Next-Gen iPhone & iPhone Nano Speculation

[Deleted member 13524]

So no iphone 5 with larger screen.

Going against similarly priced LTE smartphones with 4.3" HD screens, some with 3D, others using SAMOLED+.. may be tough for Apple this time.

They actually think that using the Xperia Neo camera from SE and erm.. voice commands?.. is more important than a larger screen..

 

[Lazy8s]

My guess is 200 MHz for the 543MP2 in the phone versus 250 MHz in the pad, which is the same as what I've always guessed for iPhone 4 versus iPad. I was hoping they wouldn't reduce the clocks, but they apparently made up for it by increasing the battery life somewhat.

I'm a big supporter of voice control, so the headline feature of iPhone 4S sells to me quite well. And they put a microphone button on the keyboard like I've been begging for ever since I saw it on my myTouch Android phone and realized how perfect the integration is for the ability to dictate into any text field in any application (hopefully iOS makes that possible).

They're still getting the most important things right for my tastes (GPU acceleration), yet they're definitely leaving legitimate selling points to other tempting devices, namely the 3D HD 4.5" Sharp 102SH -- http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/29/...-cm/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

 

[tangey]

must be 200Mhz V 250Mhz in ipad 2. They talk about x7 for the iphone4S instead of x9 that was talked about for the ipad2 (in terms of graphics improvements).

I don't feel its any coincidence that if you take the ipad2 pixel count (786K) divide by 9 and multiply by 7 you get 612K, which is virtually spot on for the iphone4 pixels count (614K). In other words, with the iphone4S clocked at 200mhz, it has should have pretty much the same graphics performance as the 250Mhz clocked ipad2.

 

[wco81]

So no iphone 5 with larger screen.

Going against similarly priced LTE smartphones with 4.3" HD screens, some with 3D, others using SAMOLED+.. may be tough for Apple this time.

They actually think that using the Xperia Neo camera from SE and erm.. voice commands?.. is more important than a larger screen..

Android sells in higher volume overall because they have cheaper phones, especially in countries where prepaid market is big.

But how what percentage does those high-end, big-screen phones represent out of total Android volume?

Those phones look great but do most Android customers pay the high price for the tradeoff in bulk, weight and battery life?

 

[rpg.314]

Siri aside, seems a pretty tame update.

 

[Entropy]

Siri aside, seems a pretty tame update.

3G to 3GS level.
Plus Siri and the rest of the iOS5 goodies. And the camera. (Home consoles is the last bastion of 720p.)
It seems like a good phone, I like it, but I won't upgrade to it. Higher performance isn't worth it to me, and apart from the camera, that's pretty much it.
Interesting that even in a place like these forums, such a substantial jump in hardware capabilities only results in shrugs. It really does raise the standard for graphics in phones quite a bit.
Stock market wasn't too impressed.

 

[ltcommander.data]

must be 200Mhz V 250Mhz in ipad 2. They talk about x7 for the iphone4S instead of x9 that was talked about for the ipad2 (in terms of graphics improvements).

I don't feel its any coincidence that if you take the ipad2 pixel count (786K) divide by 9 and multiply by 7 you get 612K, which is virtually spot on for the iphone4 pixels count (614K). In other words, with the iphone4S clocked at 200mhz, it has should have pretty much the same graphics performance as the 250Mhz clocked ipad2.

Hmm. I still look at it as kind of strange that 250MHz SGX535 > 250MHz SGX543MP2 = 9x speedup, but 200MHz SGX535 > 200MHz SGX543MP2 = 7x speedup.

Interesting that even in a place like these forums, such a substantial jump in hardware capabilities only results in shrugs. It really does raise the standard for graphics in phones quite a bit.

I guess it's graphical power looking for a use case. Gaming is popular for sure, but the pick up and play nature limits the need for it beyond a few tech showcase games.

With Adobe making iOS wait for their image processing apps, I wonder if Apple will take advantage of the delay and the much improved cameras and bring Aperture or some type of more professional image processing app of their own to market? Beyond that we'll probably see more wacky filters for iMovie and Photo Booth.

 

[rpg.314]

3G to 3GS level.
Plus Siri and the rest of the iOS5 goodies. And the camera. (Home consoles is the last bastion of 720p.)
It seems like a good phone, I like it, but I won't upgrade to it. Higher performance isn't worth it to me, and apart from the camera, that's pretty much it.
Interesting that even in a place like these forums, such a substantial jump in hardware capabilities only results in shrugs. It really does raise the standard for graphics in phones quite a bit.
Stock market wasn't too impressed.

I guess the reason is that anyone can put out a performant SoC.

People expect more than specs from Apple. And there's just Siri this time. Seems nice, but time will tell.

 

[thatdude90210]

I'm guessing a lot of people saw the mock-ups from "leak" cases at Engadget and expected a thinner + larger screen iphone 5. Interesting Apple has stayed with the same screen size all this time. What was a large phone screen in 2007 is now tiny.

And was the iphone 4 short in performance anyway?

 

[wco81]

They don't seem to be pushing the kind of games which would make better use of the GPU.

Maybe if Airplay can stream some pretty graphics or video to an HDTV, it would make more sense.

Can it aid in digital image procession for the photos and videos shot with the camera?

 

[Lazy8s]

It has the potential, but seeing the only-moderate speed-ups in the camera (not enough footage of the photo editing performance to judge yet, though) and Apple's talk of their own custom ISP (could still be 3rd party IP, of course) makes me wonder.

