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Apple iPhone 4S: The Good, Bad, and Unknown

Apple iPhone 4S: A Deep Dive Into the New iPhone's Hardware
Malus pumila iPhone 4S

After more a year with the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S–announced Tuesday by Apple CEO Tim Cook–seems a chip, well, underwhelming.

The hardware announced today offers none design service. Apple upgraded the phone's camera from a 5-megapixel detector to an 8-megapixel sensor, though, and the iPhone 4S will use the synoptical dual-core A5 chip that the iPad 2 does.

4G capability? Forget it–Apple International Relations and Security Network't going away that route this time. We already knew close to iOS 5 and its features awhile, but the cellular inclusion of the Siri voice-activated software was a nice surprise.

That isn't to say that I'm dissatisfied. Last twelvemonth's iPhone 4 hush holds upwards among smartphones free this year, and the internal enhancements in the iPhone 4S, while a bit of late to the gage, are surely welcome. The iPhone 4S is a respectable telephone set that has get even punter, but I for sure wouldn't visit it "revolutionary." And, on reconsideration, Apple didn't either.

Agnatic Slideshow Apple iPhone 4S Features Roundup: A Visual Enlistment

Design: No Changes, No Problem

The iPhone 4S has an identical design to the iPhone 4, just its guts are all new. Although that might constitute a disappointment to some people (no larger display, no slimmer organic structure, no tear-work spirited-friendly design), I am in reality pretty golden with it. I really like the iPhone 4 design: IT's still the thinnest smartphone available (despite Samsung's claims), and it has a stylish, premium front thanks to the glass face and back.

I am a little disappointed to see that the screen real estate didn't get a bump. I'm definitely non asking for a 4.5-inch display (which is too lifesize in my opinion), simply 4 inches or even 3.7 inches would make Web browsing, picture show observance, and gaming a bit more comfortable. Ramon Llamas, IDC's senior research analyst for airborne devices technology and trends, says that keeping the same screen size is in reality a benefit to consumers and developers.

"You take in all these incredible apps [in the App Store]. If you do a varied screen size, it will wreak havoc for the developer community," Llamas says. A consistent screen size is one of the reasons why the App Store has much a high number of apps, he adds.

The Best Camera? Nasty to Say

Apple iPhone 4S camera features
Orchard apple tree iPhone 4S camera features

Apple ISN't the only tech company that loves to tick off glasses and claim its products are the first to securities industry with a certain applied science. Most companies that do so rely on consumers' failure to understand the technology or live what the specs mean. Such confusion frequently happens with camera eyeglasses, so I asked my colleague Tim Moynihan, PCWorld's camera editor, to decipher some of the specs announced for the iPhone 4S's camera.

Apple says that the new iPhone's 8-megapixel camera is made-up around a backside-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor, a type of low-light-optimized sensor that debuted in Sony's cameras a hardly a years ago. BSI sensors are now fair commonplace in CMOS-based cameras, including both stand-alone cameras and a ontogeny number of camera phones.

A BSI sensor is designed such that small, light-block wires move to the back of the sensor, making the sensor's surface a more efficient light-gathering origin; per se, BSI-sensor cameras usually perform fountainhead in low-light situations without a flash. The iPhone 4's 5-megapixel detector was also a BSI detector, and was precise good; the new sensor in the iPhone 4S is likely a high-resolution edition.

Apple likewise says the iPhone 4S has a five-element lens that offers 30 percent more sharpness. According to Moynihan, the lens specs sound good, but we'll need to test Apple's claims of improved image sharpness in our labs. The iPhone 4S's F2.4 Lens has a wider aperture than most phone cameras cause; coupled with the low-lit-optimized sensor, it should perform healed in low-toned-light situations and at hurried shutter speeds. The T-Manoeuvrable MyTouch 4G Microscope slide's F2.2 aperture is still a bit wider. (The HTC-ready-made MyTouch 4G Sloping trough is PCWorld's teetotum-ranking phone camera right now.)

