As expected, Apple announced its new iPhone tonight, dubbed the iPhone 5. The rumours and leaks nailed it, with the most prominent feature being the move from 3.5″ to 4″ (1136×640). Due to the way iOS handles resolutions, applications need to be adapted for this new display, and if they are not, they will be letterboxed (black bars). It has a faster processor, better camera, LTE, and several other improvements, while the. As always, Apple does it right: shipping 21 September in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore – the rest of the world will follow later.
I’m getting one.
It’ll be one of the best phones hardware-wise (although I think Apple painted itself in a corner and now has to settle on this weirdly elongated screen), but iOS… So meh.
The 920 is really killing it here. Too bad Nokia fails at actually shipping it.
I think Nokia tried to announce their Lumia before Apple their iPhone to grab the spotlight, but I don’t think that really worked. The Lumia is already forgotten. And they blew it, no price, no date, no WP8 in sight.
I really wish them the best and honestly hope they’ll grab some marketshare to get this thing going. The Lumia phones (well, not the cheaper ones, sorry) are great phones.
I had to laugh because i had no idea what you were talking about. Guess that goes to show how much people are interested in the new lumia’s.
It didn’t click till i read WP8.
http://www.osnews.com/story/26344/Nokia_unveils_Lumia_WP8_phones
I’ve looked at both the Lumia and iPhone, and two factors that made me pass both are price, and no dual-SIM models, which are pretty popular here in Asia. Android vendors are gaining in the market, with many units dual-SIM models.
As for the display, Lenovo is using a 720~A—1280 5″ screen for its (thus far) China-only K680. That’s HD standard.
Well, that’s sort of a problem. A product that isn’t actually out can’t kill one that is, now can it? Plus it’s windows phone, so just as locked down but without as many apps. Meh.
I love the looks of the Lumias, they’re very pretty and unique. But I don’t want WP8 and after having used my Galaxy Note for half a year now I don’t want a smaller screen, either. Lumia-lookalike with a 5.3″ screen, a proper stylus and Android as the OS and I would be totally sold, though.
Still 920 has the best horizontal resolution on the market (non-pentile 768) beating the Note in it’s own game.
On the HW level it got me excited.
I dream somebody would hack Android into it, but given the amount of custom hardware that will remain… well, a dream.
Resolution has nothing to do with dimensions. It can’t beat Note in its own game when Note’s game was all about large screen and pen, not resolution. And as I said, I want a large screen, the resolution is just fine.
You’re getting one? Good for you. I’m probably getting a Samsung Note 2, as soon as I can convince myself that I neeeeed it and can afford it… which will not happen soon.
Either way, I don’t think we define ourselves in terms of the high-tech toys that we buy, unlike e.g. buying a car. I hope it stays that way – i.e. I hope most early adopters stay meritocratic instead of falling for branding… or punishing apple for putting its shareholders first. It’s no different in that than any other corporation.
I skipped the first iPhone, because it didn’t have GPS and I didn’t believe Steve’s WiFi triangulation solution. My first iPhone was the 3G and now I’m on a 4.
I’ve bought loads of apps, for myself, my son and my wife (she uses my iTunes account on her 3GS), so it only makes sense to keep buying iPhones or I’d have to buy all those apps again on another phone. We have loads of Apple stuff already anyway and I’d like to keep everything the same brand.
My wife’s not so happy with her 3GS battery life, so she doesn’t mind me buying the 5 so she can have my 4.
Happy locked-in users. Cute.
What phone OS doesn’t “lock” me in? I can’t switch from WP <-> BlackBerry OS <-> iOS <-> Android <-> Symbian.
I can’t even switch BlackBerry or Android devices without risking apps not working anymore.
Well Android at least give a decent choice of devices. If you buy into the platform but say, the form factor isn’t for you, you have a choice. If you decide on screen typing isn’t for you, you have a choice. Sure, there happen app incompatibilities, but as long as you steer clear from <$150 area they are an exception.
