Today was the latest iPhone announcement from Apple. there has been a lot of hype and rumormongering about what would be coming out. but today at 1:00 PM EST, we got the facts.
The event was about an hour and a half long. It could have been much shorter. there was a huge amount of time spent recapping what we already knew. iCloud, iOS5 and iTunes Match. I get that they were not releasing a lot of new things today, but they could have shot for an hour and cut down a lot of that stuff.
I was more interested in what was new…
Apps:
Cards. This app lets you create cards that Apple will print and then mail to your designated address. $3 in the USA and $5 internationally. Cool. Nothing earth shattering, but cool.
Find my Family and Friends. Now people can let friends and family see where they are by tracking the location of their iPhone. This will be good for parents to track their kids. Might also work for teens trying to find their friends at the mall, I guess.
Lower prices for iPods. There is a decent update on Nano software, which later reports say will also be available for previous 2010 Nano owners. Price drop for the Nano and the Touch. At $199, I wonder if this was planned or in response to the Kinf=dle Fire announcement?
The major announcement was the iPhone 4S.
As I predicted, there was only one iPhone announced today. maybe because my expectations were lower, I have been surprised by the reaction. The iPhone 4 was/is an amazing phone. The 4S is better. Does it really matter if the name of it isn’t “iPhone 5”? Even stock prices dropped a bit.
The 4S has every feature that was predicted, plus a couple.
The A5 chip: Dual processors and fast graphics. Even faster photo taking.
8MP camera: Some very nice features. 1080p video.
Antenna: Supposed 4G real world speed? That’s a bold claim. But if it does download faster, I like it.
Video Mirroring: I love airplay, and making presentations with Keynote is going to be killer. (If you can call any presentation killer)
World Phone: no surprise here. CDMA and GSM.
One of the coolest features is the Siri voice control. This didn’t surface until just recently. Apple bought the company a while back, and now is set to release some truly amazing voice features.
Frankly, it’s a little bit scary. I’m reminded of that scene in Star Trek IV where Scotty tries to talk to the computer. This could be very useful. I could easily find myself using the dictation thing and setting up reminders and sending texts while driving, all hands free.
My disappointment was that there wasn’t just “one more thing.” I was really hoping for an update to the Apple TV software.
One thing I noticed while watching the video of the presentation, the presenters were not as smooth and polished at Jobs was/is. There were a couple of stumbles. And Cook, while efficient, wasn’t and inspiring as Jobs.
Is the disappointment with today’s announcement simply because of the lack of “reality distortion field” that Jobs brings to these events? people used to make fun of that, but it was a very real thing. I suspect that Jobs could give a keynote on ice and get eskimos to buy some. Well, Cook doesn’t deliver like Jobs does. But the gear is just as cool.
I suspect the disappointment will wane as people get to use this device in the real world.
Scott Link Media 