After all of the hype and plenty of speculation, the iPhone 4S is finally here. If you were to judge the device from its looks alone, you might be slightly disappointed, as outwardly it looks exactly the same as the iPhone 4.
That would be unfair, as inside is where Apple has made all of its changes, including a brand new operating system, iOS 5. Perhaps the greatest thing that this brings is that your new iPhone does not need to be connected to iTunes before you can use it. Now, you can get up and running straight out of the box. It's a small, but much needed improvement.
Dual-core processer
As well as upgrading the OS, Apple has upgraded the hardware. As we'd now expect from any new smartphone, there's an A5 dual-core processor, which Apple claims offers two times better performance. It's faster, even in single-threaded applications, and we found Safari rendered web pages faster, and apps were quicker to start.
Apple claims that graphics are seven times faster on this model, too. The racing game we played certainly felt smooth with only the occasional slow down, and graphics are of an excellent standard. You can hook the iPhone up to your Apple TV and use it as a games controller. Apple said it has also added the ability to play iPhone games as multi-player, with up to four players displayed via a split-screen mode on your Apple TV.
Voice control
New and exclusive to the iPhone 4S is Siri, the voice-activated control that Apple says will respond to natural English sentences.
To talk to Siri, simply hold down the home button on your iPhone 4S and wait for the microphone icon to appear. If you start by asking Siri ‘What can you do for me?’, it will list all the different features, including reminders, sending texts and looking up information.
We managed to get Siri to send texts and emails, call contacts, and set alarms and reminders. Siri worked better for short messages for us, as we found when dictating long sentences it would often create the message based on the first few words. Apple has also added dictation to the Notes app.
We tried out the British and US English language versions, and found that Siri recognises commands much better if you select your own language. Americans will hear a female voice, while Brits will converse with a very well-spoken man.
At present, Siri can only search for US businesses such as resturants. Apple could not confirm when UK location services will be added to Siri.
Lights, camera, action
The camera has been upgraded from the iPhone 4's 5-megapixel model to an 8-megapixel model. Simply upping the pixel count doesn't necessarily mean better quality, and can introduce more noise as each pixel effectively gets less light. However, in this case it's a big improvement. It's partly because Apple has used a backlit sensor, which makes sure that more light falls onto each pixel.
The results are pretty impressive, with the iPhone 4S producing images that are a lot more detailed than its predecessor. It's a big improvement and great for those times when you're not carrying a proper camera with you.
The image below left was taken on an iPhone 4S, while the image on the right was taken on an iPhone 4.
Apple has also added guidelines and an editing tool, to help you take better photos or improve them afterwards. You can also tweet your photo straight from the camera app. And for fans of old-school photography, you can now use the volume + button to take a picture, rather than the touchscreen button.
The upgraded sensor means that the iPhone 4S can record video at Full HD (1,920x1,080) resolution, compared to the iPhone 4's 720p (1,280x720) resolution. Again, the difference is impressive, with the 4S recording video with a lot more detail in it, plus the footage looks less grainy. It's fair to say that you don't need a Flip or equivalent video camera with this phone in your pocket.
Apple has also added a stabilisation tool into the video camera, so you can lock into a person when filming to maintain a steady picture.
Other than that it's business as usual, with the same 3.5in ‘Retina' 640x960 resolution touchscreen as on the iPhone 4. That's no bad thing, as it's one of the best on a mobile phone, producing bright and vibrant colours, while text is super-sharp.
Operating system overhaul
IOS 5 is a major overhaul of the Apple mobile operating system. One key addition is an update to notifications, which brings the iPhone up to speed with Android devices. Through the notifications menu, you can choose to get alerts from your phone, text messages, email, social apps, weather and stock market among others. Then just swipe down from the top of the screen, and a full list of your latest notifications will appear.
The messaging facility has also been updated with iMessage, allowing users to send free messages over Wi-Fi via their Apple ID. This could come in handy if you’ve got a Wi-Fi-only iPad.