Just for fun
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/319228_2646894135737…
Sadly it’s reality. Especially my son keeps “borrowing” more and more of my stuff as he’s getting older.
Does it make sense?
How many of those apps do you actually use vs are obsolete or you regret buying?
What is the cumulative price of the apps you actually use?
Is that price bigger that the difference in price between the iPhone and the other phones with better specs?
Yes, I don’t need to replace every bought application, some I can easily miss or may have forgotten all about.
But I’m happy with my iPhone 4 and a 5 is the same, but much better (well, so they tell us). All my iStuff complement each other and share data, it would make no sense for me to use anything else but an iPhone.
Well, my dropbox connected each other too. My firefox, my chrome.
I think to get an Android dual SIM phone for $200, 5.2″ screen, android, mail, google drive, firefox, and dropbox. I think MY Stuff too, complement each other
Yes, I can see you smiling,
If you are connected and happy you too will not likely remove one part of it and replace it with something that works less well together with the rest of your stuff.
I am skipping this one, and my iPhone 4 is probably the last for a while. The hardware is good, but not spectacular (no wireless charging, nor NFC), but iOS seems to be frozen in time. Windows Phone and Android are quickly forging ahead, so I’ll probably get a Nokia Lumia or Google Nexus.
What’s NFC good for? My phone supports it, but I’ve never used it. Yeah, I know I can buy more stuff for it, but buying more stuff just for the sake of it … why would I.
As for the iPhone, it hasn’t delivered anything interesting since the 4’s retina screen.
Everybody was expecting Apple to push NFC, hence the disappointment. Some pundits were even preaching Apple payment would disrupt credit card operators (something I eagerly await given how ridiculous their transaction rates are). Having e.g. IPhone <-> IPad beam like functionality is no-brainer, air play and apple tv pairing would benefit as well. In Apple walled garden that would work better than in open, not yet standardized world.
I believe lack of features has more to do with patent fears than mere complacency on Apple side.
Who keeps bring up this wireless charging crap?
Wireless(inductive) charging is about 1/3 less efficient use of power, it has huge waste compared to direct charging.
Someone did the math and figured if iphones used inductive charging instead of direct cables, it would require more than ONE GIGAWATTS more power use. That would be very irresponsible of a company like Apple that cares about the environment.
Not to mention how stupid it would be to have to have to use inductive plates to charge, when you want to use the phone at the same time its charging, or want to have it suction cuped to your winshield for maps, or want to charge it on the USB port on the plane etc..
People are just whiners and dumb about this stuff.
I’m a HAM, and really hate NFC.
Lots of noise and harmonics on HF bands when you use him.
NFC is the same shit of PLC for us.
I know what NFC stands for, but what about the rest.
HAM? pig?
PLC? Public Limited Company?
Edited 2012-09-13 11:56 UTC
HAM: amateur radio operator
HF: high frequency
PLC: power line communications i.e. interference from power lines
Thanks,
I din’t know ham radio operators referred to themselves as ham.
Either way does nfc really have enough transmission power to affect long distance radio?
In HF a 100mW TX with perfect ionospheric conditions can be heard over all globe.
http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map
But i refer to a locally QRM (noise)
thx!
73
Psst…. Most here know. This isn’t Facebook, but your allegiance is well known.
Yeah, but there is no way to be sure.
The only real temptation (apart from the processor- hey, i’m a techie) I can find to upgrading from my iPhone 4 is the camera. As an amateur photographer those little things matter to me. But no, nothing here has me scrambling for the latest toy.
I find the headphones the most interesting piece of hardware presented by Apple today, didn’t really care about the iphone or the ipods. :/
Is it me or iOS is already showing it’s age?
Even MacOS Classic handled display resolution dynamically, and while even hobby OSes or GUI frameworks can handle it fine, iOS, written only 5-6 years ago, was not designed with multiple resolutions in mind!?!
Well done, guys, congratulations.
Apple had an MO of bizarre hacks in regards to engineering solutions. Sometimes they work well enough, for long enough, for them to fix the problems in the future or dump the original implementation.
