“When the iPhone 3GS debuted in 2009, critics were similarly unimpressed. Maybe that has something to do with the name. Many people expected Apple to announce a completely redesigned iPhone 5. iPhone 4S sounds much more like a facelift of a current product — which is fair because that’s what it is.”
Five reasons people are calling the iPhone 4S a dud – CNN.com
Words.
Let’s start this rant by reflecting a bit about the nice folks who use words as their tool of trade and yet manage to use them the most incorrect way possible.
Dear CNN:
A facelift, as the word itself implies, is a change in the “face”, and by this we mean the outside, the appearance, the non-fundamental. It came to be known from the automotive industry where roughly at the middle of the expected lifecycle of a car you would change some minor aspects of what the customer saw. And by this we mean both the car body design – such as the headlights design, the bonnet (( hood in the american english )) or simply a pair of new fins – or the interior – the fabric pattern, some new auto-radio or just some differently positioned buttons.
The “inside” of a car, the thing that actually makes a car would remain essentially untouched. And by this we mean the engine, the chassis, the suspension, the electrical components, all of the things that are highly complex to design, test, produce and put together. You see, designing and producing a car takes some hundreds of million dollars just to get the first unit out of the factory, so you don’t want to keep doing that every two years because you would be bankrupt before your second model even got out of the paper.
On the other hand most of the consumers like shinny new things (as you apparently) so a balance must be obtained. And that balance is the “facelift”. You, the consumer, get an almost-new shinny exterior and some minor nuisances corrected; We, the car manufacturer, get to keep the parts that takes the paycheck of every idiotic CNN journalist (for life) combined to produce.
Now compare this to the “dud” iPhone 4S that you call a facelift. The appearance of the previous model? Check. The inside of the previous model? No. See any contradiction here?
It’s the same old phone!
There was some disappointment among the tech “pundit” blogosphere and news sites regarding the iPhone 4S. Apparently it’s not new enough. OK. Walk with me through the changes:
- What the iPhone 4S has new:
- new system-on-chip: new dual-core processor and graphics;
- twice the RAM memory of iPhone 4;
- new antenna design;
- new antenna chip with dual GSM/CDMA and other communication management goodies;
- new camera sensor, lens system and other weird optical stuff;
- a additional module ISP in the processor for face recognition and other image processing algorithms;
- 1080p video with image stabilization;
- probably a new battery – the specs have changed a bit so, additionally to the new hardware and power management, a battery with some sort of modification is likely.
- Siri – the personal assistant – which unlike iOS 5 you can’t get in any other previous iPhone.
- What the i4S Phone shares with the previous iPhone 4:
- The glass and screen on the front;
- The glass on the back
- Maybe the sound control buttons;
- Oh! And the dock connector.
Yep. It’s just the same old iPhone. No difference whatsoever… (face-palm)
You just get 3 or 4 parts that come from the previous generation – because it lowers the cost of manufacturing it to something like a quarter of the price of a totally redesigned case not to mention the ability to produce large numbers of it in almost no-time – but yes, “it’s just the same old iPhone”, just a “minor facelift”…
Don’t let that glimpse of Reality and facts get in the way of your complaints of course. How more blind and futile can you get? If it doesn’t have something shinny and new i don’t want it! Even if it is a totally new beast where it counts…
We want fins. And humps.
Most of the techno-pundits apparently want something with a bigger screen (because bigger is better!) and with the so called “teardrop design”. What’s the teardrop design you ask? Well, it’s a great innovation from the Apple rumor mill that no one actually has seen but it sports a *aircraft wing” profile, with one end thicker than the other. Which makes a “lot of sense” in a device that is supposed to be hold either in profile or portrait, and you can turn it in any direction…
You see, this will mean that: first, you will have a thicker object to hold on one hand than on the other; and second, that that thicker part can either be on your right hand or your left, depending how you turned it. Which i seriously doubt is currently on anyone’s mind when they use any iOS device. But apparently it would be a really great innovation and no new iPhone is complete without it. I guess you can easily find some Samsung Android replica phone with it in no time.
Does it make any ergonomic, economic and design sense? Absolutely none whatsoever. But do the so called “tech experts” want one and complain loudly because they weren’t given one?? Absolutely. Because we all want a hump on our iPhone. It makes all the difference. You will never know when you’ll cross the Sahara desert and it might come in handy.
You also know what “we” want in the new iPhone 5? Fins. Yeah, Fins. Because they really look cool. And we don’t really need anything remotely similar to logic and good design. And it worked so great in the past. And if doesn’t carry fins, then: I. Don’t. Want. It. Even if it is finally called the iPhone 5. Because that’s all that matter. The @€£‰‰§ number on the model name.