As for the GPU, Infinity Blade II is a good start. Using a new showpiece from Epic to drive home the point about performance was what I expected.

http://infinitybladegame.com/

 

[silent_guy]

Frankly, I don't know what kind of HW features are really going blow me away?

3G to 3GS was great because of the faster CPU.
3GS to 4 was amazing because the screen, the somewhat faster CPU and camera (especially HDR.)
4 to 4GS has faster CPU, much faster GPU, and better camera but already diminishing returns.

I don't see what HW they should have introduced to impress us.

(I don't want larger screen. Current one is excellent as is. iPad is something else entirely!)

I will buy a 4GS anyway.
Camera responsiveness can never be fast enough and I'm sure I'll get used to the faster app startup times too. And I can't wait to check out Siri (and probably never use it after that.)

 

[metafor]

I think the upcoming year will find quite a few CPU-intensive tasks for the mobile platform that could benefit from this. Not the least of which is Adobe's new Touch platform. Granted, it's likely useless on a 3.5" phone screen but one can still use it for complex blend/filter effects, all of which would benefit from being 0.5sec instead of 5-10 sec render times.

 

[rpg.314]

Isn't photoshop touch GPU accelerated?

@silent_guy, I feel that smartphones have reached a kind of a plateau feature wise. I would not expect much more than incremental hw upgrades in the next few generations.

 

[ltcommander.data]

I don't see what HW they should have introduced to impress us.

It's not just a matter of impressing us, but impressing everyone or meeting everyone's different expectations. After being over shadowed by the latest dual core SoC, Apple goes for a major spec update and now people are complaining about the lack of a new design. If Apple had gone with the rumoured new design that is thinner, which probably would have impacted battery life, and with an aluminum back, which is hardly ideal for the antennae, everyone would have been complaining about Apple going for form over function. With only one flagship phone there's always going to be a crowd who are unimpressed with needs not met.

According to Anand, Apple's probably waiting for the 28nm MDM9615 in Q2 2012 for LTE. Without it Apple couldn't do LTE due to the need for a separate chip leading to space concerns and the poor battery life for 1st gen products.

 

[RudeCurve]

Apple has a very interesting strategy. The new iP4S will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB at $199, $299 and $399 respectively. They will discontinue the existing 16GB and 32GB iP4 while introducing a low cost $99 8GB model.

I'm a little disappointed that they didn't increase the screen to 3.7" but I think the tradeoff is fair considering all of the other upgraded stuff without having the price increased. My contract doesn't expire until next summer anyway so I'm hoping we'll see the iP5 in that time frame.

As for the exterior design, the current design is fine not to mention the competition haven't been able to even match it yet....lol!

 

[zed]

talk about a 'hospital pass' (rugby parlance) for apples new CEO.

 

[ltcommander.data]

Apple has a very interesting strategy. The new iP4S will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB at $199, $299 and $399 respectively. They will discontinue the existing 16GB and 32GB iP4 while introducing a low cost $99 8GB model.

Personally, I'm surprised that they kept the iPhone 3GS, even at $0. Doing so means they can't drop support for third gen devices early. Instead of the iPhone 3G ending at iOS 4.2.1 vs. the final iOS 4.3.5, the iPhone 3GS will presumably have to receive all iOS 5 updates until iOS 6 is released. Which then begs the question will 3rd gen devices also be supported in iOS 6, breaking Apple's tradition of only supporting up to 3 generations of devices at a time? Otherwise, the last iPhone 3GS buyers next year will see OS support including security updates terminate within a few months of locking in a 2+ year contract.

The 5th gen iPod Touch is in a related situation since it continues to use the Apple A4. Going by the pattern, iOS 6 would be expected to be the last OS line to support the Apple A4 with iOS 7 dropping 4th gen devices and the A4. Will the 5th gen iPod Touch be dropped along with other A4 devices only getting 2 iOS lines instead of the usual 3? Or will 4th gen devices arbitrarily be dropped and the 5th gen Touch remain in iOS 7 even though they have the same hardware, possibly even worse than the iPhone 4 if the 5th gen Touch still only has 256MB of RAM, like the situation with iOS 4 and 1st and 2nd gen devices?

 

[rpg.314]

The real big change is that now people are writing whether or not 4S lives up to the bar set by other phones.

That's a big change.

 

[ltcommander.data]

The real big change is that now people are writing whether or not 4S lives up to the bar set by other phones.

That's a big change.

But what big features is the iPhone 4S missing compared to the average top-end phone? Discounting specific niche features like 3D displays, the main things seem to be larger screens and LTE. Larger screen is kind of subjective, but may well be a make or break feature for some people since it defines how they interact with their phone. Apple tries to target the majority with their single model approach, and I think 3.5" is still acceptable to most people, even if no longer gets anyones heart racing. LTE is a good selling feature to have, but given the bandwidth caps, coverage limitations, and battery life concerns, does having only 14.4Mbps HSPA+ vs. LTE really impact usability?

Other than that, the iPhone 4S has a largely comparable CPU to competitors, a definitively faster GPU, potentially a leading camera, competitive thickness and weight, top-tier battery life, and now iOS 5 has adopted/copied a number of features that the OS was lacking compared to the competition. There are definitely a number of individual competitor phones with a number of individual superior features to what the iPhone 4S has, but I think the iPhone 4S does quite well as a single phone with a well rounded feature set. If you have specific needs, you can probably find a specific competitor phone to meet it better, but for most people, you're not going to go wrong with the iPhone 4S, which is probably what Apple is looking for.