In this particular instance they pretty much hacked themselves into a corner.
Incidentally, it is also the reason that the ipad3 has such a large resolution with superfluous pixels that do not make a difference at normal viewing distances.
Edited 2012-09-12 20:25 UTC
System 7.5 for PPC was a hack (gave that nice System error 11)
/will be downvoted by appletards fallowing me around on osnews
Edited 2012-09-13 21:27 UTC
i was right a stupid fucking idiotic appletard downvoted me again
I’m getting this feeling that if you continue down this path, you’re going to experience the first temporary ban on OSAlert in a long while at some point. Just so that you consider teaching yourself about basic respect, self-control, and argumentative skills.
If even I, having a relatively negative opinion of Apple, can find you extremely annoying, I’d be astonished if none of our Apple fans had considered asking Thom about this already.
Edited 2012-09-15 07:31 UTC
i do not care!
Perhaps you should. I’ve given you some tips on how to better behave on a forum and now Neolander is so nice to tell you to tone it down.
Why care if you’re down voted and not when someone is considering a far worse fait?
It’s okay to insult people, it happens in every comment section, but try to do it less blunt and motivate what your statements (and insults).
like i said a few comments back i do not read and discuss comments from trolls
Edited 2012-09-16 17:27 UTC
I’m glad you don’t think I’m a troll anymore. Now if you listen to Neolander’s and my advice you’ll be fine.
do not read what you write because i do not discuss with trolls
I always read what I have written as I take some pride in getting it right with regards to spelling and grammar stuff.
Ah, this is your next tip!
iOS handles random resolutions just fine. The current shipping resolutions are 480×320, 960×640, 1024×768, 1136×640 and 2048×1536.
That being said, everyone designed their apps for 480×320 (and it’s HiDPI version of 960×640) or 1024×768 (respectively 2048×1536).
If the application has a flag that it can handle 1136×640 gracefully (which Apple can’t really be sure of otherwise) it will let it use the whole screen, otherwise, to ensure compatibility with the app they are forcing another window size. It’s the same thing with running iPhone apps on the iPad. If your app declares itself as compatible (which pre-iPad apps wouldn’t), knock yourself out.
It’s a way for Apple to ensure that if the programer made stupid assumptions they are still valid even on the new iPhone. It’s a way for Apple to ensure that old apps still work!
iOS is MacOS with a different Shell and Window Manager so it can easily do what MacOS can.
How others can be stupid enough to use a resolution independent layout manager instead of… letterboxing?
Sorry, but it’s a way for Apple to increase display resolution of a platform on which the software UI API was not design to be resolution independent, nothing more, nothing less.
While 15 years ago it could have some valid reason (limited memory or computation power comes to mind) for such feature being lacked, there is absolutly none for a platform conceived at most 6 years ago.
MacOS Classic used to have several API with Pascal strings format, up to 255 chars max, which leads to duplicate a lot of API to support null-terminated strings instead, and forcing here and there on-the-fly convertion. While I did understand then the history behind to such ugly situation, I today don’t understand why a young OS with lot of (virtual) memory, running on hardware N times more power than any 1990’s computer don’t include a layout manager.
Beside that Apple released it too early, before it has the critical components to support long term evolution.
Maybe the fact that initially third parties apps were not yet planned could also be an explanation, though.
Edited 2012-09-12 21:01 UTC
My guess would be games or badly written apps. This is a developer issue not an iOS issue. iOS is just dealing with badly written apps in a graceful way. Also compounded by Apple’s secrecy, if they had pre-announced the new iPhone having a 4″ screen the devs would be able to have everything updated already (well, most, I assume that again, crappy apps that no one cares about wouldn’t be updated anyway).
So iOS handles random resolutions just fine, it just has no way of letting apps handle random resolutions, which is to say iOS does not handle random resolutions well at all.
iOS handles random resolutions just fine. Apps can and some do handle random resolutions just fine, but most don’t as they haven’t been tested on random resolutions. Presumably due to internal testing results, iOS won’t assume that the app will work just fine so it restricts the resolutions unless the app specifically says it supports that resolution just fine.