[Read: Android Television camera Gunfight: 13 Phones Put to the Tryout]

More Pixels Make It Better?

When Apple says that the iPhone 4S camera has 60 percent to a greater extent pixels than the iPhone 4 camera, it means that an 8-megapixel tv camera is technically 160 percent of the resolution of a 5-megapixel tv camera. So very, information technology doesn't interpret direct to improved simulacrum quality, every bit Thomas More megapixels aren't an indicator of better image quality on diminutive-sensored cameras. The higher megapixel count does mean that you'll be able-bodied to black and white down images at a bigger size without losing resolution, or to crop images without the cropped area losing resolution.

According to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, unless the sensor size is also 60 percent bigger, the added firmness of purpose could render to worse icon choice when compared with that of the iPhone 4. When you pack a sensor of the same size with more pixels, you can end up with a sight of noise and artifacts. Again, this is something we'll have to test when we get the iPhone 4S in.

Video: Apple Unveils Souped-Up iPhone 4S

We're still a bit confused around what exactly Orchard apple tree means when it says that the iPhone 4S has a Hybrid IR sink in, as the company simply threw that term retired thither without really explaining what the "hybrid" refers to. It could be a filter that allows both infrared radiation photography and regular photography, a feature that the user can turn connected or off. Moynihan suspects that the iPhone 4S's detector has an unseeable-blocking filter shapely to set any gilded aberration, purple fringing, operating room color-accuracy issues caused by the detector's existence sensitive to infrared light.

If that's the case, it's a unique feature for a headphone tv camera, although some stand-only cameras use lens coatings and processing software to address similar issues.

As for the company's shutter-quicken claims of just 1.1 seconds to take a maiden pic and 0.5 seconds more to need a second, we detected that Apple did not compare the iPhone to the T-Mobile MyTouch Slide, which has the high-grade camera of any phone we've tested. The Slide's photographic camera specs are pretty similar to the iPhone 4S's, soh we'll cause to do some head-to-head testing once we receive the Apple sound in our labs. We also plan on replicating Orchard apple tree's test with other phones we have in house.

Like many dual-core Android phones currently available, the iPhone 4S give the axe shoot higher-resolution video up to 1080p. Information technology also features digital video stabilization–merely unless it's a radically antithetical system than we've seen on opposite video devices, don't anticipate miracles from digital-only stabilization.

Judgement from the specs alone, the iPhone 4S's camera is competitive with those in the top crop of recent Android phones, including the Samsung Galaxy S Deuce series, the HTC ThunderBolt, and the Chute. Considering the iPhone 4's excellent performance in our imagery tests, Apple gets the benefit of the incertitude when IT comes to those claims of improved camera performance–we just wear't think the higher megapixel enumerate has often to do with it.

Next: Speed Supercharge, No 4G, and Siri Software

Velocity Hike

Apple's A5 processor.
Malus pumila's A5 CPU.

Apple claimed on Tuesday that data speeds for the iPhone 4S are double those for the iPhone 4: 5.8 megabits per second for uploads and 14.4 mbps for downloads. Ken Biba, CTO of Novarum, a caller that designs wireless networks, says that the speed boost is expected to the A5 chipset supporting the faster HSPA 14.4 meshing.

Once more, Apple is performin a bit of catch-over here; we byword the first-class honours degree dual-core phones all the right smart back in January. Still, having the A5 is improved than getting no processor elevate at complete. IT is too encouraging that the A5 is the same nick found in Orchard apple tree's iPad 2; when we reviewed the iPad 2, we noted the peppy scrolling in the web browser, besides as the speed when we used iTunes and rapidly navigated through various menus and galleries.

Once we deliver the iPhone 4S for review, we'll subject information technology to our Sunspider JavaScript tests to valu browser performance. Our functioning tests showed that the A5 processor in the iPad 2 was twice every bit fast as the CPU in the iPhone 4. I'm not confident how a good deal the chipset will benefit the iPhone 4S, but any speed enhancement is a positive thing. And the iPhone 4 isn't exactly a slump to set out with.

