and-shoot which is generally considered to be one of the best. I barely used it. While it still bests the iPhone 4S in low-light settings, for all most other environments, it’s hard to tell the difference. Yes, the S95 is still better, but it’s no longer so much better than it can trump a device that I always have in my pocket with me anyway. Yep, point-and-shoots are screwed. (In case that wasn’t already abundantly clear.) Also great is that the iPhone 4S camera can shoot 1080p video for the first time. The iPhone 4 is limited to 720p. The 4S also features video stabilization, to ensure your home videos won’t make viewers want to vomit. Testing this out, it seems to work pretty well.