I personally know a few games that after adding the iPhone 5 resolution to it’s list of supported resolutions will work as expected with no further code modifications.
Except that it cant handle arbitrary resolutions or viewport sizes. Instead of having a scalable toolkit everything is arranged on a fixed grid.
Those aren’t random resolutions. Most of them are fixed multiples (double each dimension) of the previous resolution.
They basically had two resolutions: 480×320 and 1024×768.
The other two are just multiples of those.
Now they kinda, sorta, added a third: 1136×640.
And they basically made the exact same mistake as the TV makers did when they decided on 1366×768 for “HD Ready”, instead of following the 16:9 standard resolution 1280×720, because keeping the vertical resolution compatible with the standard 1024×768 was oh so much more important than keeping every god damned 720p movie from beeing badly upscaled 86 pixels horizontally and 48 pixels vertically.
1136×640 is NOT 16:9 (nor a standard resolution), 1136/16=71 71*9=639, so they either put a one-pixel black bar for 16:9 content or they upscale that pixel. Sure, most people won’t notice a damn thing, but it’s just not good design, plain and simple.
Now I know you could claim it’s not for viewing movies/videos anyways, but come on, why do you think they finally went with widescreen? Movies and/or videos.
Btw, expect the next iPad to have a 2732×1536 resolution. Hint: it’s a multiple of 1366×768.
Crappy design.
Such a brilliant idea. I hope nobody will copy this but if they do I am sure Apple will sue them.
Nothing like the awful solution in bb10. They should patent it and sue RIM for copying it.
In general the same rules apply (I assume) to iOS as do to MacOS (or linux, or windows). If it’s hardcoded to a certain output resolution (I’d guess mostly games or crappily written apps) then it’ll letterbox, if it’s not (ie: most sane developers) then it stretches properly with the auto-layout or whatever magic the framework provides.
They are not limiting the design for engineering reasons, I think they could have any resolution they want. I think they are limiting resolutions to make it much easier for designers to create apps with good design.
They^aEURTMve fragmented iOS with this screen change now, but I will still argue that they are way less fragmented than say Android. I only create websites, but even there designing and coding for iOS is much easier. (Due to other reasons as well, such as the crapiness of the pre-Chrome Android browser, really looking forward to more people with Jelly Bean.)
I think it looks alright, but it’s not the phone I really want to see changed, but the OS. Does iOS 6 finally allow me to transfer media from my Linux and OpenBSD boxes yet?
SCP/WebDAV/FTP/SMB are all possible with apps in the appstore.
I was talking more along the lines of simple USB transfer (MTP), but I get your point. I thought SCP was only possible with the BSD tools installed, which Apple removed sometime around iOS4 iirc, (can’t remember exactly when, but I was using a 3GS back then) unless you jailbreak.
Either way, I wouldn’t mind recs for SCP and SMB apps, or anything that doesn’t requite a Mac/Winbox with iTunes installed, for future reference. Also, how would you sort the media once transferred to the phone, since iOS doesn’t allow you to manage files?
Edited 2012-09-13 04:07 UTC
Sure they are, but I would appreciate some enlightenment as to how exactly one would then get this media into the music player or another application, seeing as how app store applications are heavily sandboxed. Let’s assume no jailbreaking, make the problem a little harder. So great, I can scp into my ssh client, then what do I do with that file? I can’t get it out of the ssh client, so a fat load of good copying it did.
I thought Samsung was gonna get this banned because of LTE or something?
The trial is still in progress, Samsung has not won anything as of yet.
remember this one ? http://dcurt.is/3-point-5-inches
made half of my day.
True, but if you adjust the second image for the 16:9 ratio (where the i5 didn’t change the screen width, only height) then it doesn’t change *that* much.
That said if apple *hadn’t* changed the screen resolution people would be bitching and complaining just as much
Please remember to update when he blogs what a marvellous idea 4″ screens are.
No wireless charging?
No unbreakable glass?
No standard connector?
