While I’m on a roll of pissing on others’ parades, I attempted to set a timer with Siri for 45 seconds, only to be told “I can’t set a timer with seconds. Sorry about that.” Why not? I just attempted it again with “set a timer for 60 seconds”, and was again told that I can’t do that, despite being able to set one for a minute.
Notifications work now, and that’s about the end of the good things I can say about the app. Here comes a wall of text.
It’s still the Gmail website in an app wrapper. It’s still faking inertial scrolling, and poorly at that. Opening the left-hand menu, then tapping in the right-hand half where the main view is still doesn’t slide the main view back into focus. The “Inbox” label in the upper toolbar still isn’t centred. A floppy disk still represents “save as draft”. The paperclip icon in the compose window is still too small relative to the other two icons in the same toolbar. For some reason, there’s a redundant “Save” button in the compose window, and it’s on a separate line from the “Send” button, neither of which are iOS-standard controls and don’t look like they belong anywhere on an iPhone (but they’d look right at home on an Android phone). The buttons in the message view interface look like they were placed by a drunk darts player.
A truly abysmal effort. I’m sure there are people out there who cannot use the default iOS Mail application for whatever reason (they need archives and push, for instance, or labels). But shouldn’t they get a decent experience using Google’s official Google mail application?
So Josh Topolsky was all…
Still, there’s no question that the Fire is a really terrific tablet for its price. The amount of content you have access to — and the ease of getting to that content — is notable to say the least. The device is decently designed, and the software — while lacking some polish — is still excellent compared to pretty much anything in this range (and that includes the Nook Color).
And I was all…
Sounds a little buggy, but totally awesome and inexpensive. The amount of content that Amazon has to offer coupled with the low price make this a great iPad alternative for those looking for something better than an eReader but less capable than an iPad.
And then Mossberg came crashing down hard on that party:
To be clear, the Kindle Fire is much less capable and versatile than the entry-level $499 iPad 2. It has a fraction of the apps, a smaller screen, much weaker battery life, a slower Web browser, half the internal storage and no cameras or microphone. It also has a rigid and somewhat frustrating user interface far less fluid than Apple’s.
Strangely, he concludes with this paragraph:
At $199, and with Amazon’s content ecosystem behind it, the Fire is an attractive alternative for many people who might otherwise have bought an iPad or another Android device, especially if their principal interest is content consumption.
Translation: it sucks pretty badly, but it’s only $200.
On October 4th, Apple unveiled their new iPhone, the 4S, and the world saw that it was the same. Bloggers derided it for not being the 5, for not having a new body, and for… I’ve forgotten.1
On October 10th, Apple provided the opportunity to pre-order the new phone, and the world was underwhelmed (if you read Reddit that day). And yet, by some biblical miracle, they managed to sell over a million of the damn things in the first 24 hours of it being on sale in a few select countries. Consumers couldn’t actually touch an iPhone 4S at this point, but they were keen to be the first to do so.
I, on the other hand, waited. I waited first because I didn’t yet have a buyer for my iPhone 4, preloaded with iOS 5, which also wasn’t out yet. A buyer was found, and then I waited some more because there weren’t any models in stock. Hurry up and wait.
I purchased my 4S on November 2nd, a year-and-a-day after I bought my old 4. It’s 64 GB, because I need that extra space for photos, video, and other media. It’s a white one because it looks like an original iPod. It’s beautiful.
After two weeks, I have a few thoughts on some of the newer aspects of the phone, and some thoughts on technology that isn’t new to the 4S. And, to assist organisation of this bit of writing, I’m copping the “S is for x” format from a bunch of other writers.
It still blows my mind that my phone has a dual-core 1GHz (ish) processor and 512 MB of RAM. Those specs would be astonishing on a desktop PC of just a few years ago. The speed isn’t exactly noticeable until you switch back to an iPhone 4, which feels sluggish by comparison. Rotating the 4S is effectively instantaneous (except in Music, as usual). Rendering is so fast and ever so smooth. Every application opens that little bit quicker, every touch is that little bit more responsive.
