My plan was to talk about the iPhone 4S, the latest in that famed line of technology changers today, but do so without mentioning Steve Jobs and his loss to cancer this week just would not be right. So I will give a bit of this post to both the phone the revolutionized the way we communicate and view our world in its latest version as well as the wonderful human being who brought us that device and new vision of the world – Steve Jobs.  Now on second thought, I think I am going to have wait on the Steve Jobs post until another day…
Let me start with a little bit about the phone.  The most obvious thing and a big issue with a lot of the folks watching and waiting for this announcement was that lack of an iPhone 5, but rather an iPhone 4S.  Honestly though, in a lot of the speculation I had seen leading up to the big announcement on Tuesday it was in the cards of speculation for an iPhone 4something.  Of course, to be fair a lot of speculation was there would be a 4S and 5.  Because of the name and the lack of a change in the form factor I think that a lot of negative press was generator that suggested the new phone was a let down and really did not have that much new to offer.
I will have to respectively disagree and if the screen is not changing and I owned an iPhone 4, I would be happy to not have to acquire new accessories.  Beyond that, I think the 4S has a lot to offer to consumers as the inside is all but a completely new phone.  A quick run down shows the biggest upgrade is with the processor itself, now moving to a dual core processor similar to what the iPad 2 has inside.  I know the few  times I have picked up my wife’s iPhone 3 I have thought it was so slow.  Next up on the big update is the obvious OS upgrade to version 5.  I have yet to really see what that is going to do, but I am looking forward to that as it is going to be available for the iPad 2 as well – so a net gain for me personally.  Of the other big updates is the voice activated system – that at least the demonstrations show as being really awesome and semi-intelligent.  The camera built in is also suppose to be updated, which is a good thing as the fuzzy pictures that everyone is posting around are a little yesterday.  Lastly, though not much was made of it – as I am sure to not alienated current iPhone 4 users over the issue is the revamped antenna – which is suppose to make the phone actually be able to function as a phone.  I have only hit the very big highlights to be sure and could go on for sometime about other upgrades but I think those are the major ones.
Of course there is that debate about the 4S and not being enough to entice customers to buy unless they were just hanging on with a dis-functional previous version.  I am thinking that is not going to be case.  With the new version being a truly world version of the phone that will portage to all sorts of networks across the world, as well as Sprint the market just got that much bigger the iPhone.  Beyond that, the price points with contracts and such seem to be much lower then the previous version and of course the iPhone 4 and 3 are marked down similar, making it truly the family smart phone.
Of course one of my good technical minded friends and I had the discussion about the sales and how this plays in the market for Apple.  He was of the opinion that the seeming half step would make Apple look bad, especially to the markets after Jobs departure.  I seemed to think that this was all a pretty much a done deal before Jobs stepped down and that the marketing was aimed more for a broader market and would play well.  Of course, just about twenty four hours later that became a moot point on both our accounts as Jobs passing was announced and regardless of the how and would haves, Apple and company get a free pass on this release.  Heck, I have seen hype now that said 4S was so called to be ‘for Steve’ - though I have not seen that specifically coming from Apple, it still plays well for the phone and the company.