Cloud
With previous iPhones, iTunes was required for backups. Thanks to iCloud, this is no longer the case, and the iPhone 4S (and any iOS 5 device) can now back up to the cloud.
Apple gives you 5GB of free online storage, although you can upgrade this if you find yourself running out of space. It's not just for backup, but for synchronisation across multiple devices, too. With clients for OS X and Windows, as well as integration with the iPad, you can use iCloud to synchronise your documents, photos, calendars, contacts and email across all of your computers and mobile devices.
It sounds good in theory, but the big problem with the service is limited application support, particularly for documents where the service will only save files to the cloud that have been created in Keynote, Pages or Numbers for iOS. However, Apple did say they have opened the APIs for these, so non-Apple document support could come in future.
Once you've set up these applications, you can drag-and-drop other supported documents (Microsoft Office files are supported) into your cloud. Sadly, there's no way to synchronise an entire folder on your computer, as you can do with DropBox or the free Windows Live Mesh 2011, which also has 5GB of online storage.
That's not to say that iCloud doesn't have its uses. Being able to back up your iPhone to the cloud certainly has its advantages, and should you get a new handset, all of your settings, apps, mail accounts and contacts are pulled automatically from the cloud.
PhotoStream
We particularly liked iCloud's Photostream, which automatically pulls photos from the iPhone 4S or any iOS device and puts them in the cloud. It's an end to lost photos and means you can edit or copy your files directly from your computer. It's easiest to get working with OS X, via iPhoto or Aperture, but you can also get your pictures synced up with the iCloud via a PC.
This entailed downloading the iCloud setup tool onto a Windows Vista SP2 or higher machine, and then setting up the photo sync via the iCloud manager, which appears in your control panel (Network and Internet). Via the manager, we set up our Photo Stream to appear in our pictures folder.
It's worth keeping in mind that once you have Photostream enabled on your iPhone, it will keep images for 30 days or the most recent 1,000 pictures, so you'll need to save any to the camera roll that you want kept permanently on your handset.
That would be unfair, as inside is where Apple has made all of its changes, including a brand new operating system, iOS 5. Perhaps the greatest thing that this brings is that your new iPhone does not need to be connected to iTunes before you can use it. Now, you can get up and running straight out of the box. It's a small, but much needed improvement.
Dual-core processer
As well as upgrading the OS, Apple has upgraded the hardware. As we'd now expect from any new smartphone, there's an A5 dual-core processor, which Apple claims offers two times better performance. It's faster, even in single-threaded applications, and we found Safari rendered web pages faster, and apps were quicker to start.
Apple claims that graphics are seven times faster on this model, too. The racing game we played certainly felt smooth with only the occasional slow down, and graphics are of an excellent standard. You can hook the iPhone up to your Apple TV and use it as a games controller. Apple said it has also added the ability to play iPhone games as multi-player, with up to four players displayed via a split-screen mode on your Apple TV.
Voice control
New and exclusive to the iPhone 4S is Siri, the voice-activated control that Apple says will respond to natural English sentences.
To talk to Siri, simply hold down the home button on your iPhone 4S and wait for the microphone icon to appear. If you start by asking Siri ‘What can you do for me?’, it will list all the different features, including reminders, sending texts and looking up information.
We managed to get Siri to send texts and emails, call contacts, and set alarms and reminders. Siri worked better for short messages for us, as we found when dictating long sentences it would often create the message based on the first few words. Apple has also added dictation to the Notes app.
We tried out the British and US English language versions, and found that Siri recognises commands much better if you select your own language. Americans will hear a female voice, while Brits will converse with a very well-spoken man.
At present, Siri can only search for US businesses such as resturants. Apple could not confirm when UK location services will be added to Siri.
