First impressions with iPhone 4s - and the transformational Siri
By ANDY IHNATKO ai@andyi.com October 14, 2011 4:46PM
Fehmeeda Bakhshi from Reading, England, holds up her purchase of two iPhone 4S's outside the Apple Store in Covent Garden, as the new iPhone 4S went on sale in London, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
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Updated: October 14, 2011 4:51PM
It’s kind of appropriate that I’m just writing some quick first impressions of the iPhone 4S today. A full, in depth review will be posted online next week, and sure, I’ll have a much more thorough understanding of the thing after I’ve rock and rolled with it for a few days.
But first impressions are useful here. Because if there’s one phone that makes a fantastic first impression, it’s the iPhone 4S.
Right out of the box, even. It’s the first iOS device to ship with iOS 5.0, which means you don’t need to hook it up to your desktop to set it up and activate it. And if you’ve backed up your existing iPhone with iCloud, you can restore all of your content onto the new phone.
(The box continues Apple’s usual policy of clean, uncluttered packaging . . . but it bears noting that Apple made space for a foil iCloud logo on the end of the package.)
Then, you’ll give Siri a quick whirl. Siri is Apple’s new built-in intelligent assistant. And please, don’t call Siri a speech-to-text keyboard replacement. She hates that. You almost immediately start relating to Siri the same way you would relate to an actual person. You don’t have to read from a list of canned triggers. Just say something.
“Remind me to check the basement for water.”
“When would you like me to remind you?” Siri speaks back.
“Sorry . . . when I get home.” (Siri doesn’t care of you’re sorry or not. But you naturally fall into normal conversational rhythms)
“I don’t know your home address,” Siri replies. “In fact, I don’t know anything about you.” Whoops, you were in such a hurry to try Siri that you hadn’t synced up your personal data. But Siri patiently and explains how to identify yourself, so that these little mistakes don’t happen again. Presto: you’ve created a new Reminder.
It quickly becomes obvious that Siri could be a truly transforming feature. As I write this, I’ve been asking Siri questions (“who is the Green Lantern?”) that results in a brief pause and then the exact answer I asked for, courtesy of Wolfram Alfa, Yelp, or whatever online resource that (a) has the relevant information, and (b) Apple has wired Siri up to use.
Oh, and: yes, it’s great speech-to-text. Siri was grokking my speech immediately, even though I was in a crowded, noisy public seating area. Immediately, I’ve switched over from the virtual keyboard to Siri for every kind of text input on every app that accepts text.
Eventually you move on to the camera. And the damnedest thing happens: you start handling the iPhone as an actual camera, and not like an incidental app on your phone. You immediately notice its incredible speed. I’ve been walking thorough a dark convention hall taking snapshots with both the 4S and it’s predecessor. The 4S achieves focus lock, snaps the photo, and is ready to take another as fast as any pocket point and shoot with almost no delay.
It’s the final photo that matters, though. And even in this preliminary comparison it’s no comparison at all. The iPhone 4S pictures aren’t just higher in resolution (8 megapixels instead of 5) . . .they’re just simply better and more naturalistic. The white balance is much closer to reality. There’s subtle light in the shadows.
Tune in next week for the full lreview. For now, suffice to say that after two or three hours with the iPhone 4S, one is encouraged to explore further.
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