ONE MONTH REVIEW OF THE IPHONE 4S AND SIRI PERSONAL ASSISTANT-READ THIS BEFORE MAKING THE DECISION TO UPGRADE

It’s been a month now using the new iPhone 4s and it’s built in personal assistant Siri.  If you don’t already know I’m an Apple product freak and believe Steve Jobs was a true visionary in the tech world.  Hell I was watching a 1997 video of him speaking at the big Apple convention and he was already talking about cloud services before anyone knew that they would become a part of our lives.  He could see computers not having any “working” parts in them and seeing us just having a keyboard and screen.  None the less, I do like Apple products.  I currently have a 13″ Macbook Pro, iPod Classic and just upgraded from the iPhone 3gs to the 4s.  And what I’m about to reveal and tell you may be shocking after hearing my praise of Apple products.

I can say after owning the 3gs for two years and upgrading to the 4s, there was quite a bit of difference.  First going from the curved edges and back of the 3gs to the candy bar slab of the 4s was remarkably different.  And I have to say I don’t agree with most that the curvy casing is better.  I happen to really like the candy bar style of the 4s.  Next up is the camera and WOW, what can I say.  I now enjoy shooting photos.  The pictures turn out excellent and the colors are realistic to what was shot as opposed to the 3gs.  Now that the 4s takes video in 1080p, I can now ditch my Flip video camera and carry one device with all my goodies.  No need to carry around a phone, camera and a video recorder.

Since I decided to go straight to the 4s and skip on the 4, I really didn’t get a feel for what the difference was between the two devices.  But, after purchasing the 4s and wondering if I could have saved a Benjamin, I began testing the two devices between my friends and I.  I was really in shock on my discovery.  First, let’s take a look at the major differences between the iPhone 4 and 4s.

iPhone 4:

• 5 megapixal camera
• 720 Video Recorder
• Single Core Processor A4 Chip
• 8gb

iPhone 4s:

• Better Camera (8 megapixals)
• Better Video Recorder (1080p)
• Siri Personal Assistant
• Dual Core Processor A5 Chip
• 16gb

After testing both of the major differences here was my conclusion.

CAMERA

I took two shots of the same photo using both devices and found that the iPhone 4 was a bit brighter and did have great color and was a great picture.  After looking at the two I got a little miffed because it seemed there was not much difference.  But after taking a closer look, the 4s captured the true color of the photo.  The orange in the 4 photo was very bright orange and the actual color was more of of a burnt orange that had a hint of red, which the 4s captured.

VIDEO RECORDER

Again, it’s obvious that the iPhone 4s 1080p recorder will take a better shot for you than the iPhone 4 720p video.  The biggest difference I saw was that the 4s has video stabilization feature that does help if you tend to have shaky hands.

STORAGE

With Apple reducing the size of the iPhone 4 to 8gb, your losing a bit of storage for music, videos, audiobooks, etc.  But if you mainly use your phone for apps and a little playlist of music, I think the 8gb will suffice.  Photos don’t take a ton of space so I don’t think you would run into any problems.

PROCESSOR

Apple did a great job hyping up the new A5 chip with dual core processor, but it’s just that…..all hype.  This to me is the first fail for the new iPhone 4s.  One day after my purchase of the 4s, I sat it side by side a very dilapidated iPhone 4, meaning it had seen it’s last leg so to speak.  It had been dropped several times, the left front corner of the screen was completely busted out and the home button didn’t work.  I actually have seen this phone slammed on the floor several times just to try to get the home button to work.  So with that being said I thought for sure my brand new iPhone 4s would demolish this thing in speed.  Guess what?  I was completely wrong.  Performing several tests with app loading, internet speed and even downloading news feeds.  My iPhone 4s only beat this damn thing once and not by much.  Honestly after a month of use I only notice two items that seem to be just a tad faster than my iPhone 3gs, updating and installing apps and uploading photos to my Photobucket app, that’s it.  So if your thinking your getting a huge boost in speed with your upgrade think again.

SIRI PERSONAL ASSISTANT

This is the second fail on the iPhone 4s.  It seems this new talking to your phone era is a joke.  I see more people using Siri as a novelty more so than an actual assistant.  Asking it stupid questions to see what she’ll say.  I have to say it’s quite amusing on some of her answers.  I don’t find myself using it over my fingers doing the talking, like texting and searching the internet for my answers.  When I have used Siri to text, if I don’t speak VERY clearly what I want it to say, it comes back with gibberish which I have to back out or say don’t send and then try again.  If Siri doesn’t catch what you say the first time, it could take up to 4 minutes just to send a text.  Not very groundbreaking in my mind.  I have found myself at times, when I think of it, to ask it to call a business, which seems helpful.  But guess what, this isn’t a huge discovery that Apple has uncovered.  You can get the same service for free on an Android device and it works just the same.  I have seen video of the two in action side by side and at times the Android version comes back with faster and more accurate answers.

My take is that I don’t think we are in this era yet of talking to our devices, TV’s included people.  I think Apple is to quick to pull the trigger with this technology that just isn’t ready for us to accept.  We are still in the “finger” talking with text and search era.  I have a feeling we will get there, but it’s a ways away in my mind.  Apparently other companies think we’re ready to just jump into this tech and their spending big money to incorporate this into their products.  Microsoft is trying to be the first on the market to have humans speak commands to their TV before Apple has a chance to launch their Apple TV product with Siri built in.  They have put this software into their Xbox Kinect so you can talk to your TV.  I just don’t see this stuff taking off like these companies do.  Just as I don’t think 3D TV will. (Which is a whole nether subject I could go on about, but not here)

So there it is, my one month review of the new iPhone 4s.  I would say if your using the iPhone 4, I would stick with it until the unveiling of the iPhone 5.  If you’re a iPhone 3gs owner, it’s your call.

Talk soon,

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