iPhone 4s...Not Entirely Different

Today, Ocotober 14th of 2011, marks the next generation in Apple's iPhone series, as the new iPhone 4s is released.

The iPhone 4s is remarkably similar to the the iPhone 4, keeping its original design and volumetric profile; the differences reside inside the iPhone 4s' core. Sporting a new camera, rated at 8MP over the 5MP old camera, and a new dual-core A5 chip, the iPhone 4s just seems lilke a minor hardware update rather than an entirely new generation.

As seen from the picture, both phones are visually the same, with the only way to distinguish being internal. With the new hardware specs, Apple has finally updated to current top-of-the-line phones, now being rivaled with the Samsung Galaxy SII and the HTC Evo 3D, both of which have dual-core processing ability.

(Taken from http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/13/iphone-4s-teardown-nothing-to-see-here-folks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29)

Apples advantage still remains as its incredible popularity; people will buy the iPhone simply because it's an iPhone...unfortunately disregarding whether it's actually a decent phone or not (which is it, now.) The basic "shiny object!" approach is generally taken towards the iPhone series, which isn't necessarily a bad approach, but leaves room for error in judgement. For example, the 5MP camera the iPhone 4 has is generally an average to lower quality camera by today's smartphone standards, with cameras in upwards of 12MP being developed for mobile handsets being developed. Apple finally decided to step it up to the current competition, but the average person wouldn't notice the new camera anyways. (I don't really use my phone's camera either...)

More noticable is the new dual-core processor inside the iPhone 4s; lag will be less prevalent with the new processing ability, a relatively new addition to the phone market. With two processors handling...processes, one can take on the job of running the system, while the other can take over control of handling user-operated apps. In other words, one runs in the background, while the other handles what you're currently doing, such as browsing the web on Apple's Safari browser.

With all the new iPhones circulating now, Apple's chat system, iMessage, has the ability to become the bane of SMS messaging, and possibly a major hazard for carriers. With iMessage, the user has the ability to avoid the cost of SMS messaging, a very hated part of a cell phone plan. Google, with Android, will probably follow suit soon after, with SMS eventually curling into a ball in the corner, wondering why no one wants to play with it. This move from Apple, I can approve of.