No coffee machine?
Where have been all the kill-em-all features we were promised by the apple zealots???
Speaking for myself, I can’t imagine why I would want wireless charging (which, btw, isn’t exactly wireless as that charging dock has to hook up to some electric current via wires after all). I’m on an important business call and my phone battery goes low. At the moment I just plug my charging cord in and keep on moving. If phones have only wireless charging in the future, I’d be pretty screwed in that situation wouldn’t I? Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s better.
You could put it on speaker phone or use a (Bluetooth) headset.
Don’t you want induction charging that would work in a ten foot omnidirectional range ? Gotta love the smell of roasted pacemekers in the morning
P.S : Is it me or are the earphones that no one talks about potentially the most exciting part of this announcement, if they truly have received the attention that Apple claims they have ? I mean, truly good earphones bundled with a tech product — that would be some news.
Edited 2012-09-13 07:30 UTC
I like myself a good set of earphones, but if the earphones are the most exciting part of the announcement then Apple failed on Wednesday.
I let you guess. The name starts with “Sam” :-).
Too bad Apple owns a few too, since their joint acquisition of a bunch of the Nortel patents. Plus since they’re all standards essential and thus RAND, they aren’t that useful in the patent wars.
I’m a long time Apple customer. Still am, but I took a chance on the Lumia 900 while still having my iPhone 4 out of contract.
Wow what a phone. I don’t care what the negative comments on blogs say, I am one of the majority of Lumia owners who are satisfied with it (just look at the Amazon reviews). I traded in my iPhone 4 to Amazon ahead of this announcement for 300 big ones. What a deal!
I’ll be forking over the cash for a 920 ASAP. I didn’t think I’d like Windows Phone but I do.
The built-in integration along with exclusive Nokia attention really does make you forget about how many apps are on Apple’s platform.
There is lots of built-in functionality that just works so seamlessly good without worrying about single apps.
I was waiting with baited breath to see what the iPhone 5 would show, but deep down I knew they couldn’t touch what Nokia displayed last week. Easy decision now.
useless where i live no 4G due to different standard than USA
…. but this is iphone catching up:
– screen aspect ratio
– screen size
– lte
– goodbye heavy breakable glass
– screen resolution
– smaller connector
…
I’m afraid battery will be nothing to rave about, and it’s an important part (adding an important chunk to the cost) of every mobile device.
Anyway lumia 920 weight will be more relevant now, because a new iphone is always the coolest thing around :p
I believe IP5 approach to increasing screen real estate is the most sensible from the point of their existing audience. They didn’t expand the width bc that would compromise the typing efficiency (which is the golden standard in mobile phones imo). And in the world of IPhone that trumps portrait web browsing, not to say Apple wants you use IOS apps to access most of web.
For those (me) that want portrait browsing over one handed use Samsung has 2 excellent slabs. Overall I’m ok with that.
Of course on the SW part their letter-boxing solution is laughably lame. The irony is that Android style layout managers would manage to cope with this better than they do in usual Samsung or HTC phone res extensions (i.e. both dimensions). Apple inspired skeuphomorphic design, based on full background textures and assumed aspect ratios makes matters even worse.
Apple could at least leave an option to utilize the black bar for something useful, like task switching (or Win8 like, 2 apps on a screen approach), richer notifications or a better clock.
What I’m really missing is the fingerprint reader embedded in a button. On the other hand that means Apple didn’t patent this wonderful idea. Hope Samsung (who looks to be determined on preserving HW buttons) will take that soon.
Well, I certainly know how a lot of people around here will react, but I have to tell, I followed the announcement events, I read the opinions, I looked at the images, and I kept waiting for the “wow!” to get to me, but it didn’t. And you’ll hate me more when I say that I was more impressed by a number of recently available and announced phones than by the iPhone 5.
Obviously not my words but those of a tech journo: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19557497
Pretty ironic, given that Apple has just ‘won’ a case accusing others of outright imitating.
Nuff said.
Orf
“Apple seems less interested in blowing people away than it is in milking profit out of the existing lineup.”
