Why I’m not happy with Apple

Apple’s recent release of iOS 5, as well as the iPhone 4S, have definitely brought about advancements and new evolutionary ideas to the phone and especially the iOS world. While I believe that the iPhone 4S is a solid device, and that the new iOS 5 has very good ideas behind it, there are some problems with these new releases.The iPhone 4S is definitely a good phone. It has an extremely advanced camera, and initial tests have shone that the A5 chip has, despite being rated at only 800MHz, out performed most other phones and tablets on the market today. The iPhone 4S also has better battery life than the phone before it, and has an improved antenna system.

However, despite all this, the iPhone 4S seems to be nothing but a catch up device to the Android market and especially to the frightening specifications of most Android phones, being both big and fast. It seemed that the only way for Apple to outdo these competitors would be to release a slightly bigger iPhone, with much better specifications and a new body that would dazzle the market, the fabled iPhone 5. But that did not happen, and instead the iPhone 4S is just a spec bump of a previous generation iPhone. Alright, if Apple didn’t update the styling, at least the hardware would be up to par with the rest of the market. The performance data may be quite astoundingly, but the specifications don’t amaze, and the 800MHz A5, and 512MB of RAM definitely do not catch up to anything.

And consumers don’t see those numbers. They see an iPhone 4S which, without comparing it side by side to an iPhone 4, is not noticeably faster to the average consumer. The iPhone needs a big screen and big specifications to capture the market. And it is also missing a huge piece of technology quickly rolling out on new phones: an LTE data connection. At the moment, LTE equipped phones have faster network transfer rates than any phone, even most desktop connections in the United States. What we need is an iPhone 5 with at least a 4″ display, an LTE connection, AND a battery life that is equal to or better than the current iPhone 4.

Clearly, Apple has noticed these shortcomings. Without the specs to win over consumers, Apple has created something else for its marketing team to use: new features in iOS 5, most importantly Siri.

Apple is marketing Siri as a new voice recognition technology which is far superior to previous voice recognition systems. And, based on the first reviews of the iPhone 4S, Siri seems to live up to the hype Apple created for it. It is a good feature to use to replace the fact that the iPhone 4S is lacking in terms of hardware specs. Siri is not only useful, but fun to talk to, as it responds to not only commands, but also other questions that Apple engineers were able to imagine.

One of the features I was looking forward to is Airplay Mirroring. The ability to mirror the iPhone’s display on your TV was something extremely exciting, and the thought of playing Angry Birds on my HD TV was just too much. iMessage is also one of the features that I liked, seeing as I could message people without being charged text messaging fees.

But unfortunately, for the world outside the iPhone 4S, these features, other than iMessage, are not available. Siri is only available for the iPhone 4S, as well as Airplay Mirroring. Apple claims that these features would not work or would not work well without the speed of the A5 processor, but I don’t believe so. Clearly, Apple wanted some features for the iPhone 4S to have just to force consumers to upgrade/purchase the 4S.

In Engadget’s review of the iPhone 4S, here, they said that, although the 4S was faster than the iPhone 4, it wasn’t radically different. And while Siri is an interesting piece of software, it isn’t really a replacement for good hardware, especially after the hype has died down.

I do understand that it is quite difficult for Apple to create a mythical iPhone 5 which outclasses everything. But that’s what Apple does. And although this criticism of Apple may seem harsh or inappropriate with the recent passing of Steve Jobs, I don’t think that he would disapprove of this post, seeing as Apple clearly needs to pull some all-nighters. After all, Apple is the company that “Thinks Different”. And unfortunately you can’t really do that while playing catch-up to everyone else.

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