Thoughts and Observations Regarding This Week’s iPhone 4S Event | Hacker News Reader

Thoughts and Observations Regarding This Week’s iPhone 4S Event

daringfireball.net

51 pointstechnoslut35 comments

Bigger is better, period, they say, and anyone who says otherwise is in denial

Does anyone really say that? My feeling is the 3.5" display is a very good size but so is 4-4.3" especially if you have poor eyesight, big hands, or fat American fingers. We have 4 different sizes of MacBook and no one is going to argue 3 of them should be discontinued because it's just too hard to choose or 13" is perfect for everyone. Two iPhone sizes (big and small) is going to happen eventually. There are too many 4-4.3" phones being sold to ignore that market forever. My guess is Apple is waiting until they can bump the resolution of the 3.5" display to the point where it can scale up to 4-4.3" and still maintain 300+ DPI. One resolution for both models.

I can’t help but see Siri as Apple’s first attack in the direction of Google’s crown jewels: search.

I couldn't agree more with this. Someday Apple will make a deal with FaceBook and things will get very interesting.

Siri, What movies have my friends recommended lately?

Siri, What is the name of that book Tom recommended to me last month? Great. Can you buy that for me?

Siri, Do you know Paul's wife's name?

Siri, Where did Paul and Linda go on vacation last year? How much would a weeks stay cost? Great. Book it for the 2nd week of August and send Paul a message asking for suggestions of good restaurants.

Based on the demos this is all very possible if Apple can get its hands on the data.

I'm sure that Facebook isn't ignorant to this.

When two companies' enemies are aligned, allies they should be. Or something to that effect.

The most important question involved with increasing the screen size is what the story for developers is. Increasing the screen size from 3.5" to 4+ inches would cause many many apps to be rewritten. Yes, you could just scale apps up and they would work a lot better than they do scaled up on the iPad, but even scaling them a little would change the physical size of buttons and text etc. that were all designed to be a different physical size. That means definitely doing new artwork for this third physical size, but in some cases, it probably means doing a slightly different design! With a bigger screen, maybe you could squeeze an extra button on your toolbar. That means that an app developer has to manage three different versions of their app (iPhone, iPhone+, iPad) with two of them being very similar. That adds complexity and the possibility for bugs.

Why would Apple want to impose that extra workload on itself and its developers?

How is it different than on various sized Mac products?

OS X != iOS

Simple as that.

That's because OS X apps don't run full screen by default.

The bigger screen doesn't meant that the app looks bigger – it just means that you can accommodate more things on screen at once.

Why would Apple want to impose that extra workload on itself and its developers?

Maybe they won't but it seems to me they can't stay (only) at 3.5" or 960x640 forever. I think it might be quite sometime before we see a 1920x1280 display to allow for the clever pixel doubling trick again.

1152x768 @ 3.5" / 395 DPI

1152x768 @ 4.3" / 321 DPI

Yeah but everything would physically be bigger, like it was zoomed. Would be very odd and seem like it was too big. You wouldn't gain any real estate.

I think that's part of the allure of larger screens. Most of the 4-4.5" Android phones don't even match the resolution of the iPhone 4's display at this point. Things are just physically larger and easier to see and tap.

The other possibility is to acknowledge that the Retina display's dot pitch is actually quite a bit better than it has to be. I wouldn't mind 15% larger pixel dimensions if it means a 15% larger screen.

A nice way to test your assumptions here is to pretend that you have perfect voice recognition of the above input already working, then figure out what software you need to write in order to answer all of the above questions.

Does the tech to answer those questions (especially the ones with follow up and references) already exist? If so then this might become a reality soon.

If you see some issues with parsing those sentences when they're input as strings then those issues will not magically go away with perfect speech recognition.

Can you answer all those questions with state of the art software?

"As for the argument that Apple has failed because the iPhone 4S, however nice an improvement overall, is not enough to entice iPhone 4 users to upgrade — so what? Normal people don’t buy brand-new $700 smartphones each and every year. In the U.S. they buy them on two-year contracts, and they don’t shop for new ones until their old contracts are over. So the iPhone that the 4S needs to present a compelling upgrade for is the 3GS, not the 4. And the iPhone 4S absolutely smokes the 3GS. It’s crazy better than the 3GS. 2009 3GS buyers who skipped the iPhone 4 — which I’m guessing are most of them — ought to be delighted by the iPhone 4S."