Lights, camera, action
The camera has been upgraded from the iPhone 4's 5-megapixel model to an 8-megapixel model. Simply upping the pixel count doesn't necessarily mean better quality, and can introduce more noise as each pixel effectively gets less light. However, in this case it's a big improvement. It's partly because Apple has used a backlit sensor, which makes sure that more light falls onto each pixel.
The results are pretty impressive, with the iPhone 4S producing images that are a lot more detailed than its predecessor. It's a big improvement and great for those times when you're not carrying a proper camera with you.
The image below left was taken on an iPhone 4S, while the image on the right was taken on an iPhone 4.
Apple has also added guidelines and an editing tool, to help you take better photos or improve them afterwards. You can also tweet your photo straight from the camera app. And for fans of old-school photography, you can now use the volume + button to take a picture, rather than the touchscreen button.
The upgraded sensor means that the iPhone 4S can record video at Full HD (1,920x1,080) resolution, compared to the iPhone 4's 720p (1,280x720) resolution. Again, the difference is impressive, with the 4S recording video with a lot more detail in it, plus the footage looks less grainy. It's fair to say that you don't need a Flip or equivalent video camera with this phone in your pocket.
Apple has also added a stabilisation tool into the video camera, so you can lock into a person when filming to maintain a steady picture.
Other than that it's business as usual, with the same 3.5in ‘Retina' 640x960 resolution touchscreen as on the iPhone 4. That's no bad thing, as it's one of the best on a mobile phone, producing bright and vibrant colours, while text is super-sharp.
Operating system overhaul
IOS 5 is a major overhaul of the Apple mobile operating system. One key addition is an update to notifications, which brings the iPhone up to speed with Android devices. Through the notifications menu, you can choose to get alerts from your phone, text messages, email, social apps, weather and stock market among others. Then just swipe down from the top of the screen, and a full list of your latest notifications will appear.
The messaging facility has also been updated with iMessage, allowing users to send free messages over Wi-Fi via their Apple ID. This could come in handy if you’ve got a Wi-Fi-only iPad.
Cloud
With previous iPhones, iTunes was required for backups. Thanks to iCloud, this is no longer the case, and the iPhone 4S (and any iOS 5 device) can now back up to the cloud.
Apple gives you 5GB of free online storage, although you can upgrade this if you find yourself running out of space. It's not just for backup, but for synchronisation across multiple devices, too. With clients for OS X and Windows, as well as integration with the iPad, you can use iCloud to synchronise your documents, photos, calendars, contacts and email across all of your computers and mobile devices.It sounds good in theory, but the big problem with the service is limited application support, particularly for documents where the service will only save files to the cloud that have been created in Keynote, Pages or Numbers for iOS. However, Apple did say they have opened the APIs for these, so non-Apple document support could come in future.
Once you've set up these applications, you can drag-and-drop other supported documents (Microsoft Office files are supported) into your cloud. Sadly, there's no way to synchronise an entire folder on your computer, as you can do with DropBox or the free Windows Live Mesh 2011, which also has 5GB of online storage.
That's not to say that iCloud doesn't have its uses. Being able to back up your iPhone to the cloud certainly has its advantages, and should you get a new handset, all of your settings, apps, mail accounts and contacts are pulled automatically from the cloud.
PhotoStream
We particularly liked iCloud's Photostream, which automatically pulls photos from the iPhone 4S or any iOS device and puts them in the cloud. It's an end to lost photos and means you can edit or copy your files directly from your computer. It's easiest to get working with OS X, via iPhoto or Aperture, but you can also get your pictures synced up with the iCloud via a PC.
This entailed downloading the iCloud setup tool onto a Windows Vista SP2 or higher machine, and then setting up the photo sync via the iCloud manager, which appears in your control panel (Network and Internet). Via the manager, we set up our Photo Stream to appear in our pictures folder.
It's worth keeping in mind that once you have Photostream enabled on your iPhone, it will keep images for 30 days or the most recent 1,000 pictures, so you'll need to save any to the camera roll that you want kept permanently on your handset.