The one concern that I bear (let alone most consumers who accept owned an iPhone in their life-time) is nearly the bombardment living. If you have an iPhone, you are pretty more than constantly using IT–whether you're talking, winning pictures, changing the song in iTunes, or playing a brave. The battery drains impervious. And unfortunately, battery animation is becoming an even bigger issue with with whatsoever of the dual-heart Android phones we've seen (especially those along a 4G network). Apple did address these concerns, however, stating that the iPhone 4S will provide 8 hours of 3G talk time and 10 hours of television playback.

No 4G: Missed Opportunity?

No 4G on Apple's iPhone 4S

Presented Apple's delay in jumping on 3G a few years ago, I wasn't dumbstricken when the company proclaimed that the iPhone 4S would not support 4G LTE/WiMax networks. Ramon Llamas of IDC says that he understands why Apple sacrificed LTE/WiMax support for this release: LTE isn't a world standard yet, and Apple would have had to make different U.S.-only models to support the engineering science. Right now the company's focus seems to be on iOS 5 and rolling out iCloud. Perchance when the iPhone 5 (which is strictly mythological at this point) surfaces, Orchard apple tree will embrace LTE or WiMax.

Although I am disappointed that we won't set out to see an LTE or WiMax iPhone, I have a flavour that it won't make a difference to customers. The original iPhone still oversubscribed like crazy without 3G.

What consumers act up want is reliable insurance coverage and no dropped calls. According to Apple, the iPhone 4S can intelligently switch between two antennas for tied better visit quality, as fit as faster download speeds. This arrogate needs testing in the real world, however.

At its event Tuesday, Apple showed a chart comparison the iPhone's download speeds against separate HSPA+ phones on AT&adenylic acid;T that carry the 4G label. I respect Apple for not calling the iPhone 4S a 4G phone just because it can lucifer the speeds of those competing handsets. HSPA or HSPA+ still constitutes a 3G network–fifty-fifty if a phone can produce "4G-like" speeds.

What is too bad, however, is that U.S customers on the Sprint and Verizon networks likely will not experience the faster speeds, since they'll be controlled to CDMA's 3G EvDO.

I'm pleased to see the iPhone at last brand IT to Sprint. Lacking the iPhone, the carrier has held its personal with a strong blood line of Android phones, but I know that quite an hardly a Sprint customers leave be happy to hear this news show. Additionally, all versions of the iPhone 4S are GSM/CDMA world phones, which is a full-size win. However, having used an iPhone overseas, I cringe at the thought of what the carriers will charge while users travel.

Siri Voice-Command Software: Your Very Possess Personalised Assistant

Siri Grammatical category Assistant along the iPhone 4S

Peradventure the feature I'm nigh intrigued by is the yearn-rumored Siri Personal Assistant. Sound-command software program isn't exactly a new feature in smartphones, but Siri seems and so tightly integrated that it almost seems creepy.

"The best user interface a person can have with a gimmick is your vocalisation. You can talk to IT, and it talks hindmost," IDC's Llamas says about Siri.

Only he and I both foresee some potential issues taboo of the gate. Tim Cook expressly stated that Siri will take a few days to get used to your voice–just how will Siri hand with different English accents and dialects? Will Siri be able to understand my friend's thick Boston accent? OR my aunt's Southern accent? How will Siri deal with nonnative English speakers?

The iPhone 4S comes to AT&T, Verizon, and–for the first time–Sprint connected October 14, but preorders start October 7. A shortly as we have ane, we will put the iPhone 4S through our rigorous tests to take care how it compares against the top-rated Android phones, the soon-to-be-discharged Windows Phone 7 "Mango" phones, and its predecessor, the iPhone 4. Appease tuned.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/477101/apple_iphone_4s_a_deep_dive_into_the_new_iphones_hardware.html

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