I normally disagree with Gruber on pretty much everything, but here, we both agree that it's insane to assume the next iPhone (4S or 5) was supposed to entice regular people to break their contracts just to get the latest and greatest. Seriously, who does that besides gadget snobs? For people waiting on the Nexus Prime, what phone are you currently using where you can just switch like that? Normal people buy phones on 18-24 month schedules, not 12. I still remember the outrage and sense of entitlement from original iPhone owners when the 3G came out. Surprisingly, AT&T conceded and allowed them to update after 18 months instead of 24.

You know what, I'm disappointed it wasn't a 5 with LTE and NFC as well, but I'm upgrading from the 3GS so the 4S is a great phone for me. When iPhone 4 owners' contracts expire, then they can get a 5 if they want.

Seriously, first world problems.

> I made several queries that Siri couldn’t answer.

This is very impressive: the problems weren't voice recognition problems.

I'm shocked that no one else (Gruber included) has picked up on the internal logic that the next iphone should be 6 not 5.

(1) iPhone

(2) iPhone 3G

(3) iPhone 3GS

(4) iPhone 4

(5) iPhone 4S

(6) iPhone 6

It's gonna be 6.

I don't see how that's proof.

If you throw out the original iPhone since it had no number designation, then there are two models that follow the generation number and two that don't. It seems obvious to me the next one will be the iPhone 5 (if not another iPhone 4 variant).

What generation model it actually is means nothing. If anything the number is a form factor designation.

It seemed to me at the time that the 3GS was called the 3GS because "3G" wasn't actually a version number, and going from "iPhone 3G" to "iPhone 3" would just confuse people.

"If anything the number is a form factor designation."

False, 3G and 3GS had the same form factor. When Steve introduced the iPhone 4 he used reasoning similar to mine above - the "4" was the 4th iPhone (literally). The next iPhone will be (literally) the 6th and calling it the "5" would not follow this logic.

1. It's not false. 3G and 3GS having the same form factor proves/shows it.

2. Can you cite where Jobs said it was a generation number? I don't believe that to be true.

(1) You and grandparent are correct the only incongruence between factor and number are between the original and the 3g.

(2) iphone 4 keynote, right at the 30 min mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1edQuxclUs

That’s logical if you insist on looking at it that way but it would be utterly stupid to actually do. It would confuse people.

I don’t know what the next iPhone will be called but I’m willing to bet that it won’t be “iPhone 6”.

Personally, I don't care what the next iPhone is called, so long as it's not called "iPhone 5", because that would be a lie.

Let me break it down further:

There was the original iPhone sans number. Then there was the second iPhone described by the standards it supported (“3G”) and a faster version of said iPhone with an added “S”.

Imagine an alternate timeline where there were two iPhones before the “3G” arrived. There would have been the following iPhones:

- iPhone

- iPhone 2

- iPhone 3G

- iPhone 3GS

Apple would have been justified in calling the next iPhone either iPhone 4 (if you consider the “3GS” not a distinct version but a minor release) or iPhone 5 (because it would have been the fifth distinct model of iPhone they would have been selling).

Apple didn’t have that same choice. They couldn’t consider the iPhone 3GS a minor release because then they would have to call the next one iPhone 3. That would obviously have confused customers.

You can’t follow the iPhone 3GS with the iPhone 3. They had to call it iPhone 4.

That’s the whole reason why the “3GS” is – following Apple’s numbering scheme – not considered a minor version.

If they want to continue this pattern of not confusing their customers they have to call the next iPhone (if the want to stick to numbers) iPhone 5. The iPhone 4S is then just a minor version, not terribly distinct from the iPhone 4. It’s the iPhone 4.1.

I think this makes perfect sense and is the only solution that doesn’t confuse customers – which should be the greatest goal of any naming scheme.

"That’s the whole reason why the “3GS” is – following Apple’s numbering scheme – not considered a minor version."

That's backwards. The 3GS is not a minor version because it's not a minor version, period. The number of changes were as substantial as previously.

The numbering conundrum starts with the 3GS not the 4. They couldn't call it the 3 because it followed the 3G. They couldn't call it the 4 and it certainly couldn't be called the 4G.