Wi-Fi sync
Apple has made a valiant attempt to remove the need to ever connect your iPhone to a computer again with iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. Once you've connected your phone to your computer once and enabled wireless synching, your phone appears in iTunes whenever it has power and is connected to the same wireless network.
When it works, you get all of the same options that you normally get with the phone directly connected via USB, including the ability to manually copy music or videos.
However, we had some problems getting it set up on a test Windows 7 PC, with the phone connecting and then disappearing automatically. It can also be quite annoying: once the phone connects to the same network as the computer, iTunes is started automatically, interrupting anything that you were doing.
Battery
Apple quotes up to eight hours of talk time on 3G for the iPhone 4S, with standby time of up to 200 hours. This is more talk time but less standby time than the iPhone 4, which has seven hours and up to 300 hours respectively. For internet use, Apple quotes up to six hours on 3G and up to nine hours over Wi-Fi.
Something to bear in mind with the notifications ability is that when we set the device to check two email accounts at the most frequent setting of every 15 minutes, the battery drained much more quickly. In the space of a couple of hours, we saw the battery fall by 30 per cent, so make sure you go for every hour or manual if you need to conserve battery.
We didn’t find the battery to be any more efficient on the iPhone 4S than the previous version. We ran a test on the new device and the iPhone 4 playing the same games on both devices, while also checking for email every 15 minutes and found the battery decreased by the same amount on both devices.
Storage
The iPhone 4S offers up to 64GB of internal storage, which is twice as much as the biggest iPhone 4. The iPhone still lacks a memory card slot for expansion, but with the launch of Apple’s iCloud online storage system with 5GB of free storage, at least you can clear your handset of all your photos to free up space for more music.
Whether or not the 4S is worth upgrading to really depends on the handset you've got. For us, if you have an iPhone 4 there's not much here to make this an essential upgrade; if you're running an older iPhone or a different brand altogether, the iPhone 4S is a powerful and smooth handset.
Apple has made a valiant attempt to remove the need to ever connect your iPhone to a computer again with iTunes Wi-Fi Sync. Once you've connected your phone to your computer once and enabled wireless synching, your phone appears in iTunes whenever it has power and is connected to the same wireless network.
When it works, you get all of the same options that you normally get with the phone directly connected via USB, including the ability to manually copy music or videos.
However, we had some problems getting it set up on a test Windows 7 PC, with the phone connecting and then disappearing automatically. It can also be quite annoying: once the phone connects to the same network as the computer, iTunes is started automatically, interrupting anything that you were doing.
Battery
Apple quotes up to eight hours of talk time on 3G for the iPhone 4S, with standby time of up to 200 hours. This is more talk time but less standby time than the iPhone 4, which has seven hours and up to 300 hours respectively. For internet use, Apple quotes up to six hours on 3G and up to nine hours over Wi-Fi.
Something to bear in mind with the notifications ability is that when we set the device to check two email accounts at the most frequent setting of every 15 minutes, the battery drained much more quickly. In the space of a couple of hours, we saw the battery fall by 30 per cent, so make sure you go for every hour or manual if you need to conserve battery.
We didn’t find the battery to be any more efficient on the iPhone 4S than the previous version. We ran a test on the new device and the iPhone 4 playing the same games on both devices, while also checking for email every 15 minutes and found the battery decreased by the same amount on both devices.
Storage
The iPhone 4S offers up to 64GB of internal storage, which is twice as much as the biggest iPhone 4. The iPhone still lacks a memory card slot for expansion, but with the launch of Apple’s iCloud online storage system with 5GB of free storage, at least you can clear your handset of all your photos to free up space for more music.
Whether or not the 4S is worth upgrading to really depends on the handset you've got. For us, if you have an iPhone 4 there's not much here to make this an essential upgrade; if you're running an older iPhone or a different brand altogether, the iPhone 4S is a powerful and smooth handset.
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