Watching the event, many Apple users and myself including were expecting a “one more thing” from Apple today. Why? Because the whole event was pretty boring and especially disappointing. For months now we kept hearing rumors about the new iPhone 5, and the news about the release were driving me nuts.
Plus, all Apple users have been expecting something very big from Apple considering the launch of the next iPhone has been delayed for 4 months already. That’s 16 months of waiting for Apple users. This is why people were really hoping a one more thing from Apple until the end of the event. I think they still couldn’t believe it the event ended, without announcing a true successor for the iPhone 4. Instead Apple announced only a slightly upgraded iPhone 4, called iPhone 4S. The upgrades are nothing out of the ordinary, and in fact they are barely even competitive at this point.
The chip is the same one that was in the iPad 2, which was launched like 8 months ago. It most likely has the same dual core 1 Ghz CPU, and a downgraded GPU. The original A5 had 9x faster graphics compared to the iPad 1/iPhone 4 GPU, but this one only has 7x faster graphics, so that’s about 20% weaker, which should put it around the same level with the new upgraded Exynos chip that should launch very soon (possibly in Nexus Prime).
So what does all this mean to Android? Android phones were already selling twice as fast as iPhones, and with this big disappointment from Apple, that selling pace may even increase now. If Ice Cream Sandwich and the Nexus Prime excites people, Apple will be in a world of hurt by the time they launch the next iPhone. I’m not saying the iPhone 4S will do bad with sales. It will do fine. But going from the reactions, it clearly won’t manage to get the same kind of sales it would’ve gotten if Apple delivered something more special.
One thing that is close to being special about iPhone 4S is the new Siri assistant, which is a small evolution of what Google has been offering for years with their voice control commands. And I have to wonder, if they didn’t restrict Siri to just the new iPhone 4S, how much fewer would they have sold? Because if people could get the exact same features on the iPhone 4, too, there would be very little reason to break out of contract and pay for the iPhone 4S.
But the way I see it now, the only real options for Apple users now if they are approaching the end of their contract is to either get a new Android phone like the Galaxy S II or Nexus Prime, or wait for the *next* iPhone in mid 2012 or so.