Apple never blew people away on a yearly basis. Their last mayor new successful product was the iPad in 2010. Before that it was the iPhone, 2007, and before that the iPod in 2001, iMac 1998, Mac 1984, Apple 2 1977.
His claim that some Samsung phone outsold the iPhone 4S last month is also crazy. Even more crazy than buying an iPhone 4S just before a new iPhone is announced. The iPhone 5 will probably outsell that Samsung model in one weekend.
Actually….
http://www.androidauthority.com/galaxy-s3-vs-iphone-4s-samsung-fina…
Sure the shiny new iPhone 5 toy will be tops for a quarter maybe two again. If they can assert a monopoly position via lawsuits then they can maintain that high by blocking sales of Samsung phones. If not, then in another two quarters, once more Samsung phones will be back on top. Or perhaps it will be a new HTC one?
The iPhone is flat-lining. It is obvious from this refresh. Sure there is tons of free marketing on major news sites about the almighty second coming of the messiah iPhone, but in reality, it really isn’t all that special. It is simply another incremental upgrade some of which is too keep up with the competition.
But, hey, don’t let reality get in the way of your worship of all things Apple.
From the artcile you posted:
“But is the top relevant at this point? Unfortunately it isn^aEURTMt, as iPhone 4S demand in the region has been^A gradually^A dwindling in recent months, with consumers waiting for the iPhone 5 to be unveiled. Once launched, the new iOS smartphone will probably retake its number one place across the board, although the Galaxy S3 vs iPhone 5 will certainly be worth watching.”
Good Lord, read the rest of the damned article and a thousand more like it on business sites. Android phones are starting to dominate the market even in the US. iPhone 4S briefly took top spot due to popularity and upgrades, then the Samsung Galaxy took the top position and maintained it for more quarters. The same bump will happen with the iPhone 5 now (or maybe it won’t give the distinct lack of wow and new features that don’t necessarily scream ‘upgrade me’) for a quarter or two. Then once more Android phones regain their ever-growing market ascendance.
Android phones don’t dominate sales, Samsung Android phones do. The rest doesn’t matter.
But what the article of OP stated was declining iPhone 4S sales, which I and your article explained: people waiting for the new iPhone.
Samsung has so many models that you can always buy a just released one.
One must keep in mind that the actual (lack of) quality of an Apple product has no influence on the droves of gushing Apple marketing/RDF victims.
This epidemic is perfectly demonstrated in this recent Jimmy Kimmel “Iphone 5” experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdIWKytq_q4
Edited 2012-09-13 18:17 UTC
“In any case, every person in the video thinks that the two-year old iPhone 4 is ^aEURoefaster,^aEUR ^aEURoelighter^aEUR and even more durable than the iPhone 4S.”
Well, they can cut out the ones that don’t, but never mind that. You can do this trick/experiment with any brand or product. I was able to convince some people my MessagePad was an iPad.
This guy even tricked you thinking it has to do with Apple’s RDF.
wow .. first paragraph you contradict yourself and the article. nowhere he mentions yearly basis … and clearly , from 2010 to 2012 its not a yearly basis.
second paragraph is even weirder :
Here in Portugal, i would even claim that there are more Samsung Galaxy S 2 and 3 than all the iphone models… by a huge , large margin. Not to mention other Android’s.
Second is amazing how its crazy for those that have IPhone 4S not to buy IPhone 5 .. yeah right .. and of course Samsung didnt announce Samsung Galaxy 3 not other phone models… its just so rare for Samsung to launch new models , right ?! ..
Finally, tipical fanboy… since you can read the future , would you mind giving me the lotter numbers for next week ? i would split the profit 50-50 with you
I don’t gamble, but I can predict those numbers and if you win you can keep it all.
Yes, the article doesn’t mention a yearly basis, but I did and then made a list of significant products. The article says Apple doesn’t wow its customers anymore and I illustrated that they never did on a regular basis, in fact it’s pretty rare that they do. What they more often do is upgrade their existing product line-up.