Of course, a valid rebuttal is that I shouldn’t be surprised by this. It should be responsive to touch, otherwise it provides a crappy user experience. Rotating absolutely should be instantaneous. This is something the original iPhone could do really well, and it ran a 400 MHz single-core off-the-shelf ARM stack. But OSes aren’t the same as they were five years ago. iOS isn’t anywhere near the same, as is evident by the OS file sizes. As a result, the performance hasn’t necessarily kept up with the increase in complexity. Remember the iOS 4/iPhone 3G fiasco? Apple partially supported the former on the latter, and it caused all sorts of havock. Numerous customers reported the update made their phones so slow as to render them unusable. This was repeated recently with the iPhone 3GS and iOS 5, though not nearly to the same extent. However, I predict iOS 7 will work as well as iOS 5 does on the iPhone 4S, despite not knowing what that future OS might hold. The 4S is a powerful phone (a really goddamn powerful phone) and likely will stand the test of time.
The primary reason I upgraded to a 4S is for the improved camera. The iPhone has been my primary camera since I got my 4 last year. The camera system in the 4S isn’t just a little bit better than that of the 4; it’s in a whole different league.
In terms of still quality, the 4S camera exhibits significantly less noise, a dramatically crisper image and better depth of field. The 2.4 aperture produces some wonderful bokeh in the far background of photos. They also changed the lenses, making for sun glare that looks far less cheap. Apple has noted that they would like to see the iPhone 4S compete with a dedidated point-and-shoot as the camera you’d choose to take with you on a day around town. The resulting photos are good enough in bright daylight that this is a reasonable proposition. There are still shortcomings, obviously, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the 4S replaced a point-and-shoot for most people most of the time.
Video is an even better story. Never mind the upgrade to 1080p resolution — that isn’t too important. The main story is the built-in stabilisation with the gyroscope. I’ve shot more video on my 4S in the last two weeks than I did on my 4 in an entire year purely because of this enhancement. It’s almost like a mini Steadicam, but not quite. Having said that, it is a welcome addition.
It’s funny that Siri is the most-discussed, most-publicised new feature of the iPhone 4S, and I have yet to use it properly and with any frequency.
As a non-driver, I have no relation to the advantages it presents while operating a vehicle. It should be less distracting than driving and sending a text message, of course, but I cannot relate.
As the owner of an alarm clock, I do not use the iPhone as one except when travelling. I was away this past weekend and did use Siri to set my alarm, which was much, much nicer than the Clock interface. But I don’t use this on a basis of frequency or regularity.
As a non-American, I cannot use any of the direction features, and that’s very strange. As far as I’m aware, Siri uses Google Maps, which are available in Canada, yet all Siri location services are disabled here. I’m sure there’s a valid reason as to why this is the case, seeing as I can’t think of a reason why Apple would deliberately piss off Canadians. But as a mere consumer, I don’t know why this is the case.
The biggest hurdle, however, is not technical. It’s mostly because commanding a virtual assistant feels very odd, even if it’s in plain language. I’m sure it’s a bit quicker for me to reply to a text message with my voice, or tell Siri to call someone as opposed to finding their name in my list of contacts. But I really, really do not want to. I’m also the kind of person who will find a secluded area to call someone in public, rather than trying to chat while walking down the street.
If, on the other hand, I were the operator of a vehicle who travelled frequently within the United States, I’m sure I’d use Siri a whole lot more.
The iPhone 4S, then, is a good phone. It probably isn’t a compelling upgrade from a 4, but then again most people are on two- or three-year plans, so it doesn’t need to be. It’s one hell of an upgrade from a 3GS. It’s that little bit better than a 4. It’s a great addition to the family.
The EPA? Oh, a four-inch display. Oops. ↥︎
Ignoring for the moment that the interface looks a lot like that other social network
…and that other other social network…
Socl offers a bare bones, three column layout, with basic navigation in the left rail, a social feed down the middle, and invites and video party options on the right.
Replace “Socl” with “Google+” or “Facebook”, again.
Microsoft either produces slick, otherworldly futuristic concepts, or they copy the things other people do better (c.f. Zune, Silverlight, et. al.).
I was expecting a mere audio podcast; The Verge is now providing production levels on the scale of a television show. Incredible.