When they got to the 4, "4" was both convenient (it was the 4th phone and followed a phone with a 3 in the name) and a bit sneaky (a not small number of people bought it under the impression that it was a 4G phone as well).

The next phone could logically be called a lot of things:

It could be called simply "iPhone LTE" or even "iPhone 4G".

Or it could be called the "iPhone 6" (the 6th phone running iOS 6 with an A6 processor, number of the beast lol).

It could also conceivably called the 5 (because hey they're still using "4" this year and "5" comes after "4").

Or they could abandon numbers and tech labels completely and call it the iPhone Classic (assuming they open the gates and come out with multiple new phones) or the iPhone Jagwire or whatever.

What matters is not confusing customers.

I think thought patterns like yours might be responsible for all those cryptic product names we are faced with all the time ;-)

It's just a name. Their OS versions are named after felines, for heaven's sake.

The consumer couldn't care less about which generation of iPhone they are looking at. As long as it's obvious that one is newer than the other, the actual moniker matters little.

Why would they pick a version number that makes them look like they don't know what number comes after 4?

People who claim to be disappointed that Apple’s 2011 new iPhone doesn’t have a bigger display or LTE are effectively arguing that the iPhone should be more like Android.

Why is the iPhone being compared to Android? Android is just the operating system running the various devices manufactured by different companies..

The comparison here is not literal. It is an implied comparison of the iPhone to 'Android phones' made by your different companies.

In general, most of the latest and greatest Android phones sport larger displays and claim "4G" speeds, whatever that means for a given carrier. (Nexus One, Evo, Droid, Galaxy S, etc.)

Did he post the same thoughts before the launch when there were strong rumors about an iPhone 5 with a bigger screen and tapered form factor? Anyone can post such a article now, I am not impressed. If Apple announced an iPhone 5 he would be singing a different tune now. The truth is that not even Gruber can know what Apple engineering can accomplish. Is it impossible that they are able to reduce the thickness of the 4G chip or make a higher density battery? Acting as if he always knew about what would come out makes him come across as dishonest for scoring brownie points. I am sure even he was hoping a little and was dissappointed when the new iPhone didn't look like this http://i.imgur.com/UC55l.jpg

I feel that Apple failed on controlling the hype for this event. This wouldn't have happened if Steve was in charge. Apple would've leaked some of the features to kill the expectations. And don't tell me Apple doesn't do leaks, the WSJ was informed by Apple before the iPad launch so that people were primed for the launch. The NYTimes article the day of the launch still talked about an iPhone 5.

On top of that, the Apple event just felt too long. One hour and forty minutes to announce iPods in new colors and the iPhone 4s? There was also too much of rehashing of things demoed during WWDC. All of this exacerbated by the lack of Jobs. I'll have second thoughts next time about following an Apple event live.

Meh. Apple has at various times failed to control expectations (iPad, MacBook Air). It’s a failure, sure, but I wouldn’t read too much into it. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter all that much.

(I think Gruber predicted an unchanged iPhone. At the very least he wasn’t crazy about the idea of a changed iPhone.)

Actually, he did post his thoughts before the launch: http://daringfireball.net/2011/09/teardrop_skepticism

Apple seems to have a good relationship with old mainstream media outlets but they can't stop all these random blogs from making up rumors to get traffic. This year was kind of a perfect storm due to the delay of iOS5. They had to show it off at WWDC but couldn't possibly ship it on a new phone. That created a few extra months of speculation and rumors plus the need to rehash iOS5. (and of course the WWDC, iPhone 4 and iPad set a very high expectation level to start with)

One of the biggest challenges Tim Cook has is trying to maintain the energy and media interest around these events. It may be that ultimately Apple will have to find a new strategy for announcing products. For example only doing media events when they were releasing major new products/updates. (as they now often refresh the Macs with little fanfare)

"There was also too much of rehashing of things demoed during WWDC."

I may be completely off-base, but I have a feeling that they dwelled on past accomplishments during the event on purpose. They assumed that Steve would be watching, and they wanted to honor his achievements one last time.

I would've been much more impressed had it not been post hoc rationalization. Of course it's obvious after the fact.

> If they thought 4-inches was better, overall, as the one true size for the iPhone display, then the original iPhone would have had a 4-inch display.

This type of reverse justification irritates me. Apple's decisions have largely been successful, but just because something has worked for Apple doesn't mean that it is the global optimum or The Right Way.

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