The second thing, a Samsung phone outselling the iPhone 4S, is a strange fact to illustrate that Apple has lost its magic as most people that want to buy an iPhone are holding out for the iPhone 5. Some are doing this for 2, 3 months and even longer. Just as people are waiting to buy the new generation BlackBerry and the Lumia 920.
Nokia should focus on real world quick response screen benefits instead of talking about latencies and pixels. SJ would turn this into a second coming of Retina.
Apple on the other side hand should be a little bit less secretive about their SOC. The 2x performance sticker is meaningless to mobile HW enthusiasts who are shuffling the core numbers and arch names day in day out. Apple (featuring no doubt very decent SOC in IP5) just failed to make them excited.
Edited 2012-09-13 06:46 UTC
Never thought i would see this day come but the iPhone 5 was as much of a disappointment as i was expecting, part of me was hoping for that one more thing or a few more hidden features. That presentation was boring and safe.
So the new iPhone 5 is slightly bigger, twice as fast with a new dock connector. Wow that is poor.
Ive been an iPhone user for 5 years since the release of the original iPhone in 2007. I went from iPhone to 3G to 4 and each one felt like a hefty upgrade.
The iPhone 4 was a great upgrade, it was massively redesigned, had a massively superior camera, retina display, face time, etc.. it was a big upgrade for a full release.
The 4S was kind of meh to me but then it is a S release so it follows the tick tock / revolutionary evolutionary so i didn’t expect much.
I am surprised apple haven’t done more and are simply resting on their laurels, it’s ok the masses will buy em because it’s an iPhone we only have to make a couple of safe changes.
Ive used an Samsung S3 and i was blown away, there are so many refinements and features in the phone. I used a Lumia Windows 7 phone, it was fresh and very very fluid/fast i liked it.These are the phones that Apple are up against and they just haven’t responded at all.
Of course it’s easy to critise, however i will add what i would have expected from apple.
NFC top of my list, it’s being rolled out slowly but surely across the UK, Boots (pharmacy/food shop) and McDonalds support it as a method of payment, an product as a big as the iPhone would have forced other high street shops to roll this out for micro payments.
However i would also add that NFC is needed for phone to phone communcation. S-Beam on the S3 is immense, i loved it. Got a Map location/destination, a photo, a video, a contact etc.. simply tape the phones and tap the screen, the most painless method of communication ive ever seen on a phone. NFC would have opened up a massive market in Apps. I would have loved to be able to share things quickly with friends and colleagues with a tap of the device.
However again this could be taken further, look at the Lumia 920 simply tap the hardware in their case a boombox and the music is automatically transfered and streamed to the device wow, the applications of NFC are simply endless, apple missed a big trick with this.
The next is a redesign, simply stretching the iPhone is not enough, i would have expected them to push it further and even perhaps take on the looks of the iPad with a nice alminum phone, this would also keep it in design with the rest of apple products such as the mac.
Faster charging/better battery, i don’t care about my phone being thin and like someone else said on macrumors im not interested in this race to make phones as thin as a piece of paper. The thickness of a phone is not a problem, however a battery that would last a good 2 days would have been nice whilst also not taking hours to charge.
Better camera controls in the software, the S3 had burst firing, best picture mode, visual effects, better controls over the camera such as exposure, the iPhone controls look so basic when compared.
If possible a method of optical zoom on the camera, no other phone (as far as im aware does this) they only do digital zoom which is rubbish.
Widgets or something, one this i noticed on the S3 is that just by glancing i could see a lot of information, weather, whats playing etc.. the same can be said of the Windows phones as well. However we are still limited to the basic icon grid view.
More of a software thing, but quick access through the notification screen to toggle, bluetooth, wifi, data and volume, it’s annoying having to go through the settings.
I could go on by won’t bore anyone much longer.
What i will say is that after this poor announcement and after being an iPhone user for 5 years my next phone is going to be a Samsung Galaxy Note2. All of the features of the S3 with the ability to write down lots of notes and view media on a nice big screen, i can’t wait.